The origin of the Miao horsetail bamboo hat is Wanshui Town, Kaili City. Wanshui is a town with a long history of Miao people. The villagers of Huoxing, Mihao, Gezhong, Xiaozhai, Xiaowengdang and other Miao villages in the administrative villages of Mihao, Gezhong and Liren are known as "passing on the skills from generation to generation, not passing on to outsiders, passing on the skills from generation to generation, and weaving bamboo hats in every household", "every family marries a girl, and the horsetail bamboo hat is matched with the dowry". "Giving gold and silver is not uncommon, but it must be matched with a bamboo hat to return" (referring to the bride wearing gold and silver to the groom's house for the wedding banquet and returning to her parents' home, if her parents' home does not match the horsetail bamboo hat, the new daughter-in-law will not be ashamed to return to her husband's home). The superb skills of weaving horsetail bamboo hats can be passed down from generation to generation. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the production and sales of horsetail bamboo hats began to expand from Gezhong to Mihao, Liren, Wanshui and other places. The products are sold to Panghai, Wanchao, Lushan, Dafengdong, Longchang, Zhouxi, Guading and other places. During the Qing and Xian dynasties, the Qing government sent troops to suppress the Miao people because of the failure of the anti-Qing uprising. Many inheritors were killed and the production of horsetail bamboo hats was almost lost. The Miao horsetail bamboo hat is a unique and exquisite bamboo hat made of horsetail, which was gradually innovated by the Miao ancestors from bamboo leaves and palm leaves. The top of the bamboo hat has also changed from the earliest bamboo strips to the top-quality bamboo hat wrapped with copper wire. The Wu Miao people who entered Guizhou from Jiangxi in the late Yuan Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty not only inherited the craftsmanship of their ancestors in weaving bamboo leaf bamboo hats, but also combined the local geographical characteristics and the needs of ethnic life, and followed the oral teachings of their ancestors: "If you wear a horsetail bamboo hat, the gods of heaven and earth will protect you; if you inherit the will of your ancestors, you will make a fortune." On the basis of weaving traditional bamboo leaf bamboo hats, the horsetail bamboo hats are made of local abundant water bamboo and horsetail. They are of excellent quality, beautiful and practical, and are favored by the Miao people. The weaving production of horsetail bamboo hats has made great progress in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Gezhong, Huoxing, Mihao, Xiaowengdang, almost "every village has skilled craftsmen and every household has a weaving expert", and the production is quite large, which has greatly promoted the enthusiasm of the surrounding Miao people to learn and use horsetail bamboo hats. Especially when Miao girls get married or row dragon boats, horsetail bamboo hats are indispensable dowries and must-haves. "Flower clothes and skirts show craftsmanship, gold and silver ornaments show wealth, gods of heaven and earth protect peace, and horsetail bamboo hats are as precious as jade"! "You can't get on the boat without a horsetail bamboo hat when rowing or racing dragon boats." For thousands of years, the Miao people have regarded horsetail bamboo hats as sacred and priceless treasures. Horsetail bamboo hats are made of bamboo strips, horsetail, tung oil, egg blue, etc. First, the selected high-quality water bamboo is split into strips with a special iron knife, and then the strips are split into three layers. Long fingernails are used as knives to cut the first and second layers into thin strips, and then the knife is used to cut out evenly thin hair-like bamboo strips as the main raw material, and then woven into the upper, middle and lower three-layer bamboo hat skeleton according to different processes. The woven horsetail bamboo hat is round, with a diameter of 60 cm, a circle of 180 cm, and a top height of 20 cm. The hat body is divided into five sides, representing gold, wood, water, fire, and earth. When closing the edges, leave a knife to close the knife to show the ancient philosophy of "everything should not be too full, otherwise it will overflow." The hat is painted and dyed gold, supplemented with precious horsetail, and then plated with tung oil and exposed to the sun for a week to increase its glossiness. The entire production process has more than 10 procedures, mainly including: 1. Select bamboo materials: Go to the water bamboo forest to select healthy bamboos that are full and thick, with lush leaves, intact branches, the longest bamboo joints, no insect bites, and no scars, in order to seek good luck, the blessing of ancestors, and the protection of Yelang Bamboo King. 2. Break bamboo materials: First, cut off the protruding bamboo joints and the tips at both ends, use an iron knife to break the bamboo into strips, and the bamboo strips are divided into three layers. Use long fingernails as knives to cut the first and second layers into several thin strips, and finally use a knife to cut out even and slender bamboo strips as raw materials. 