Wearing pants is a very common thing for contemporary people. Pants are comfortable to wear, easy to move, can keep warm, can cover shame, is a very beautiful and practical human bottoms.
But you know what? The various types of pants we wear now were gradually formed after the Republic of China, under the influence of Western dress culture.
In ancient China, although the trousers originated very early, their historical status has always been very low, and their popularity has always been suppressed by clothes, skirts, deep coats, robes, and shirts, which is a lowly dress that is difficult to climb the elegant hall.
01 Pants have a long history
Our ancestors invented pants very early, and archaeological data shows that
The history of trousers on the mainland lasted at least four or five thousand years.
The Shijiahe cultural site in Tianmen City, Hubei Province, has unearthed a large variety of exquisite jade artifacts, including a jade god man, whose stripes around his waist are likely to be an early type of underwear, indicating that in the Neolithic era, people may have begun to wear pants to hide their shame.
Neolithic jade god man excavated from the Shijiahe cultural site
Pants, in ancient Chinese, are written as hakama and 绔. According to historical records, hakama was already in place around the time of Dayu. The Gezhi Jingyuan quotes the Wuyuan as saying: "Yu Zuo Hakama. According to the "Interpretation of the Name": "Hakama, cross also." The two strands are also cross-border also. It can be seen that the origin of the word "hakama" has a certain relationship with the "span" of the wearing posture, emphasizing that the legs are worn separately.
Hakama in history has two forms.
One is the shin coat
, is the two trouser tubes on the calf, there is no waist and crotch, with a belt tied around the waist, mainly play a role in keeping warm, the outside wear clothes, deep clothes and so on to cover the entire lower body. The popular knee pants and trousers after the Song Dynasty are the development forms of shin clothes.
The other is open crotch pants with a waistband
A cotton hakama excavated from the Chu Tomb of the Warring States of Mashan No. 1 in Jiangling, Hubei Province, with a crotch in the front, no crotch in the back, and an open waist, is the earliest open crotch pants excavated in the Central Plains of the mainland.
Ancient crotch pants, called crotch.
Mainland crotch pants also have a long history.
In 2004, archaeologists found pants worn by two dried corpses in the yanghai ancient tomb in Xinjiang, which is basically the same as modern pants, dating back about 3300 years, and may be the earliest crotch pants in China.
Crotch pants excavated from the Yanghai Tomb in Xinjiang
The calf nose jacket, which was popular during the Han and Wei dynasties, was wide and narrow at the top, had holes at both ends, and was shaped like a cow's nose, which was a very short crotchless pants, similar to today's briefs.
Shandong Yinan Eastern Han Portrait Stone Tomb Line Drawing
During the Southern and Northern Dynasties of the Wei and Jin Dynasties, hakama pleats were a kind of clothing system with hakama under the tunic and no longer covered outside the hakama, and the hakama here also belonged to the crotch pants. Under the influence of the Southern Dynasty's wide clothing and bo belt, the hakama folds of the northern dynasty also show a broad and broad appearance. If there is a large hakama, it is also called a broad mouth
panties
, very similar to today's flared pants. There is also a hakama, which is tied at the knee of the hakama tube with a brocade ribbon to facilitate movement, similar to later leggings. Soldiers put on the tying
Running or horseback riding are not a problem.
Northern Wei faience figurines wearing large-mouthed hakama
Western Wei painted military attaché pottery figurines dressed in hakama
After the Tang and Song dynasties, with the popularization of high-foot furniture such as chairs and stools, the ancients began to change from "sitting on the ground" to "sitting on the ground". The change in sitting posture has led to a new change in people's bottoms, not only wearing a variety of pants in the robe skirt, but also adding crotchless "knee pants" to the crotch pants that are close to the body. Fuzhou Southern Song Dynasty Huang Sheng tomb excavated a variety of pants equipped with 24 pieces, including 15 pieces of crotch pants, 8 pieces of crotch pants, 1 piece of waistless crotch pants, the size of open crotch pants are greater than the crotch pants, reflecting that people at that time were generally wearing crotch pants in addition to crotch pants.
