An Analysis of the Clothing Culture of Wumesiben Mama, a Manchu Epic

Abstract

Wumesiben Mama, a Manchu epic book, was released in 2007 and garnered interest from scholarly circles both domestically and internationally. This book should be considered an encyclopedia of North Chinese ethnic minorities due to its scholarly significance in epic, history, religion, mythology, art, folklore, and semiotics. This article investigates Wumesiben Mama’s clothing culture. This area is almost entirely unknown, as there are almost no materials available to examine the clothing worn by the Donghai Nuzhen people hundreds of years ago. However, this Donghai epic recorded a wealth of information regarding the clothing and decorative culture of the ancient Donghai Nuzhen people, providing vivid, valuable, and instructive details about the clothing’s uses, shapes, materials, manufacture, and colors. The clothing of the ancient Donghai Nuzhen people can collectively express their lifestyle, living standards, ideology, and aesthetic notions and serve as excellent resources for researching their culture.