Haidongqing, with a strong physique, means a cyan eagle flying from the east side of the sea, which belongs to a large bird of prey. In ancient times, the Jurchens regarded Hai Dongqing as their best hunting partner. In the north of our country, between the white mountains and black waters, there are several villages that still retain the tradition of boiling eagles and the custom of falconry.
Ullah Folklore Notes
Text: Hu Donglin, painting: Bu Zhaoyu.
1.In the past, the Songhua River was rich in big fish (Shi's sturgeon), which was a famous product of Wula City to pay tribute to the imperial court. In that year, the Qing court also set up an eagle workshop in the area of the birch bark factory to pay tribute to the eagle eagle eagle. The city of Ula is famous for its abundant products. "Yongji County Chronicles" contains: "Five miles away from Suhuyan Island, there is a fishing building. Ula tastes to pay tribute to the fish, which is the use of the building to store the fish fishing nets, so it is named. During the Guangxu period, the local rare birds and beasts gradually became extinct due to the rapid increase in population and people's excessive reclamation and indiscriminate cutting, building bridges and dams, etc., and the "eagle style" gradually fell into the people.
2.The old man Xi Kun of Dayulou Village in Jilin City, Jilin Province and Guan Bairong of Hantun inherited the falcon skills of their ancestors and left them to future generations. There are several steps for falconry, falconry, falconry, and sending falconry. Please eagle is also called pull eagle, that is, net catching. Please have a complete set of customs before the eagle. "Eagle Handle Style" first to sacrifice to the eagle god Gege, burn incense, Gongmir wine, build a mountain temple with three mountain stones, symbolize the nine-story heavenly golden building shrine where the eagle god lives. When bowing in the "eagle style", he also recites in his mouth: "Which state was born in which state was you born, and which high mountain is your hometown?" Today, my friend invited you to my house... Then the "eagle handle" on the mountain to choose a nest and the wind and the sun to set up an eagle field, open the net to set up the bait pigeon, hold the net in the shack and wait. When a bait pigeon looks at the sky, it shows that it has spotted a predator. Because the eagle is rushing very fast, when the bait pigeon jumps high or fails (dodges), the eagle is already approaching, and must immediately pull the net. After winning the eagle, the "eagle handle style" has to hold the eagle with both hands and thank the eagle god again.
3.After taking the eagle home, the "eagle handle style" tied it to the eagle pestle and did not let it sleep for several days, so as to kill its wild nature, and at the same time could not feed the eagle, and used starvation to make it slowly obey people's commands. This process is called "boiling eagles". However, an eagle hunger strike cannot last more than nine days. As the saying goes: "If you don't take it, you won't be able to do it." The "eagle handle" must hold the eagle to eat, and at the same time, it must also carry the eagle to a crowded place, so that it is gradually familiar with the living environment of human beings and get used to getting along with people.
4.After seven or eight days, the eagle should be given "food". "Eagle Handle Style" takes a live sparrow to tease it to capture, summons the eagle to jump from the eagle pestle to the human arm over and over again, so that the eagle is finally accustomed to perching and resting on the human arm, which is called "passing the fist", and then takes the eagle outdoors, still teasing the eagle with food, so that the eagle glides from a distance along a long rope to the human arm, which is called "running rope", and finally the rope is removed, the eagle is placed on the big tree, and it is called from a distance, which is called "wild calling". After these steps, the eagle can listen to the call and fly back to its owner from the mountain. The raw eagle becomes a mature eagle, showing the posture of "drooping feathers and claws, head saisong tower, and eyes like sesame seeds", indicating that the eagle is domestic. 
5.The eagle is a very spiritual animal, and its different calls can express about 20 meanings. A good "eagle style" can understand more than a dozen of them, and such a person can be called an eagle whisperer. It is said that eagle whisperers can talk to eagles when they are falconry, and it takes them 7 to 10 days to train an eagle, compared to three weeks for the average eagle maker. The tamed eagle is the treasure of the owner, and the owner takes good care of it.
6.The tamed eagle went up the mountain to fight the siege, and asked a few "cane drivers". They had chosen an ambush circle (also called an urn circle) on the mountain in advance, which was shaped like a bracelet and left an exit called the "mouth of the staff". The "cane catcher" pulls away from the skirmishers, knocks the trunk of a large tree with a stick, and shouts loudly, blasting the prey into the mouth of the cane. The "Eagle Handle Type" first frames the eagle to climb high and look at the mouth of the stick, which is convenient for spotting the flying pheasants and hares, and is also conducive to the eagle diving and attacking from top to bottom.
