Touched by Indigo - Royal Ontario Museum

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COTTON
The origin of cotton in China is
enigmatic. Traditionally, most people
accepted the view represented in
Chu Hua's Mumian pu (Treatise on
Cotton), an eighteenth-century work:
cotton was transmitted from India
and although it was presented to the
central government as a tribute item
during the period spanning the Han
and Tang dynasties, because it was
not yet grown, neither the people
used it as a clothing fabric nor the
government identified it as a taxable
commodity; seeds were brought to
the northwestern and southeastern regions in China during the Song
and Yuan dynasties by both land and sea.1
In modern times, easier access to historical records and newly
unearthed archaeological finds have stimulated fresh speculations. In
1978, for example, when a small fragment of greyish cloth was found
in a cave burial at Wuyi Mountain in Chong'an county, Fujian province,
certain scholars eagerly embraced this discovery as evidence
of cotton having been in use in China for a long time and the earliest
region of cotton cultivation being the southeastern coastal provinces
because results of scientific tests proved that it was woven with cotton
fibre and suggested a date of 3000 years.2
Yet, other scholars using different data think otherwise. Some
believe that cotton was transmitted from India to China by two
routes. The southern routes involved both land and sea. By land, it
reached the western part of Yunnan province through Burma. By sea,
it arrived in Hainan Island via Vietnam. This happened during the
end of the Western Han period. The northern route took place much
later, during the Northern and Southern Dynasties. Traversing Central
Asia, it reached the Turfan basin in present-day Xinjiang province.3
Still others, who also base their theory on archaeological evidence
and scientific tests, think that the cotton seeds discovered from Tangdynasty
tombs in Bachu belonged to a variety originally from Africa
and assert that it was transmitted to present-day Xinjiang by way of
the Silk Road and from there spread to the northwestern provinces of
Gansu and Shaanxi.4
In any case, most people agree that cotton became popularized
during the Southern Song and Yuan periods because of several factors.
First, publications about proper methods of cotton cultivation
began to come out during the Southern Song period. They were written
by intellectuals who had migrated to the south to seek political
refuge. Second, the Mongol rulers, who were aware of the importance
of cotton, encouraged the cultivation of this useful crop as soon
as they had gained complete control over the whole of China. The
information provided by the Song writers proved to be useful. In addition,
the Yuan government established a special department to oversee
the production and collection of cotton. In documentation, too,
another office in charge of farming affairs compiled the Nongsang
jiyao (Essentials about Agriculture and Sericulture), a compendium
that preserved all previously published works related to every aspect
of farming, including cotton cultivation. Third, a woman commonly
known as Huang daopo (Cranny Huang, the Daoist adept, b. ca.
1245), is credited
to have travelled
to Yazhou
in Hainan Island
during her youth,
where she learned
cotton-weaving
techniques from
women of the Li
ethnic group, and
later returned to
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