Miao Festival "Hundred Bird Coat"

Mint green, black wings, and a row of butterflies heading for the hem.

This Miao festival "Hundred Bird Coat" is from the Miao peoples of southeastern Guizhou Province, China, early to mid 20th century, in feather, pulped silk, spun silk and cotton. Men of Miao villages wore coats like this to dance at festivals held for the ancestors, and families often saved them for those occasions. Birds and butterflies, both important figures in Miao stories of creation, fill the shimmering green ground in fine thread. Long strips of embroidery fall from the waist to tufts of white feathers. Sixty-nine inches wide and forty-seven high.

A quiet entrance was never the plan.