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Saisiyat short shirt

Tags: aborigine | clothing | Saisiyat

This Saisiyat short shirt is made from ramie and measures about 80 centimeters in length and 18 centimeters in width. It is simple in shape and untailored, folded over from back to front. Along the middle of the back is a seam of white ramie. On either side are holes for the arms to go through, below which are seams of white ramie that are covered by white plastic buttons. On the front of the shirt, along either side of the flaps, around the openings for the arms and below these openings on the back are single rows of plastic white buttons. There are double rows of buttons along the bottom on both the front and back and down the center in the back. In addition to the white buttons, small white beads, silver scales, copper beads and small pieces of white and yellow plastic tubing are used as decorations. At the bottom is a fringe made from orange nylon threads. Ties are made of yarn in orange, tan and gray blue. On the front, along the bottom right fringe, is a small copper bell. One of the unique features of this shirt is two vertical green lines that run down the center of the right and left front flaps. On the back are six black stripes and four tan stripes. This implies that the weaver created different patterns for the front and back.

The warp makes use of brown, white, red and green threads and the weft makes use of brown, black, tan, yellow and red threads. The materials used include ramie, yarn and nylon thread. Yarn was used to make the ties for holding the two front flaps together and nylon thread was used for making the fringe at the bottom of the shirt.

 

 

Department of Graphic Communications and Digital Publishing, Shih Hsin University Digital archiving project of the Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines