myao

Tea

城步虫茶 chéngbù chóngchá — “insect tea” from Chengbu-Miao Autonomous County in Shaoyang: around Guyu, wild bitter tea leaves or leaves of 化香树 huàxiāngshù are gathered, layered in bamboo boxes and doused with rice water; night moths gather for fermentation, caterpillars eat the leaves, and their sifted dark granules are the brew. From the Yongzheng years of the 18th century it was sent to court as tribute. The collection rule here is stated outright: 虫茶 is kept in the line as a SEPARATE category, not as a camellia tea — exactly as the buckwheat 苦荞茶 is set apart in the encyclopedia; the same rule also closes off barley 大麦茶 within the line.

Topknot

A cluster of small dark granules fused into one short, bumpy spike — sifted brew of the insect tea. The grainy surface is not a signature here: the loose granular lump belongs to the Tujia, and the proportion tells them apart — there the lump is squat, flattened on top and wider than its own height; here the spike stands upright and twice as tall as its width.

Headdress

青黑头帕 qīnghēi tóupà — a blue-black cloth panel rolled into a flat, even disc wider than the skull, worn STRICTLY horizontal (this is the rule in Chengbu: 平正不偏斜, no hair visible), plus a second wrap about a meter long running from the forehead back and pinning the edges at the temples and over the ears. The slot for the cluster sits exactly at the center of the disc.

Outline at 6 mm. Disc: flat pancake wider than the skull, worn without any tilt. Differs from Pusha in that this is not a hat brim at brow level but a closed fabric crown; from Aya in being wider than the skull and covered on top, not open; from the Han in lacking a full skirt down to the shoulders.

Clothing

Dark wrap-front jacket with a narrow trim, trousers, an apron at the waist, and a flat bamboo box on the back.

Palette

Blue-black indigo, dark brown granules of the brew, ochre of the box. Not a gram of silver.