Chao News Written by Zhu Yifan Yang Shidan.
The Oroqen are in the spotlight this time.
At the beginning of the new year, people wearing roe deer horn hats and fur costumes led reindeer to parade on the streets of Harbin ** on the hot search of major platforms. Netizens found that this cute hat is a national costume from the Oroqen people.
More than 600 kilometers away, the people of the Oroqen Autonomous Banner of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region also saw this. My own clothing culture is "out of the circle" in Harbin, how can I take advantage of this popularity to let more people know about this ancient and brave nation?
They chose to wear the clothes handed down from their ancestors and walked on Harbin ** Street in person, so that the lifelike roe deer horn hat could be seen by more people.
The Oroqen nationality has less than 10,000 people in the country, what kind of nationality is this? How are you doing now?
Recently, the reporter followed their footsteps, came to Harbin ** Street, went deep into the hinterland of the Daxing'an Mountains in Inner Mongolia, and found their people living in the Linhai Snow Plain, as well as the Oroqen CCTV reporters and new energy vehicle engineers who went from the snow field to the big city, etc., their current life.
Photo by reporter Zhu Yifan, Oroqen Autonomous Banner, Hulunbuir City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
In Harbin** Street, it is out of the circle.
This group of Oroqen people "went out" at their own expense
Take an extra hour by plane, you can reach the beautiful Oroqen, and everyone is welcome to come and play. ”
In mid-January, at six o'clock in the evening on Harbin ** Street, the reporter met Shen Xiaoyu and her companions who were parading. Among the crowd wrapped in thick down jackets, yellow roe deer fur suits and tall roe deer horn hats stand out on this street.
Shen Xiaoyu is paraded on ** Street Photo by reporter Yang Shidan.
Yesterday we came out at half past nine in the evening and cruised for two hours, basically walking less than 10 meters. Everyone wants to touch and touch our hats and clothes. Shen Xiaoyu is a Han nationality, at the age of 19, she came to Alihe Town, located in the Oroqen Autonomous Banner of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and lived for more than 20 years.
Asked about the Oroqen people who first came to Harbin, Shen Xiaoyu said that they had been invited to other provinces and cities to do publicity. Through social platforms, the reporter contacted Xiao Tian (ID: Oroqen Xiaotian) and Xiaohu (ID: Tiger Bell), who first came to Harbin ** Street.
Xiao Tian was born in Guli Township, Oroqen Autonomous Banner, Inner Mongolia, and is 34 years old this year. On the evening of January 3, she found on Douyin that someone was wearing an Oroqen roe deer horn hat and became popular in Harbin, so she changed her clothes and pulled her younger brother Xiaohu in the afternoon of the next day, and bought a ticket to set off at her own expense.
Screenshot of Xiao Tian's Douyin account.
As young people, we have the responsibility to promote national culture, and we will boldly rush forward when we do the right thing. Xiao Tian said that due to the small number of people, the unique culture will be lost if no one promotes it, and the Internet is one of the fastest and most convenient ways to disseminate it.
According to the China Statistical Yearbook-2021, the population of the Oroqen ethnic group is 9,168. The Oroqen people are mainly found in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and the northern part of Heilongjiang Province.
From the moment they got on the train, the filming of ** also began. Xiaohu is more experienced in **editing, so he raced against time to catch the hot spots, and released the first ** on the train, which unexpectedly received nearly 10,000 likes. As soon as they got off the train, the sister and brother ran to ** Street to start the live broadcast.
The day after they arrived in Harbin, nearly 15 clansmen also set off from Inner Mongolia and drove for five hours to the side of the sister and brother, and 47-year-old Guan Yonggang was the one who led the team. The ethnic culture and customs of the Oroqen are mostly passed down orally, and how to let more people know and how to better pass them on is what the people have always been concerned about. At this good time to promote to the outside world, Guan Yonggang said that everyone is "responding to one call". So it only took him half a day from having an idea to calling everyone to set off together.
Unexpectedly, as soon as he entered ** Street, he and his clansmen were surrounded by groups, and more than 1,000 photos were taken that night. There was even a little boy who was led by his parents to cry and run to catch up with him because he didn't take a photo.
In Guan Yonggang's live broadcast, they sang "Oroqen Minor" on ** Street, inviting tourists to learn to dance Oroqen dance together. In the comments in the live broadcast room, many netizens asked: "Do Oroqen people also wear these clothes in their lives now?" "Are you still hunting in the mountains? ”。
In order to answer these doubts, Guan Yonggang took the reporter to Dayangshu Town, Oroqen Autonomous Banner, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, where he lived.
