Oroqen

Population and Distribution

The Oroqen ethnic group, with a population of about 6,900 is the third smallest of the 55 ethnic groups in China. They are mainly live in the Oroqen Autonomous Banner of Hulunbuir League in the Greater and Lesser Xing'an Mountains of Inner Mongolia. A small number are scattered in Heilongjiang Province.

History

For generations the Oroqens had lived a life of hunting and fishing in the forests. They went on hunting expeditions in groups, and the game bagged was distributed equally not only to those taking part in the hunt, but also to the aged and infirm. The heads, entrails and bones of the animals killed were not distributed but were cooked and eaten by all. Later, deer antlers, which fetched a good price, were not distributed but went to the hunters who killed the animals.

On the eve of the founding of the PRC in 1949, polarization was quite marked in some localities where horses, on which Oroqens rode on hunting trips, belonged to individuals. The rich owned a large number of horses and the poor owned a few. Horses were hired out to those hunters who needed them, and payment took the form of game sent to horse owners. Such a practice gradually developed into rent and exploitation of man by man.

The Oroqens are an honest and friendly people who always treat their guests well. People who lodge in an Oroqen home would often hear the housewife say to the husband early in the morning: "I'm going to hunt some breakfast for our guests and you go to fetch water." When the guests have washed, the woman with gun slung over her shoulders would return with a roe back. The Oroqens are expert hunters. Both the males and females are sharp shooters on horseback. Boys usually start to go out on hunting trips with their parents or brothers at the age of seven or eight. And they would be stalking wild beasts in the deep forest all on their own at 17. A good hunter is respected by all and young maidens like to marry him.

Horses are indispensable to the Oroqens on their hunting expeditions. Hunters ride on horses, which also carry their family belongings and provisions as well as the game they killed over mountains and across marshes and rivers. The Oroqen horse is a very sturdy breed with extra-large hooves that prevent the animal from sinking into marshland.

Oroqen women, who also hunt, show marvelous skill in embroidering patterns of deer, bears and horses on pelts and cloth that go into the making of head gears, gloves, boots and garments. Oroqen women also make basins, bowls, boxes and other objects from birch barks. Engraved with various designs and dyed in color, these objects are artistic works that convey the idea of simplicity and beauty. Taught by their mothers while still very young to rub fur, dry meat and gather fruit in the forest, Oroqen girls start to do household work at 13 or 14. Pelts prepared by Oroqen women are soft, fluffy and light, and they are used in making garments, hats, gloves, socks and blankets as well as tents.

The Oroqens, who led a primitive life, used to have many taboos. One prohibited a woman from giving birth in the home. She had to do that in a little hut built outside the house in which she would be confined for a month before she could return home with her newborn

Language

The Oroqens have their own language which belongs to the Tungus branch of the Manchu-Tungusic group of the Altaic language family. They have no written script of their own. They now use Chinese spoken and written language along with their own language. Some of them can speak the language of the Daur ethnic group.

Religion

The Oroqen people practice Shamanism and totemism. They are very much in awe of the bear. Being animists, they worship nature and their ancestors, and believe that everything in the world has a spirit. They also believe their own fate and the esoteric acts of nature are in the hands of gods. Diseases are thought to be caused by the magical power of devils or ghosts.

Economy

The main group of Oroqen people is the Oroqen Autonomous Banner which is situated deep in the Great Xing'an Mountains. The forest here are filled valuable plants such as larch, birch, oak and aspen trees and rare animals such as tiger, bear, roe deer, boar, mink, fox, water otter and lynx. Various local specialties, including agarics, filbert, mushroom, also grow in this forest. Besides, this area is also has rich deposits of coal, iron, zinc, gold and lead.

Before the founding of the PRC in 1949, the Oroqen people mainly lived on hunting, collecting and sometimes fishing. After the 1950s, they gradually left the forests, stopped their nomadic life and settle down. With the support of the government, they began to take up agriculture and animal husbandry. Industry and manufacturing are now progressing well.

Diet

The Oroqen people usually have one or two meals per day. Their staple food used to be animal meat, like roe deer, elk (moose), deer and wild boar. With the development of agricultural production, dishes made of grain are now more appearing more frequently on their tables. Oroqen men like drink white spirits and home-produced koumiss.

