Pumi costumes

Pumi children, no matter girls or boys, all wear long linen gowns buttoned on the right with silver buttons on the collar, and cloth waistbands woven with various patterns and thread fringes on both ends. Girls keep long hair and arrange it into plaits decorated with red and green beads. They wear a cloth cap in the shape of a cat's head with two erect ears and sometimes decorated with a pair of roe teeth or five silver Bodhisattvas. Boys' front hair is arranged into three plaits, one more than that of girls.

Young women all wear short jackets, which are mainly white, black, and red, buttoned on the right, narrow-sleeved and high-collared. Adult women wear further shawls and aprons with plaited laces. In some areas, women wear close-fitting plaited skirts reaching the insteps. Women wear very long waistbands, both ends of which are embroidered with patterns of flowers. When seeking a spouse, waistbands often serve as keepsakes. Adult women love to wear wigs that usually made of the tail hair of yak and decorated with purple and blue threads or beads on the hairline. They wear earbobs, silver earrings, and necklaces stringed with corals, agates and beads.     

Young men of the Pumi ethnic minority wear short jackets with silver buttons on the right side, and loose trousers generally in black. Over the jackets, they sometimes wear long gowns with waistbands. They wear linen leggings. Adult men keep long hair, and also coil wigs around the head with silk threads. Some men shave their head bald, only leaving a small bunch of hair arranged into a plait on the top of the head. Old men and women don't wear adornments or wigs.