Girls of Miao nationality can not only do embroidery, spin and weave cloth, but also weave ribbons of different patterns.
It is said that in ancient time, people living in the mountains were always attacked by poisonous snakes. A beautiful and smart girl found that snakes would leave when encountering other snakes, so she came up with an idea. She made a patterned ribbon of a snake’s size and took it with her. Whenever she met snakes, she took out the ribbon and shook it before snakes. Mistaking it as another snake, snakes left away. This way to avoid snakes was adopted by Miao people and passed on generation by generation.
From generation to generation, the ribbons become more and more beautiful and now are viewed as a love token of young people and a good choice of gifts. The patterns also become diversified.
What’s more, the handicraft of making patterned ribbon has been improved a lot. In the past, it took one day to make a ribbon, but now they can make several ribbons in one day.