3. Weave the framework of the bamboo hat: According to the bamboo hat model left by the ancestors, use the third layer of 180 bamboo strips (360 strips on both sides) of the raw material to weave into the framework layer of the horsetail bamboo hat. 4. Weaving: Use the first and second layers of bamboo strips that have been broken to weave the hat into a round shape, divided into five directions: gold, wood, water, fire, and earth, with a total of 4,500 bamboo threads. 5. Weaving the edge of the hat: Use the finest bamboo strips to close the edges, and weave them into three braid-like loops, representing the Yellow River, the Yangtze River, and the Qingshui River, in order to let future generations remember the history of the Miao people first migrating from the Yellow River Basin to the Yangtze River Basin in the south, and then from east to west along the Qingshui River to Guizhou. When closing the edges, leave a knife to close the edges, representing the ancient philosophy of "everything should not be too full, otherwise it will overflow." 6. Add color: After the horsetail hat is woven into shape, it is plated with egg blue to make it golden, dazzling and magnificent. 7. Laying the horsetail: On the golden upper hat frame, 5 white horsetails are laid in the middle of each bamboo strip gap on average, totaling 1,800 white horsetails (3,600 for double sides). 8. Packaging process of bamboo hats: Wrap the five-star head of the horsetail bamboo hat with a golden and fine copper wire to make it exquisite and durable (also known as the grinding core and grinding axis, which records the legend of "Brother and Sister Marriage" in which only the Miao brothers and sisters survived due to the flood in ancient times, so they had to roll the two mountains and get married). 9. Tung oil plating: The tung seeds of the tung tree are squeezed into high-quality tung oil, which is burned with a slow fire and carefully plated on the horsetail bamboo hat to make it bright, durable and not easy to change color. 10. Assembly: The skeleton layer and the delicate horsetail bamboo hat (upper layer) are also called the outer layer, which are integrated to form the upper and lower grinding discs, and are tied tightly with exquisite thin bamboo strips. 11. Drying and color fixing: During the drying process, the bigger the sun, the better, and it is advisable to dry it in the sun for seven days. If it is exposed to less sun, the color will not be enough, and if it is exposed to more sun, the color will be lost. 12. Upper hat head ring: The hat ring is made of bamboo strips and is suitable for the size of the human head. It is tied to the middle part of the lower layer of the horsetail hat with fine bamboo strips so that it can be worn on the head. From the selection and processing of raw materials to the production of more than 10 processes, all are completed by hand, and only those with superb ancestral skills can be competent. The shape is decent, generous and beautiful, the thickness is combined, the inside and outside are integrated, the top and bottom are delicate, the touch is gentle, the hot summer is blocked, the four seasons are evil, the hat surface is flat, the fragrance is fragrant, the grand and gorgeous, the heroic and rich, the careful observation and long-term appreciation, the cultural taste. It gives people the aesthetic feeling of "seeing the horsetail hat, a comfortable and easy life". Most of the processes in the processing of raw materials are based on the Miao culture, living customs and other aspects, and endowed with certain cultural content. The production of horsetail bamboo hats of the Wanshui Miao people can be traced back to the Tang Dynasty. The inheritance of horsetail bamboo hats by the Wu family in Wanshui Town, Kaili City can be traced back to at least the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty. The heirs of the Wu family Goubao in Huoxing Village alone have been 13 generations, mainly: (first generation) Wu Goubao, Wu Erbao, Wu Shaer, Wu Wangsha, Wu Gaowang, Wu Yonggao, Wu Liangyong, Wu Luliang, Wu Shilu, Wu Yanshi, Wu Baoyan, Wu Labao (thirteenth generation) Wu Chengla. After the founding of New China, production was gradually resumed in Gezhong and other places. Many villages and villages started weaving industries, and every household made paper bamboo hats. The sales of horsetail bamboo hats have spread from the local area to Huangping, Shibing, Zhenyuan, Taijiang, Leishan, Majiang, Danzhai and other prefectures and even all over the country. During the "Cultural Revolution", due to the "cutting off the capitalist tail" and "destroying the four olds", almost no one produced it anymore. After the 1980s, every household in Gezhong, Huoxing, Mihao, Xiaowengdang and other villages began to produce again, and the products were sold all over the prefecture and even outside the province and abroad. The existing Miao villages and farmers producing horsetail hats mainly include Mihao in Mihao Village; Gezhong and Huoxing in Gezhong Village; Xiaowengdang in Liren Village, and 3 administrative villages and 6 villages with a total of 524 households. Due to rising raw material prices, fine production technology, complicated processes, market price challenges, etc., many farmers' horsetail hats are in a difficult situation and unsustainable. Information source: Provincial Intangible Cultural Heritage Center (No pictures yet, welcome to provide.) Information source: Provincial Intangible Cultural Heritage Center (No pictures yet, welcome to provide.)