Hello all. it is not often I come to the forum, but here I am.

I am a member of the living history group the Society for Creative Anachronism, the SCA. We cover the period from 600 to 1600. Since 1996, I have played someone from within the modern boundaries of china, though of course in period, those boundaries were quite different.

since 2000, I have played a Jurchen shamaness. My name in society is Biya Sama. that translates from Jurchen/Manchu to English as "moon shamaness". I discovered that "aisin-gioro" is not allowed by the heralds as a by-name because it can't be verified as in common usage until after our 1600 cutoff date. Aisin-gioro Nurgaci's household in the Jianzhou jurchens doesn't count with them.

my persona was born in 1205 and assuming my persona is my current age, that puts me to the year 1241. she was born in Liaoning and is Bohai Jurchen. Educated in Yanjing and survived the Mongol seige of the city.

but this persona bio, while interesting, is not why I am here before you. That's just the setting to give you an idea of when and wear I'm reenacting. A very important part of the SCA experience is to wear the clothing that our persona wears so we experience medieval life as close as we can.

I wear the qi pau (since the jurchen dress didn't really change much between the 11th and the 17th century in basic cut) for my basic garb. Since all shamans must wear white, I have duplicated the sleeveless surcoat from a 17th century protrait of a noblewoman and have done that in a good faux suede. i'm hoping to upgrade that at some point for doeskin or perhaps to rabbit fur. I also have a qipau I will wear for court that is in the white suede.

since I've been granted an award that gives me the right to wear a circlet, i have a beautiful silver circlet encrusted with the four sacred gems representing the four primary deities of jurchen shamanism.

however, as beautiful as this is, we have camping events and an unprotected head gets burned.

So my question is: what can I, a Lady (fujin), properly wear on my head that will protect it in the heat of summer, from the sun that will be jurchen and proper to a shaman? I keep seeing those ugly mongol hats. my persona has a great dislike of mongols. she's spent her youth in the horrors of war and is quite the pacifist. As shaman priestess, her job is to heal the hurts of this dreadful conquest by the mongols--mind, body, and souls. Not only of others, but her own, when she would much rather be in cloister with the spirits, entranced and seeking personal enlightenment.

I CAN purchase a mongol hat--I know a merchant who sells them. But if there are good alternatives, I would like to hear them. i want to be period correct. and besides...i think they are ugly and not that nice for a shamaness like me. i also have terrible contact allergies with my forehead, making many hats very hard for me to wear. I'm almost thinking getting a chinese straw hat and lining it with white rabbit fur!

Please advise. if anyone wishes to advise me more privately, my email address is on my arts and sciences page at http://biyasama.com.

I think the Jurchen clothings of 12th century was quite likely to be different from that of the Manchu (Jianzhou Jurchen) during the 17th century. Even the hat and hairstyle were different.

My costuming reference for the basic dress is "in the presence of the dragon throne" by John E Vollmer" and published by the Royal Ontario museum. They show how the 17th century costume was derived at through the original piecing on fur.

Mind you I'm NOT doing these in silk. My garb is made of linen or cotton in most cases for practical considerations--I'm often outside in a lot of heat and humidity. I have a couple wool pieces for chilly nights. the silk brocades are kept for court garb only (which certainly they had access to in the Jin period!) but the qi pau is essentially pieced as a left half, a right half, and a front overlap. it's essentially a form of tunic dress. It's very very simple clothing with straight cut sleeves. What became more elaborate over time was the adding of the embroideries and use of the silks and brocades for the court attire. We see more examples of that in the Qing, but I find it impossible to believe that in the Jin their court attire did not also use silks and embroideries...though I can believe they chose to use more Hanfu over keeping to the Jurchen costume as they did in the Qing.

I do not, incidentally, put any collars on my dresses. I don't like them.

Hairstyle...the standard seems to be to keep my hair at least partially braided. If I do one braid, i try to pin it up so I don't look like the "pigtail" that seems masculine to me in the stereotype. But my hair is very very fine (I'm part irish), so keeping it all pinned up is NOT easy!!