Wax-Resist Dyeing (Anshun Batik)

Wax-resist dyeing uses wax as a resist agent, repeatedly dipping the cloth in indigo; Anshun batik falls chiefly into Miao and Bouyei traditions and is found across all thirty-eight Miao branches of Anshun, praised as the "First Dye of the East." It is listed in the first national ICH register, item Ⅷ-27.

The maker dips a copper wax-knife into molten wax and draws on white cloth; once the wax sets the cloth is steeped in an indigo vat, then boiled to remove the wax so the covered areas stay white; motifs draw on bronze-drum patterns, butterflies, birds and beasts, flowers and old legends, blue set against white in archaic elegance.

The patterns of Anshun batik carry the nature worship and collective memory of the Miao and Bouyei peoples, an important vessel for studying the aesthetics, beliefs and dyeing history of the southwest minorities, and one of Anshun's most representative cultural emblems.