Residence

Xierenzhu, meaning "house supported by wooden poles", is the traditional house of the Oroqen people. It is a conical wooden shanty made of 20 or 30 pine or birch poles, of which four poles with branches on their tops serving as the main supporting frame. The covering of the hut varies according to the season. In summer, it is enclosed with stitched birch bark while in winter with the skins of the wild animal such as roe. The size of Xierenzhu varies according to the numbers of the family and seasons. It is usually 5 meters in height and 6 meters in diameter. The door of the tent usually faces to the east or south. In its center is a need-fire used to cook warm people and illuminate. Due to their need to move constantly, their houses are simply furnished. In the room, apart from beds, there are only the basic necessities for daily life and production.

After the founding of the PRC, all the Oroqen people have ended their nomadic life and settled down. They first lived in wooden houses and earthen brick houses and nowadays moved into brick and tile houses.

Fashion

The Oroqen people used to live on hunting. In the long history of hunting life, this influenced the creation of their unique dressing culture.

Clothing of the Oroqen, includes hats, shoes and socks, are made of animal skins, of which the roe deer skin takes an important place. The clothing for the summer, autumn and spring are made of skins of the summer roe deer, which is characterized by the sparseness and shortness of its fur. The skin of the winter roe is made into the winter dress. The leggings, which are worn by men and women, are made of two or three skins. The leggings have only trouser legs, and some have laces on them. They fastened with a leather rope at the waist. It can protect the trousers when they are hunting or cutting firewood. The leather trousers are made of three skins of roe deer living in autumn or winter.

Social Life

The Oroqens are good at dancing and singing. Most of their songs praise nature or are about love, hunting and the struggles of life. The Oroqens often try to represent their dreams and wishes through dances. The most popular folk dances are "Black Bears Fight Dance" and "Wood Rooster Dance". The common music instruments played the Oroqen people are pengnuhua (a type of harmonica) and wentuwen (hand drum).

The Oroqens have many tales, fables, legends, proverbs and riddles. They have been handed down from generation to generation and reflect the origin of the human beings, the legend of their ancestors and their hunting life.

Festival

Spring Festival is the most important festival of the Oroqen people. They celebrate it on the same date with the Han Chinese. On New Year's Eve, they burn incense and kowtow to their god, to the old people, and wish everyone good fortune in the coming year. Various entertainment activities, such as wrestling matches, horse racing and archery, are held from the first to the sixth day of the New Year.

Customs

The Oroqens are a race of dancers and singers. Men, women and children often gather to sing and dance when the hunters return with their game or at festival times.
With a rich and varied repertory of folk songs, the Oroqens sing praises of nature and love, hunting and struggles in life in a lively rhythm. Among the most popular Oroqen dances are the "Black Bears Fight" and "Wood Cock Dance," at which the dancers execute movements like those of animals and birds. Also popular is a ritual in which members of a clan gather to perform dances depicting events in clan history.

"Pengnuhua" (a kind of harmonica) and "Wentuwen" (hand drum) are among the traditional instruments used. Played by Oroqen musicians, these instruments produce tunes that sound like the twittering of birds or the braying of deer. These instruments are sometimes used to lure wild beasts to within shooting range.

The Oroqens have many tales, fables, legends, proverbs and riddles that have been handed down from generation to generation.

Being Shamanists or animists, the Oroqens worship nature and their ancestors, and believe in the omnipresence of spirits. Their objects of worship are carefully kept in birch-bark boxes hung high on trees behind their tents.

The Oroqens have a long list of don'ts. For instance, they never call the tiger by its actual name but just "long tail," and the bear "granddad." Bears killed are generally honored with a series of ceremonies; their bones are wrapped in straw placed high on trees and offerings are made for the souls of dead bears. Oroqens do not work out their hunting plans in advance, because they believe that the shoulder blades of wild beasts have the power to see through a plan when one is made.

Wind burials are practiced by the Oroqens. When a person dies his corpse is put into a hollowed-out tree trunk and placed with head pointing south on two-meter high supports in the forest. Sometimes the horse of the deceased is killed to accompany the departing soul to netherworld. Only the bodies of young people who die of contagious diseases are cremated.

