Traditional customs of the Ewenki people
Ewenki (Russian: венки, formerly known as Tunguska or Sauron) is a ethnic group in Northeast Asia. It was once called Tunguska in Russia and is now named Evenki. It has about 50,000 people and is mainly distributed in Siberia; The Ewenki people in China mainly live in the Ewenki Autonomous Banner of the Hulunbuir League in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Others are scattered in Chenbarhu Banner, Erguna Left Banner, Molidawa Banner, Arun Banner, Zhalantun City, Nehe County, Heilongjiang Province and other places, and most of them live intermingled with Mongolia, Daur, Han, Oroqen and other ethnic groups. There are three branches of the Ewenki people in China: the Soran tribe, the Tunguska tribe and the Ewenki tribe.
"Ewenki" is the self-proclaimed name of the Ewenki people, which means "people living in the mountains and forests." Historically, due to the relationship between their living areas, the Ewenki people collectively referred to the large mountains and forests in the Daxing 'an Mountains, including the Outer Xing' an Mountains to the Amazar River and the upper reaches of the Lena River, collectively referred to as "Egeduwuri" or "Egedeng"(Ewenki means "big mountain"). There is also a saying: "Ewenki" means "people who go down the mountain" or "people who live on the south slope." Both of the above explanations show that the Ewenki people are hunting people in the mountains and forests. With the development of history, some people have moved out of the mountains and forests to grasslands and river valley plains, while some still remain in the mountains and forests. The name "Ewenki" reflects the ancient history and life of the Ewenki people who have close connections with the mountains and forests.
The language and culture of the Ewenki people are unique. They belong to the northern branch of the Tungusic language family of the Altaic family. In daily life, most of the Ewenki people use their own language and do not have their own written language. Most Ewenki herdsmen use Mongolian, while farmers widely use Chinese.
The Ewenki people developed from nomadic to settled people and engaged in animal husbandry production methods. Their traditional culture is extremely rich, the most prominent is the clothing culture and food culture.
The clan organization of the Ewenki people is called "Hala". People in the same Hara are all related by blood and share a common ancestor and surname. The Ewenki people generally name their clans after the names of rivers, mountains, people's names or places of residence. Therefore, each hala has a fixed name, and its clan names all have certain meanings. For example,"Dural"(people living by the river),"Tukedon"(people living at the foot of the bald mountain), and "Nahata"(people living on the southern slope of the mountain). People from the same clan have a common ancestral god, called "Shewoke" or "Aojiao 'er". Intermarriage among members of the clan is strictly prohibited. During the Republic of China, due to the influence of the household registration system and Han culture, many clans in mountainous and agricultural areas simplified their surnames. For example, the "Dural" clan is abbreviated as Du, the "Tukedong" clan is abbreviated as Tu or Dai, and the "Nahata" clan is abbreviated as Na.
Each clan had its own leader, called "Harada". Harada was elected through democratic election of clan members, and there is no unified stipulation on the duration of his term of office. If Harada acted unfairly, he could be removed by the clan members 'assembly. Harada has the right to convene a meeting of clan members at a designated place to discuss and handle important internal affairs within the clan. At the same time, Harada also has the right to handle disputes within the clan and punish those who violate clan customary laws.
Above the clan organization of the Ewenki, there are tribes. Therefore, the Ewenki people in the Qing Dynasty could be divided into several tribes. The tribal elders 'council is formed by each clan leader from the same tribe to elect the tribal chiefs. The Ewenki tribes are also named after place names, river names, and mountain names. For example, the Alun tribe is the Ewenki people living in the Alun River Basin and consists of three clans: "Dural","Tukedong" and "Nahata";"Genqian" is the Ewenki people living in the Guri River, and there are three major clans: "Tukedong","Nahata" and "Kartakir".
Due to the influence of factors such as migration and population reproduction, the Ewenki clan divided into several large families, which are called "Maohao" in Ewenki. "Maohao" is a patrilineal family commune based on public ownership. It is usually composed of descendants of the same patrilineal ancestor within ten generations.
