The costume culture of Chinese minorities is very colorful, especially those stunning ornamental objects that go with the clothes. Because of the extensive choice of materials, delicate craftsmanship, abundant styles, exquisite patterns and rich connotations, Chinese minorities' ornamental objects are considered to be a rich costume treasury.

Most of the adornments of Gejia women in Guizhou are made of silver. Women of Jiuo minority in Xishuangbanna in Yunnan Province wearing full holiday dresses. The exquisite wrist adornments and finger rings for Mongolian women.   A lad1y of Dai minority covered by silver adornments.     The decorations worn in holidays for Niru people in Yunnan Province.

   People are dazzled and fascinated by the affection that Tu minority people show toward colors and the audacity and enthusiasm that they show in the use of colors. They like to use orange, ginger yellow, verdure, dark green, sky blue, light blue, scarlet, pink, blue and white. Tu women attach great importance to their head adornments, which were called "niuda" by local people call. In the past, the style of "niuda" differed in different places, but it gradually formed into one style when entering the modern time only with the difference between married women and the unmarried. Girls usually do three plaits and married women do double plaits. The ends of plaits are connected and decorated with coral, turquoise and trumpet shell pieces. Tu women usually wear gold, silver or copper earrings decorated with red coral and emerald and carved with patterns. Colorful beads with tassels hang down from earrings. Among them the most beautiful one is the silver eardrops ¨C using colorful porcelain bead strings to connect the earrings. Like several necklaces, the bead strands hang down in front of the chest. Tu women wear neck rings inlaid with more than twenty seashell pieces and hang patterned purses, pouches, small copper bells and colorful silk tassels around waist.

   Yugur women will start to wear tou mian when they become adults, which show that they are ready for participating in social activities and marriage. The most representative Yugur ornament, tou mian is an indispensable part in festive occasions when women need to dress up.

   The way to wear is that first do the hair in three plaits at the left, right and behind, and then use three tou mians inlaid with silver plates, coral, agate, pearls, shells to tie around the three plaits. With a usual weight of 3.5 kg, a tou mian is divided into three segments connected by metal rings. The tou mian starts at the earring position and its length is decided by the body height. Head adornments for girls are also characteristic. The upper part of a long red cloth ribbon is decorated with coral beads of all different colors and the lower edge is decorated with tassels woven by coral beads of red, yellow, white, green, blue and jade stones. These decorative ribbons hang down to the eyebrow in front of the forehead like a bead curtain.

   Kazakstan women also like to hang a bead curtain in front of the forehead, not as a separate head adornment, but a pendant from the hat. This kind of hat is the symbol of the bride. Unmarried women use hard shell round pipe shape small hats sewn by red, green or yellow flannelette. The hat crown is embroidered with gold threads and decorated with an owl feather. Kazakstan people believe that owl feathers signify courage and steadiness, so they like to use them as a kind of decoration. There is another kind of round hat made of silk, satin, cotton cloth and otter or lambskin. It is embroidered with flower patterns on top of hat crown and inlaid with beads, agate and plugholes made of gold and silver where an owl feather is plug in.

   Lisu women's adornments are different in different living places. For example, married Lisu women who live in the Nu river area in Yunnan wear big bronze rings or silver rings that hang down to shoulders, head adornments called "Ele" stringed by tridacna shell pieces, and hang adornments made of beads of different colors and agate in front of the chest. Lisu women in Lijiang area like to wrap cloth head covers decorated with beads and hang necklaces made by beads. Lisu girls in Dehong region wear red, white, or yellow handkerchiefs fully decorated with beads. Silver bells, silver bulbs and beads pendants hang down from the handkerchiefs and the end of pendants are decorated with colorful pompons and tassels. They wear silver neck rings, silver ornamental locks connected by bead strings and several or dozens of necklaces.

    There is a beautiful legend about "Ele," the typical adornment to Lisu women. Long long ago, a beautiful girl and a handsome young fellow fell in love. The young man hunted in remote mountains and wild forests all day long. His body was severely hurt by tree twigs because he had no clothes to put on. The young girl felt very sad after seeing this, so she crossed mountains and found some wild linen. She peeled off the fiber from the linen skin, and twisted threads. She spent many days and nights and finally wove threads into cloth. With the cloth, she made clothes and gave them to the young men. With a wish that the girl would look more beautiful, the young man then gave the girl an" ele" that he wove by coral beads. Since then, the "ele" has become a kind of head adornment for the girls and a keepsake between Lisu young men and women.

   Jingpo women's silver adornments are very striking. If a young Jingpo woman walks toward us from a distance, the first thing that will attract us is the shining silver adornments in front of the chest. Because they like to wear black round- neck short jackets, silver ornaments look especially dazzling. Besides chest adornments, they also hang several silver necklaces and silver rings. These ornaments not only look shining, but also clang when they walk. Together with the scarlet pailform skirts and scarlet hair hoops usually wore by women, the arrangement of black, white and red color complementing each other creates a striking artistic effect.

   Women of Nu minority also wear chest adornments, mostly bead strands made by coral, agate, shells, beads, silver coins. The color alternates among red, green and white. Some wear head adornments made by red beads strands, or wrap red rattan around the head. Besides, they like to pierce through ears with bamboo pipes or wear big copper earrings. Though materials used share some similarities with other nationalities, there is something new and fresh in the process of making and ornamental effect displayed.