Visit the hinterland of the Daxing'an Mountains at minus 30 degrees Celsius.
See how the hunters of yesteryear fit into modern society.
More than 2,800 kilometers away from Hangzhou, the Oroqen Autonomous Banner is located in the hinterland of the Great Xing'an Mountains, and the mountains and severe cold cover this ancient land. It is rare to imagine living in a primeval forest at minus 30 degrees Celsius, but it is home to the largest number of Oroqen people in the country, with a total of 3,047 (data from the 7th National Census). Starting from Alihe Town, where the flag is located, it takes an hour and a half to drive to Dayangshu Town.
Along the way, outside the car window is a snow-capped mountain forest, and there are few traces of a village. The snow that has not yet melted on both sides of the road, about 20 centimeters deep, shuttles through the icy road, and Guan Yonggang's house is in a small neighborhood in the town.
I have stopped hunting for a long time, and I have been banned from hunting for almost 30 years. "Without deliberately mentioning it, no one will notice that Guan Yonggang was once a hunter galloping through the forest on horseback. However, when he became an adult, the mountains and forests were forbidden to hunt, and he had to face the reality of going into the town to get a job.
It was not easy to enter society as a primitive hunter, and in the twenty years since, he has also been confused, doubting what else this pair of shotgun can do. Having joined the Forest Guard, worked as a patrol officer, and worked as a long-distance driver, he was constantly trying new directions.
Six years ago, he was admitted to the career establishment of the Guli Township Comprehensive Law Enforcement Bureau, bought this house, and began to live a life from work to home like most people. But as he grew older, he missed the temperature of the mountains and forests more and more.
When I was young, I was playful and didn't know much about my own national culture, and I found out that this is our spiritual sustenance. Guan Yonggang's other identity is the head of the Mozhigen Folk Art Troupe, and in his spare time, the members of the troupe gather together to sing Zandaren and dance the bear dance. And this is also the way that the old hunters used to express their emotions.
Kwan Yonggang performing outside Courtesy of the interviewee.
As for the roe deer fur costume, Guan Yong just kept it in the closet of the room. He said that now this is not worn every day, only the major festivals of the Oroqen people will be worn, and each piece is a "family heirloom".
At Guan Yonggang's age, many clansmen walked out of the mountains and found a job. And the older generation of hunters, many still live in the hunter villages in the town.
The reporter met 66-year-old Ge Serrong in the hunter village of Dobkul near the town. In 2005, in order to improve transportation and medical care, she and dozens of other hunters moved here en masse and lived in a two-bedroom, centrally heated bungalow.
I'm satisfied now, I don't have to go up the mountain to chop firewood or carry water. Ge Serong recalls the winter when she was 13 years old, when the extreme north was bitterly cold, and the mountains were inhabited by "fairy pillars" wrapped in birch bark and animal skins, which often leaked wind and had to light fires to keep warm. Thin and small, she took the horse alone and carried the cart on a large wheel, and went up the mountain to chop a cart full of firewood.
Photo by reporter Zhu Yifan of Dobukul Hunter Village, Oroqen Autonomous Banner, Hulunbuir City.
Having experienced the safari life of the last century, Ge Serong said with a smile that his life was quite smooth and he had not experienced a particularly difficult stage. Nowadays, hunters are learning to grow potatoes, soybeans and other foods that they could not see before, and they are gradually getting used to eating them from the beginning. Like many hunters, by renting out the 300 acres of land cultivated by her family, she can increase her income by tens of thousands of yuan a year, and she no longer needs to worry about the family's firewood, rice, oil and salt.
Living such a leisurely life, she also has a simple but unfulfilled wish: "I want to go back to Chaoyang Hunter Village at the foot of the mountain with my childhood friends, this is where I grew up." But we didn't know how to drive, so we never made it, and now those old men are gone. ”
Ge Serong and the birch bark box she made Photo by reporter Yang Shidan.
As an older generation of hunters, I can let go of the shotgun, but I can't let go of my obsession with the mountain. Like Gasseron, Kailuhan's father lived in the village of Hiriteki in Tozamin Township and was a hunter for generations. Until now, my father has always kept the hunting horses and hunting dogs left by my grandfather, and they have been breeding and growing up in the stable next to the house from generation to generation. Every morning, I led the horse to drink water, and then rode the horse up the hill for a walk.
With a leap of a thousand years, the Oroqen people started a new life. Out of the mountains, but still yearn for the mountains. Although outsiders did not understand, Kailuhan said that his father had been a hunter all his life, and the mountains were his home.