The Ewenki people do not have a fixed residence in the forest."Cuoluozi" is their traditional dwelling. "Cuoluozi" is called "Xiluozhu" in Ewenki. Its shape is like the "oblique man column" of the Oroqen people. It is about 3 meters high and about 4 meters in diameter. It is a conical building. It is actually a round shack made of pine poles and is also a very simple tent. The covering of "Cuoluozi" varies with the seasons. Birch bark is generally used in summer, and muntjac and deerskin are wrapped in winter. Although the Ewenki people have no fixed residence, they have fixed buildings, which are their warehouses. Their warehouse is extremely strange: first, the treetops of two adjacent trees were cut off and used as pillars, and then wood was used to build a suspended warehouse, and a wooden column with a cut staircase was erected obliquely on the ground to serve as a ladder. They never lock food, game, clothes, utensils, etc. in the warehouse. Other hunters can take it and use it at will and return it in full after the event.
The main housing in the pastoral area is a "yurt", which is round. Cover it with reed, willow or birch bark in summer. In winter, poor families still use reed as a cover, while wealthy families use felt as a cover.
Poor families near the mountainous areas live in short, moist "horse shelves"(made of adobe).
Most of the traditional costumes of the Ewenki people are made of leather. Use roe deer skin,(dog + rare) skin, deerskin, sheepskin, etc. to make winter robes, trousers, overpants, boots, hats, gloves, socks, etc. Women's gowns are mainly made of cloth. In rural areas, gowns must be trimmed and lined, and long and short vests should be covered on the outside when wearing the gowns. Aoluguya Ewenki women wear dresses with larger collars and white, black and red collar rims. Front flaps. Ewenki women in Chenbarhu Banner wear dresses in winter and summer, with narrow upper bodies and wide lower skirts. Married women wear colorful cloth about an inch wide sewn around their sleeves and wear vests with colorful cloth trim. The man's hat is conical. There are red tassels on the top, mostly blue cloth as the face. In summer, a single cloth hat is used, and in winter, the hat is made of lamb skin, otter skin or lynx skin. The Ewenki leather gloves are diverse, among which the 5-finger gloves are sewn with beautiful patterns, which are very refined. Boots made of roe deer and (dog + rare) leg skin are beautiful, moisture-proof, light and wear-resistant, and are suitable for walking in mountains, forests and snow.
The Ewenki people who live in the virgin forest of the Daxinganling Mountains in the north completely regard meat as their staple food in daily life. They eat Handa meat, deer meat, bear meat, wild boar meat, roe deer meat, chinchilla meat and flying dragons, pheasants, black-bone chickens, fish, etc. The eating methods are also slightly different from those in pastoral areas. Among them, the liver and kidneys of the Handa, deer, and roe deer are generally eaten raw, while other parts are cooked.
The Ewenki people in the pure animal husbandry production area take milk, meat, and noodles as their staple foods, and cannot leave milk tea for three meals a day. Not only do they use milk tea as a beverage, but they also often process milk tea into yogurt and dairy products. The main dairy products are: cream, butter, milk residue, dried milk and milk skin. The most common way to eat is to spread the extracted cream on bread or snack.
The traditional cooking and dining utensils of the Ewenki people are unique. They include cups and chopsticks made of Handa bones, wine cups made of antler horns, a belly of an Zi for boiled meat, and deer skin sewn with Handa tendons for grain pockets, various bowls, plates, etc. made of birch and leather. Nowadays, porcelain, aluminum, iron, and plastic products are widely used.
When the Ewenki people eat, the whole family sits on the ground around the fire, hangs an iron pot on a tripod, cuts the captured moose or other prey into pieces of meat, puts them into a boiling pot and rinses them. Most of the animal meat that is boiled out is covered with strands of blood and is half-cooked. People believe that eating this way is not only nutritious, but also easy to absorb.
