Oroqen Tour

Oroqen Zizhiqi (GPS Coordinates) 50.34 North 123.43 East

The ethnic Elunchun's are one of the Chinese minorities. There were only about 8,196 Elunchun people in the year 2000.

The Elunchun nationality is the only 100% hunting race of contemporary China. It is of great significance to research on their hunting culture no matter from the angle of China or from the angle of the hunting race of the Northern Hemisphere. However, with the worsening of the ecosystem in the Daxing抋n Mountains, the hunting culture is on the verge of extinction. In 1996, The Elunchun people had to let go of their hunting rifles against will, starting to be engaged in the large-scale agricultural activities. Practice shows that the enunciation that orbidding to hunt and turning to produce?is not the strong item of the Elunchun people, nor is the advantage of economic development in Daxingn Mountains, and it is against the will of the Elunchun people. In order to protect the hunting culture, rescue the important inheritance, we should know the relation between ecosystem and culture reservation better, the will of the Elunchun people should also be taken into consideration. In a word, manifold measures should be taken to solve problems of their existence and development so as to give full play of the function of cultural inheritance.

The population is mainly distributed in the northeast of Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region such as Oroqen Autonomous Banner, Zhalantun, Molidawa Banner and Arong Banner, and in the Heilongjiang province such as Tahe county, Huma county, Xunke county, Jiayin county and Heihe city. The Elunchun people are an ancient tribe of Monggolians.

The Great and Small Xingan Mountains where the Oroqen nationality lives are the two big mountains in the northeast China and along the drainage area of Heilongjiang River. The Great Xingan Mountains crossed Heilongjiang province and Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region from northeast to southwest. The mountains are high and the valleys are deep. There are a number of creeks and brooks in the mountains. The Small Xingan Mountains slant to southeast along the upper reaches of Heilongjiang River and the lie of the mountain is gentle. In the Xingan Mountains that stretch in an unbroken chain for a thousand miles, there are dense virgin forests everywhere in which there are many hardy species such as larch, red pine, birch, oak and poplar, and many native products and medicinal materials such as edible fungus, mushroom, hazel and persimmon. In the woods, inhabit many rare birds and animals such as tiger, bear, deer, elk, roe, boar, ermine, fox and pheasant. In the river, cruise many kinds of fish such as salmon and Huso dauricus. The Oroqen people hunted in the immense forest for roes and wild deer in all the four seasons for generations, by a gun, a horse and a gundog. It is not until the 1950s that they came out of the silver birch woods, stepped down from the Xingan Mountains and began a resident life of semi-farming and semi-hunting. In the 1990s, it was not until the complete preserve of Xingan Mountains that hunting activities gradually retreated from their lives. In Outer Mongolia the Mongolians do not know how to fish, despite vast virgin lakes and rivers,

The Oroqen people "Oroqen" is the name called by the nationality itself. The meaning has two explanations: one is "the people inhabiting on mountains" and the other is "the people employing reindeer". Before the Qing Dynasty, the Oroqen was generally called "Suolun clan", "Hunting clan" or "Deer employing clan". The name of "Oroqen" first appeared in the twenty-second year of Kangxi period. It was often written in the historical records of Han Dynasty as "Erchun", "Elechun", "Eluchun", "Elunqi" and so on. After the foundation of P. R. China, the nationality was called the "Oroqen" by the joint name.

The Oroqen has its own language but doesn't have its characters. Its language belongs to the Manchu-Tungus group of the Altai phylum. There are a lot of Oroqen people who also have a good command of Chinese, the Ewenki language and the Daur language. Chinese is the current language.

The Oroqen people believe in Shamanism and admire nature. See more about this inother parts of this WEBSITE

They are an ethnic group in northern China. They form one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China. According to the 2000 Census, 44% live in Inner Mongolia and 52% along the Heilongjiang River (Amur) in the province of Heilongjiang. The Oroqin Autonomous Banner is also located in Inner Mongolia.

The Oroqens are mainly hunters and it is customary of them to use animal fur and skins for clothing. Many of them have given up hunting and adhered to laws that aimed to protect wildlife in the People's Republic of China. The government is said to have provided modern dwellings for those who have left behind the traditional way of life. The Oroqen are represented in the People's Congress by their own delegate and they are a recognized ethnic minority.

Language

The Oroqen language is a Northern Tungusic language. Their language is very similar to the Evenki language and it is believed that speakers of these two languages can understand 70% of the other language. Their language is still unwritten; however, the majority of the Oroqen are capable of reading and writing Chinese and some can also speak the Daur language.