   In terms of adornments, the nationality that has the largest amount of adornments should be Miao minority whose adornments are almost all made of silver. It is fair to say that Miao's silver adornments are the most outstanding among all nationalities. Whenever women need to dress up, they must wear silver adornments. There are a big variety of types including silver hair pins, silver cattle horns, silver hats, silver combs, silver fans, silver neck rings, silver earrings, silver shawls, silver chest locks, silver waist chains, silver bells, silver bracelets and silver finger rings etc.. A Miao lady who is in full dress might wear silver adornments as heavy as 10 to 15 kilos. Miao people believe that wearing silver adornments is not just to show their wealth or for the aesthetic needs, most important it is to pray for luckiness and drive the evils away.

   Miao people have a long history and high-level craftsmanship in making silver ornaments. There is a rich variety in designs and patterns, such as the silver braceleL silver ring, hollow, solid wood shaving shape, hexagonal and column styles. Among Miao's silver adornments, the ox horn style head adornment is the most stunning and representative one. This kind of silver ox horn adornment is very popular in Southeast regions of Guizhou. Women who are in full dress will plug in a silver ox horn in their tall hair chignon. A silver ox horn is made of white silver pieces of different thickness with the two corners turning up. Like a water buffalo horn, it is about 1 meter if adding the height and width and weighs one kilo. The ox horn is decorated with flower patterned silver fans.

   There is another kind of wooden ox horn head adornment, mainly popular in Miao living regions in Guizhou such as Guiyang and Bijie. This kind of ox horn ornament is made by wood, about 50cm long with two horns turning up and comb dents in the middle to wrap and secure the hairpiece. Women first coil up their long hair around head top, and then secure the wooden ox horn ornament to the head top with hairpiece and black cotton threads or silk threads. The reason why this kind of ornament imitates ox horn is because of primitive worship. Miao people worship cattle and consider them as sacred cattle from heaven that are sent to human world to help people furrow and plough and bring happiness to the human world. So they would celebrate birthday for the cattle every year and hold sacrifice ritual to respect and worship the oxen.

  It is said among people that in ancient time, Miao men moved to their wife's family after getting married. In order to dress up the bridegroom and make him look masculine and strong, people would put on a pair of wooden ox horns on top of the head. Besides dressing up the bridegroom, making the wedding more extravagant, the ox horn ornament is also for the purpose of warding off the evils. In modern time, wedding tradition changes into women moving to their husbands' home after getting married, so the ox horn head adornment now becomes the bride's ornament. Till today, the ornament is not limited to wedding occasions and has become part of Miao's festive costumes. Besides using large amount of silver adornments, Miao's embroidered clothes are also very delicate. For example, on a bride's embroidered jacket, the number of decorative triangles folded by yellow pieces could reach 17,000. Girls start to make these decorative triangles when they are six or seven years old. When these girls finally finish making their bride jacket with great efforts, they are about to reach the age to get married. Adornments accompany the whole life of Miao women.

   People of Dong minority also like silver adornments. They attach great importance to the quantity and delicacy of the adornments. For Dong women's full dress, there are dozens of head adornments such as the silver flowers, silver hats, silver chest adornments, silver neck rings and silver bracelets etc. Some of the hanging chains are twist style and some are connecting rings style. For the silver ornamental hat, there are 18 arhats inlaid on the top layer, 18 plum blossoms on the lower layer and two male lions on both temple parts of the brim. The ornamental object shows not only Dong's exquisite craftsmanship but also their wish for luckiness. After a woman gives birth to a child, her family will give the grandson silver adornments as presents including silver hats, silver locks, silver neck rings, and silver bracelets. Dong women like to wear clothes of simple and plain color. Mainly using black, blue, purple and white as the base color, they only use light green or light rose pink color when they need to do embroidery on some parts, which is similar to Shui national costumes. Shui people also like to wear black or blue jackets and silver chest locks, silver neck rings, silver bracelets, silver earrings, silver waist chains, silver combs and silver buttons etc.

   The most well-known Maonan costume is the patterned bamboo hat. Its main function is not to shelter sunshine and rain, but mostly as a kind of adornment. In most occasions, it is used as the keepsake between lovers. The patterned bamboo hat is decorated by silver adornments, such as a hairpin, silver comb, and silver ring. The silver neck rings, silver kylins, silver plates or silver buttons adorns the outside of their black or blue clothes.

   Li women who live in Hainan Island also cover their body with silver adornments including silver hairpins, silver bells in front of chest, silver neck rings, hanging silver plates, silver waist chains and silver foot rings. There are silver adornments arranged orderly even on the lower hem of the clothes. Not limited to silver ornaments, Li women also love neck rings made of copper coins, red cloth pendants, steel waist swords and bead ornamental strings made of beads of different colors. Even the gun carrying bag and power bag are all embroidered with colorful patterns.

   Comparably speaking, Gaoshan people who live in Taiwan Island, even till the modern time, still keep many adornments that contain primitive meaning, which well document human being's childhood fun. For example, the shell adornments, glass beads, pig teeth, bear teeth, feathers, animal skin pieces, flowers, copper or silver adornments, ornamental coins or bones, silver buttons and bamboo pipes. Gaoshan Taiva DeoDle have a kind of very precious costume. They polish the shell pieces carefully and make them into small beads with holes. Then these beads were stringed with thin linen threads and sewn onto the clothes in rows. It is said that at least fifty to sixty thousand shell beads are needed to make such a bead coat.

   It is hard to describe minority's adornments in just several pages of paper. Since 1980s, along with the reform and the open door policy, young people of minorities one after another walk out of the remote mountains and valley into cities. Some adornments have shown a tendency to die out. The Han people's clothes are experiencing a tendency of westernization while minorities' costumes get Hanzified quickly. Facing the impact of the modern social industrialization, will these handicrafts made with heart and soul gradually die out?