The White Qia 帢 in the Wei-Jin Period
Hat of Emperors and Officials, Ghosts and Spirits
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20355185 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Rebecca Doran (Russian State Agrarian Correspondence University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 72 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 19-42 |
| Publication date | 2024-01-02 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Monumenta Serica (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0254-9948 • E-ISSN: 2057-1690 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/02549948.2024.2335812 |
| OpenAlex | W4399308653 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 5 |
The qia hat has a complex history in medieval China. Since its emergence in the early third century CE, the hat appeared in various contexts and was imbued with a range of symbolic meanings. The white qia especially garnered associations relating to its color, including its participation in new aesthetic paradigms, its condemnation as an inauspicious political portent, its adoption as mourning dress, and its appearance as a narrative symbol connoting death, loss of privileged status, or non-human identity. An investigation into the hat’s history in the Wei-Jin period (220–420) indicates that attitudes towards and uses of the hat were influenced by changing aesthetic, philosophical, and political frameworks. Narrative depictions of the hat were also informed by the genre and provenance of the sources in question. In its literary transmutation as the hat of non-human figures, including ghosts and animal deities or spirits, the white qia’s narrative associations suggest fascinating points of similarity and divergence with respect to its continued usage as a human article of mourning dress. This symbolically rich piece of clothing, whose usages and meanings sometimes seem contradictory, or at the very least various, has not been adequately explored and contextualized. This article aims to provide such a study to contribute to the on-going work of deciphering the messages and meanings of dress in the early medieval period
Aesthetics · Art · Art history · Literature · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Chinese history and philosophy · Fashion and Cultural Textiles · History · Japanese History and Culture · Law · Philosophy
| Highly cited | No |
|---|