彝族银饰 (Yízú Yínsì)
The Yi people — one of China's largest ethnic minorities with over 9 million, concentrated in Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan — produce an elaborate silver jewelry tradition that serves as the primary marker of Yi identity and social status. Yi silversmithing is characterized by filigree (silken wire work), granulation (tiny silver balls), and embossed repousse — the same technical vocabulary as other regional silversmithing traditions but with a Yi aesthetic vocabulary of solar discs, fire symbols, eagle wings, and ram horn spirals encoding Yi animist cosmology. The most distinctive Yi technique is the silver overlay on lacquer — thin silver sheet hammered over a lacquer base and then engraved — producing a composite material (silver + lacquer) that is unique to Yi craft traditions in China.
Risk level: Endangered · Within China's national ICH system; Yi silver on national ICH list
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