7.Haidongqing also has an ancient name called "Songkunluo", which is translated as "Colorful Divine Fire" in Chinese. The origin of this name is that hunters like to tie the colorful pheasant feathers to the tail of the eagle and then install the eagle whistle. When it pierced the sky like black lightning, and the colorful feathers swirled like a cluster of fluttering flames, the eagle whistle also let out a sharp roar, and the prey was already frightened by the sound and color of the air attack. Haidongqing is actually a goshawk, but it is also the Jurchens' collective name for all kinds of eagles and falcons that can be tamed for falconry, such as sparrowhawks, peregrine falcons, golden eagles, harriers, black kites, etc. "Eagle Handle" is called by different names according to their different coat colors and characteristics, such as "grape flower", "green eyes", "red hair", "grass white", "chrysanthemum", "thirteen yellows", etc., among which the most precious is "white jade claw".
8.The "white jade claw", whose scientific name is the spear falcon, lives in the tundra belt of the Arctic, and it is the largest of the falcons. The color of this eagle feather is divided into black and white, the white one has spear-shaped gray-blue feathers, and it often flies in a straight line when hunting, and rushes straight towards its prey like a meteor. It is the most beautiful falcon in the world. In the autumn of 1991, a "white jade claw" landed on the eagle field of Zhao Mingze, a falconier in the fishing building, but he did not pull it. From that day on, he was in a battle with the eagle, which was as white as snow, and people were waiting for the final result of the battle between the best falconer and the rare white eagle. But since 1994, the proud and beautiful bird has never returned...
9."White jade claw" is indeed the best product of the Haidong Qing clan, and only the emperor has raised and played with it in the imperial court of all dynasties. "Liubian Chronicles" contains: "Please Eagle Haidongqing, Manchu and Han people dare not livestock, will send Melle Zhangjing (Manchu: deputy general, deputy capital); If the color is pure white, Meler Zhangjing will not dare to live, and will be sent to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. "In the Tang Dynasty, there were already northern ethnic minorities paying tribute to the royal family. The great poet Li Bai once wrote a poem and praised: "In August, the wind is high, and Hu Ying is white brocade. Flying alone in a piece of snow, you can see everything for a hundred miles. (One of the two songs of the White Eagle). At that time, the white eagle had the species of Yuyang white, Mobei white, and Jingyi white, all of which were vigorous and incomparable famous eagles.
10.Hai Dongqing is extremely fast and fast when diving and attacking, reaching speeds of up to 360 kilometers per hour. The literati of the Liao Dynasty praised: "Bai Haiqing, big only like a falcon, both vertical, straight up to the green underworld, almost invisible, the swan to the air, from top to bottom, with claws to grab its head, holding each other to the ground." With a few strokes, his handsomeness leaped onto the page.
11.Falcons are easier to catch quails, pheasants and other birds, but mammals such as foxes and rabbits often have a fierce fight, especially when it comes to the red-haired rabbit, which is both a boxer and a good duck. Experienced eagles tend to fight in tandem and win by hunting. The fierce eagle claws are so strong that they can't be pulled out of the cracks in the rabbit's backbone, so they have to be carried away by the rabbit, which is called "sitting in a rabbit car". In order to shake off the enemy on its back, the rabbit will jump into the thorn bushes, cut the skin of the bird of prey, and finally both will die. Some of the eagle's talons got stuck in the rabbit's spine and couldn't pull it out, so they took the risk of fighting desperately, and the other claw firmly grasped the trunk of the tree next to them. One is running wildly, the other is pulling, and two animals in distress will have great explosive power at a critical moment, and that huge pulling force can sometimes tear the falcon in half!
12.Eagles, like predators such as tigers and leopards, are the ultimate consumers at the top of the food chain pyramid and are indicators of changes in the ecological chain. Their survival depends on the underlying organisms – from soil-nurturing plants and insects to the small birds, fish and amphibians that feed on them. Once an intermediate link is broken, the food chain collapses, and the first to be extinct is the top ultimate. In the past, the Qing court's raids on the Ula region made the rare flora and fauna here increasingly scarce. Nowadays, under the protection policy of the state, the ecological environment is gradually restored.
13.Eagles prefer to settle on cliffs and tall and lonely trees, and each eagle needs 3 km of nesting area in the field or woodland and more than 30 km of foraging territory. Once they build a nest, they will never give up their territory, and they will stick to it no matter how difficult the environment is. They usually lay two to three eggs at a time, but only one chick survives, and 70% of the young eagles die in the first year due to inexperience and starvation. Conservation orders implemented in recent years have brought many wildlife species back to their populations.
14.Finally, let's talk about sending eagles, which is an ancient custom that has been passed down from generation to generation by the Jurchens. Humans must follow the objective laws of nature and let the eagle return to the mountains and forests to court, nest and reproduce. From winter to spring, the "eagle handles" have set up eagles up the mountain, and in accordance with the rules left by their ancestors, they reluctantly release their mature partners back to nature. Folk hunters who raise falcons have an iron rule: no eagles are left in spring and summer.
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