History

The Oroqen ethnic group is one of the oldest ethnic groups in northeast China. Their name Oroqen, means "people using reindeer" (in Mongolian, it means "Guruchin"), it is a name they gave themselves. The ancestor of the Oroqens originally lived in the vast area south of the Outer Xing'an Mountains and north of Heilongjiang.

They once formed part of the ancient people known as the Shiwei. In the 17th century, following the invasions by Russia, some Oroqens moved to the area near the Greater and Lesser Xing'an Mountains.

Culture

The Oroqen are exogamous and only marriages among members of different clans are permitted. The traditional dwelling is called a sierranju (Chinese: xierenzhu) is covered in the summer with birch bark and in the winter with deer furs. These dwellings have conical forms and are made out of 20 to 30 pine sticks. The dwellings are usually about six meters of diameter and five meters of height. In the center a fire is placed that serves so much as of a kitchen and as of source of lighting. It is a "TeePee". Birch bark is an important raw material in the traditional culture next to the furs. It served for the preparation of containers of all types, from the manufacture of children cradles to boats. With respect to the reindeer herding Evenki, Oroqen and Nanai, which all shared the use of birch bark, it can be said that these cultures are part of a "birch bark" culture. Basically, teepees.

Religion

Until the early 1950s the main religion of the nomadic Oroqen was shamanism, the same as the Mongolians of Ghengkis Khan's time (13th Century). In the summer of 1952 cadres of the Chinese communist party coerced the leaders of the Oroqen to give up their "superstitions" and abandon any religious practices. These tribal leaders, Chuonnasuan (Meng Jin Fu) and Zhao Li Ben, were also powerful shamans. The special community ritual to "send away the spirits" and beg them not to return was held over three nights in Baiyinna and in Shibazhan.

The last living shaman of the Oroqen, Chuonnasuan (Meng Jin Fu), died at the age of 73 on October 9, 2000.

Sacrifices to ancestral spirits are still routinely made, and there is a folk psychological belief in animism.

Traditionally the Oroqen venerated of a special way to the animals, especially to the bears and to the tigers, which they consider their blood brothers. The tiger is known to them as wutaqi which signifies "elderly man" while the bear is amaha which signifies "uncle?

Oroqen (also known as Orochon, Oronchon, Olunchun, Elunchun, Ulunchun) is a Tungusic language spoken in the People's Republic of China. Dialects are Gankui and Heilongjiang. Gankui is the standard dialect.

Oroqen is spoken by more than 2.000 speakers. Most speakers live in the Heilongjiang province in the northeast of the People's Republic of China.

The Oroqen language is linguistically allocated to the northern subdivision of the Tungus languages, which are commonly regarded as member of the Altaic language family (together with the Turkic and Mongolian languages). Qoroqen is very closely related to Evenki. Some scholars even consider it a dialect of Evenki.

Oroqen is an oral language.

Oroqen has vowel harmony. Vowel harmony can be described as a set of progressive assimilation rules, which only affects vowels.

Oroqen has a rich agglutinative morphology, which is characterised by suffixing.

The Oroqen noun has more than ten cases. The noun uses several plural suffixes. Oroqen has no gender distinction. All pronouns have an inclusive-exclusive distinction in the first person plural. Oroqen has an elaborate system of pronominal suffixes with possessive meaning. The pronominal suffixes also show an exclusive-inclusive distinction in the first person plural. The adjective is inflected for case and number and agrees with the head noun in these categories.

The Oroqen verb is characterised by rich morphology and a huge amount of suffixes. In particular there is an immense stock of suffixes denoting aspectual nuances.
The Oroqen verb has seven persons (the first person has an inclusive and an exclusive form) and seven simple tenses (present, non-future, near future, future inchoative, future, past and past habitual).

Relative sentences are expressed by participles and converbs. Converbs are special verb forms, which are neither conjugated nor nominal. In linguistic literature they are sometimes called 'gerunds' or 'verbal adverbs'. They act as adverbs, conjunctions and often they meet the functions of subordinate clauses.

The unmarked word order in neutral indicative sentences is SOV. Alternative orders are possible under certain contextual conditions. Participles and converbs are used to express subordinate clauses. Relative clauses may precede or follow the head noun.

You will think you are seeing American Indians. There are many peoples who look just like the American Indians in Russia, Northern China, and Japan (the Ainu)