The Ewenki people dried the remaining large amount of animal meat into dried meat and meat strips, stored it and eaten slowly. When going out hunting, they put it in deer bags as dry food.
The meat is mainly beef and mutton. In the past, each household consumed an average of about 20 sheep and two cattle every year. Before winter comes, it is the season when the Ewenki people slaughter a large number of livestock and store meat. The methods of eating meat include: hand-in-hand meat, filling blood sausage, boiling meat rice porridge, kebabs, etc.
Fish are mostly used for clear stewing. When stewing fish, only wild onions and salt are added to pay attention to the original flavor of the original soup. The Ewenki people rarely eat vegetables and only collect some wild onions and make them into pickles as side dishes. Since the early 1950s, staple foods have gradually been replaced by pasta such as noodles, pancakes, steamed buns, etc.
Drinks are mainly milk tea, and butter and milk residue are added according to personal taste when drinking. In addition, he also drinks flour tea and meat tea. The method of making it is to boil the tea, first strain off the tea leaves (usually brick tea is used), then add a small amount of stir-fried millet rice and salt, add appropriate amount of fresh milk, and boil it to make milk tea. Add butter and milk residue when drinking according to your personal taste. In addition, you also drink flour tea and meat tea. The flour tea is stir-fried millet rice into flour, stir-fried in an oil pan and then added with milk tea; the meat tea is cut into pieces and added with milk tea.
Marriage of the Ewenki is monogamy, which still retains the characteristics of external marriage among the clan and cousin marriage among the uncle. Marriage can only be carried out between different clans, and intermarriage is prohibited within the same clan. They also intermarried with Mongolian, Oroqen, Daur and other ethnic groups. The custom of "fleeing marriage" still exists among the Ewenki people in Chenbarhu Banner. After the young men and women who love each other decide on the date of marriage, the woman takes the night to escape to the "Cuoluozi" built by the man, and the old woman waiting here changes the girl's eight pigtails into two, and it becomes a legal marriage. After death, heaven burials (i.e., wind burials) were used, but later due to the influence of neighboring ethnic groups, earth burials were often changed.
The Ewenki people like to sing. Their folk songs are bold and unrestrained, full of grassland and forest flavor. Its characteristics are that the scene creates emotion and improvise lyrics. There are many songs where they use the same tune and fill in different words on different occasions to express their emotions. The melodious and unrestrained melody expresses the broad mind and simple character of the Ewenki people living in the forests and grasslands. Their folk songs, both songs and poems, are expressed through singing. There are long and short, several lines, and dozens of lines. Most of the shorter ones are lyrical songs, while the shorter ones are called story songs.
Ewenki people like group dances with simple, lively steps. Most of them use women's dances to express the production and life of the Ewenki people. There are mainly "Ahambai","Aidaha Xileng Dance" and "Zhehui Leng Dance".
The Ewenki people admire swans and use swans as their totem. The swan dance is a folk dance of the Ewenki people. It is called "Orriqi" in Ewenki. In their spare time, women like to imitate the various postures of swans and dance for themselves, which gradually evolved into a fixed dance-the swan dance.
The "Mikuolu Festival", which falls on May 22 every year, is a traditional folk festival of the Ewenki people, which is spread among the Ewenki people in Chenbarhu Banner, Inner Mongolia. On this day, people hold horse racing and horse racing competitions, and cut the ears of lambs born in that year as a mark. According to traditional customs, the elderly should present lambs to their younger generations, wishing them a happy life in the future. They should also host a banquet to entertain relatives and friends and announce the number of their young animals that year.
The "Ominareng" meeting is a grand religious event and entertainment festival in the pastoral area. It is usually held in August.
In addition, the "Aobao" Festival is also a relatively large religious festival in pastoral areas. When offering sacrifices to Aobao, oxen and sheep must be slaughtered as sacrifices to pray for the safety of people and animals.