The maid wearing a robe and pants underneath the Tang tomb mural
Tang Dynasty painted horse figurines wearing open crotch pants
Open crotch pants and crotch pants excavated from the Huang Sheng Tomb of the Southern Song Dynasty in Fuzhou
During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the pace of people's lives accelerated day by day, and the way they dressed changed. The middle and upper classes can usually wear no robes at home, only shirts and pants. Among the common people, trousers are the main form of clothing.
The Ming and Qing dynasties still continued the shape of the previous generation of knee pants, the Qing Dynasty in order to keep warm and cold, often in the crotch pants wearing similar to the pre-Qin period shin coat "slips", pants legs do not have crotch, but its length is no longer limited to the knees, generally up to the thighs.
In order to take care of the wrapped feet, women with feet in the Ming and Qing dynasties often wrapped their calves in knee pants. These knee pants are made up of two trouser barrels, with a tie at the top and the rim of the leg.
Photo of a Qing Dynasty woman wrapped in small feet wearing knee pants
The Qing Dynasty also popular a wide-waisted large crotch pants, its waist does not open, the crotch is not divided into front and back, the waist is very wide, can be tightened after folding the outer belt belt. People who are a little older may remember that there were many places on the mainland in the sixties and seventies of the last century to wear this kind of crotch pants.
Qing Dynasty wide-waisted crotch pants
02 The status of pants is very low
From the perspective of anatomy, pants are undoubtedly the most suitable bottoms for the human body.
However, in ancient China, where "tops and bottoms" were still the same, people's lower bodies were mainly dressed and skirts evolved from clothes, or wore the next deep coat and robe.
Pants, for a long period of history, were treated as things that could not be put on the table.
1. People with status and status are disdainful of wearing pants
As a country of clothing and etiquette, the Chinese nation has a complete package and rich cultural meaning of the crown of clothing, in different ceremonial occasions have corresponding dress rules. Coarse clothing such as trousers, which make "legs separate", is the dress of vulgar inferior and uncivilized barbarians, and people with status and status are disdainful of wearing.
In order to prevent the body without pants from accidentally running out, the ancients formulated many strict rules for sitting and standing, and regarded these as important etiquette. For example, when sitting, it is necessary to sit on the seat with both knees together, and the hands are flat on the thighs, and the legs cannot be straightened forward, like a dustpan; when standing, the clothes should be arranged, the clothes belt should be tied, and the jade silk tapestry and other ornaments should be added to the waist to press the hem of the clothes; the stride width should not be too large when walking; no matter how hot it is in the summer, the lower clothes should not be lifted up, and so on.
Kneel
2. Ancient pants are profane clothes and cannot be exposed casually
If you wear pants for the sake of warmth, you should also cover them tightly with clothes, clothing, etc. Especially in ceremonial situations, revealing pants is a very impolite, even humiliating, behavior.
Chun Yuchang of the Eastern Han Dynasty, who was the uncle of Emperor Hancheng, saw Wang Mang's mother, that is, his aunt, and did not humble and courteous, but directly stepped on the carriage in front of the elders, presumably exposing his pants, which gave Wang Mang a handle, and as a result, he was dismissed from his post, sent back to his fiefdom, and finally gave his life.
Everyone is familiar with the story of Jing Ke's assassination of the King of Qin. After the assassination failed, Jing Ke leaned against the pillar, sat on the ground with his legs open like a dustpan, laughed and cursed, and was then killed. At that time, this posture was almost equivalent to the vertical middle finger of today, and it was an extremely rude insult. Jing Ke "scolded with a curse", I am afraid that scolding is not as insulting as sitting in front of so many people and exposing his body.
3. Wearing crotch pants is the dress style of farmers, servants, soldiers, and barbarians of low status
In ancient times, farmers, servants and other people with low status often wore short clothes on the upper body and crotch pants on the lower part, called "caftan brown", also known as "short hit". Such dressers need to work frequently, wearing too much clothing is too cumbersome and affects efficiency, it is easy to get their clothes dirty, and they do not have the conditions to add clothes outside their pants.
Caftan brown
Crotch pants are also a regular uniform of soldiers, which is to facilitate movement during combat.
Colored restoration of the high-ranking military figures
The nomadic people of the north need to ride horses, and they all wear crotch pants.
(To be continued)