Monogamy is practiced by the Oroqens who are only permitted to marry with people outside their own clans. Proposals for marriage as a rule are made by go-betweens, sent to girls' families by boys' families.

The Oroqens originally peopled the region north of the Heilong River and south of the Outer Hinggan Mountains. But aggression and pillaging conducted by Tsarist Russia after the mid-17th century forced the Oroqens to migrate to the Greater and Lesser Hinggan Mountains. There were then seven tribes living in a clan commune society. Each clan commune called "Wulileng" consisted of five to a dozen families descended from a male ancestor. The commune head was elected. In the commune, which was then the basic economic unit of the Oroqens, all production tools were communally owned. The commune members hunted together, and the game bagged was equally distributed to all families.

The introduction of iron articles and guns and the use of horses during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) raised the productive forces of the Oroqens to a higher level. This gave rise to bartering on a bigger scale and the emergence of private ownership. That brought about profound social, economic changes. Individual families quit the clan commune and became basic economic units. The clan commune had disintegrated, though members of the same clan did live or hunt together in the same area. Organized under the Qing Dynasty's "eight banner system," the Oroqens were compelled to enlist in the armed forces and send fur to the Qing court as tributes. Most soldiers sent to fight in Xinjiang, Yunnan, Taiwan and other places lost their lives.

After the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1911 came the rule of warlords who effected some changes in the administrative setup of the "eight banner system." Oroqen youths were dragged into "forest guerrilla units," and Oroqen hunters were forced to settle down to farm. Most of them later fled back to hunt in the forests. A few whom the warlords had made officers became landlords who hired Oroqen, Han, Manchu and Daur laborers to open up large tracts of land for crops.

The Japanese troops, who occupied northeast China in 1931, pulled down the cottages and smashed the farm implements of the remaining Oroqen farmers and drove them into the forests again. Oroqen youths were press-ganged into "forest detachments" officered by Japanese. The Japanese occupationists introduced opium smoking to ruin the health of the Oroqen people, some of whom were used in bacteria experiments. All this, coupled with incidence of epidemic diseases, had so decimated the Oroqen population that only some 1,000 of them remained at the time of the Japanese surrender in 1945.

Over a long period of time, the Oroqens had fought alongside other ethnic groups in China against Tsarist Russian and Japanese aggression to safeguard national unity.

New Life After the Founding of PRC

The Oroqen ethnic group was saved from extinction and a new life began to dawn for this ethnic minority in the years following the conclusion of the Anti-Japanese War in 1945. Shot-guns, cartridges and supplies of food-grain, clothes, cooking oil and salt were sent to the Oroqens by the government in the early days after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China. People sent by the government helped them to raise production as well as to set up local government.

Following the inception of the Oroqen Autonomous Banner on October 1, 1951, several autonomous townships were set up in places where the Oroqens live in compact communities. By 1981, government allocation for construction in these places had already amounted to 46 million yuan. Working at leading bodies at various levels are Oroqen functionaries.

While helping the Oroqens to promote hunting, the government made efforts to help them switch over to a diversified economy and to lead a settled life.

The building of permanent housing for the Oroqens got started in 1952 with government allocations. A dozen villages were built in the Heihe Area for 300 families that used to lead a wandering life in 51 widely-scattered localities. Another three villages were built for 150 families in 1958.

Taught by Han and Daur farmers, the Oroqens began to grow crops in 1956. And by 1975, the people in the autonomous banner became self-supporting in food-grain for the first time in Oroqen history.

With no industry whatsoever in the past, the autonomous banner has now established 37 factories and workshops turning out farm machinery, electric appliances, flour, powdered milk, furniture, leather, fur and candies. The banner also has built schools, department stores, hospitals, banks and cinemas.

All school-age children are enrolled in primary and middle schools. Every year a number of youngsters enter institutions of higher learning. The Oroqen people also have their own song and dance troupes, film projection teams, broadcast stations and clubs.

Diseases took a heavy toll in the old days and 80 per cent of the women suffered from gynaecological troubles due to the lack of doctors and medicine and ignorance. They have been put under control with the help of mobile medical teams sent by the government, the launching of disease-prevention campaigns and the popularization of the knowledge of hygine. As a result the Oroqen population increased to 4,100 in 1982.