The people on horseback broke out of the snowfield.
Dialogue with CCTV reporters, Li Auto engineers and college students.
In addition to staying in the settlements, the Oroqen people are also trying to light up other parts of China's territory.
Downstairs in the hotel where the reporter lived, he met Zhang Lingang, who was also from Oroqen. He was born in 1960 in Xinsheng Oroqen Nationality Township, Heihe City, Heilongjiang Province, and became a reporter for "Focus Interview" in 1996, filming many well-known programs such as "The Myth and Truth of Snow Swallow" and "The Death of the Swan", and also left a lot of precious images for his hometown.
From the depths of the Great Khing'an Mountains to the capital Beijing, from galloping through the mountains and forests with a shotgun to walking around the corners of China with a camera, Zhang Lingang bluntly said that it was the Shanghai educated youth who went to the countryside in 1968 to change his fate.
Without their training, I would never have been able to get out of the mountains. That year, because of the arrival of educated youth, this group of children in the deep mountains received education outside the mountains for the first time. Eight years later, when the educated youth returned to Shanghai, Zhang Lingang wanted to take the college entrance examination, and self-study became his only way.
One day, he received a letter from Shanghai educated youth, and the moment he opened it, he was surprised and delighted - there was a mock question in it, which was the first time he knew about the existence of mock exams. Every week from then on, what he looked forward to most was going to the letterbox to pick up a new test question. And this correspondence continued until the college entrance examination. It was the encouragement of the teacher, who was 3,000 kilometers away, that made Zhang Lingang the only child in the class who insisted on studying.
Today, he has been retired for many years. By chance, he came into contact with archery. With his childhood ability to play on the mountains without missing a shot, his archery skills are also full of hits. When he returned to his hometown this time, he stayed in a hotel in the town for 8 months, and when he had time, he looked for some children who love archery in the archery hall and taught them personally: "I believe that the children of Oroqen are talented, and I want to send them to international archery competitions." ”
With the development of education and the abundance of teachers, in recent years, it is no longer difficult for the children of the ethnic group to go to school, and more and more children have gone out of the ethnic settlements and written the stories of this ethnic group in all corners of China.
Mo Renjie is 27 years old this year and was born in Xin'e Oroqen Township, Xunke County, Heihe City, Heilongjiang Province. After graduating from Wuhan University of Technology in 2022, he worked as an engineer at Li Auto's Shanghai R&D headquarters.
Although he left the ethnic township at a young age, and it is rare for him to return home on weekdays, his feelings for his hometown are deep in his bones. There is a small object that he has always carried with him, called the harmonica, which is a musical instrument that has been passed down from generation to generation in the family. It appears to be a thin piece of iron, larger than a key, and when you pluck the strings with your fingertips, you can create a dynamic melody and imitate the sounds of birds and animals and many other natural sounds.
Harmonica provided by the respondents.
He said, "After coming out for so many years, it has never been far from me, which is a kind of longing for my hometown." Although it is a cold piece of metal, it can transmit the temperature of my hometown. ”
An Rui updated a circle of friends in September last year, which was a screenshot of a graduate student in the Department of History of Fudan University.
Born in 2001 in Alihe Town, Oroqen Autonomous Banner, she has completely bid farewell to the hunting era. Although she did not personally experience the grass and warbler flying in that era, her mother used ancient and melodious folk songs to let her feel the story of the Oroqen people in the mountains and forests, and in 2022, she passed the national flag on behalf of the Oroqen at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics.
Because the Oroqen people have no written language, only language, and lack historical materials, there are few records of the culture of Northeast Asia, including the Oroqen people, from a historical point of view, and she told reporters in a low voice: "I want to do my best to play a little role in preserving the culture of the nation." ”
An Rui at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics Courtesy of the interviewee.
Liu Xiaochun, a researcher at the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, believes that the hunting culture of the Oroqen has become an indispensable part of the diverse culture of the Chinese nation by virtue of its academic, ecological, moral and ethical and economic values, and has also formed the national spirit of the Oroqen people of "reverence for nature, obedience to nature, honesty and bravery, and patriotism first".
Nowadays, the Oroqen people have long since walked out of the mountains, bid farewell to the history of "living in the felt curtain and living by the water", and ended the nomadic life of "one person, one horse and one gun". But the courage to walk in the forest with a shotgun made them break into a new world outside the mountains and forests. The story of Oroqen, the reporter only spied the tip of the iceberg, as Xiaohu said: "The biggest charm of Oroqen is mystery, and I hope that this mystery will attract more and more people to understand it." ”
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