In the distant northeast of China, along the Sanjiang Plain, which is composed of heilongjiang, Songhua and Ussuri rivers, there lives a mysterious ethnic group with a long history, the Hezhe people. They are also one of the least populous ethnic minorities on the mainland, currently numbering only 5,373.
The history of the Hull people can be traced back to the pre-Qin period of "Su Shen", also known as "Ru Lou" during the Han and Wei Dynasties, "Beji" during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and "Heishui Jingxiao" during the Sui and Tang Dynasties. The character "Hezhe" first appeared as a family name in the second year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1663) (from the Qing Shilu record) and was passed on. At the same time, the Hezhe ethnic group is also the only ethnic minority in the north that mainly focuses on fishing, and still retains the tradition of fishing and hunting.
In Jiamusi Tongjiang City, the population of the Hezhe ethnic group reached 1643 people, accounting for 1/3 of the total population of the Heshi ethnic group in the country. On May 24, 2016, General Secretary Xi Jinping visited Bacha Village, Bacha Hezhe Nationality Township, Tongjiang City, and praised the Hezhe ethnic group for its long history and rich culture, especially its superb fishing and hunting skills, exquisite pattern art, and Imakan rap.
Nowadays, in Tongjiang, the annual Hezhe Fishing and Hunting Culture Festival, Uzhgong Festival, Winter Fishing Festival, and Salmon Migration Festival are staged wonderfully, and Hezhe culture has become an important local label.
You must have heard of the fishskin clothes of the Hezhe people, so do you know that the Hezhe people are all skiers? Today, in Tongjiang, what other intangible cultural heritage of the Hezhe ethnic group can be seen? How to make good use of minority resources to develop a characteristic cultural tourism industry?
The Paper-Private Geography Column interviews Li Dingren, director of the Tongjiang Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center, and Li Jincheng, secretary of the Party Branch of the Tongjiang Tourism Development Service Center, to take you to the remote hinterland of the Sanjiang Plain and explore the legends of the Hezhe people.
The Paper: The Hezhe population in Tongjiang accounts for 1/3 of the total Population of the Hezhe ethnic group in the country. Can you give us a brief science popularization of the living conditions and ethnic characteristics of the local Hezhe people?
Li Dingren: Tongjiang, used to be called "Lahasusu", which means "old house" in the Hezhe language, in other words, this is the place where the Hezhe people first lived, and it is the birthplace of the Hezhe people.
Since ancient times, the ethnic minorities in the north have been nomadic people, and the Hezhe are no exception. They live by fishing and hunting, mainly living along the Heilongjiang, Songhua and Ussuri rivers, and have homosexual relations with the Evenk and Daur ethnic groups, as well as the Nanai people in Russia, and even the Eskimos and the Ainu people in Japan.
Most of the Hezhe also intermarried with Han Chinese, but they still retained an ancient way of production. Every spring, when the fish flood comes, the Hezhe people will open the river to fish, and then rest in the summer, until around the autumn dew, the big salmon migrate to the three rivers and go down the river again.
During the japanese occupation of northeast China, in order to prevent the Hezhe people from "passing through the Soviet Union" or participating in the anti-Japanese coalition army, the cruel policy of "clearing the wilderness with strong walls, gathering villages and tuns" was implemented, and the Hezhe people living along the Tongjiang River were forcibly driven out of the riverbank and merged into the first, second and third tribes in the swamp. Due to the extremely harsh living environment and the spread of disease, the Population of the Hezhe ethnic group has declined sharply. After liberation in 1945, the Population of the Hezhe ethnic group in China was only about 300 people, and it was on the verge of extinction.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, through the mainland's vigorous support for ethnic minorities, the population of the Hezhe ethnic group gradually increased. After the 1950s, the Hezhe people lived an agricultural life, diversified their fisheries and agriculture, and their lives were on the right track. In recent years, with the development of poverty alleviation work, the Hezhe people in Tongjiang and Liangxiang have also ushered in a well-off life.
The Paper: This year is the year of the Winter Olympics, want to know what traditional activities of the Hezhe people living in the cold zone are related to ice and snow?
Li Dingren: We often say that the Hezhe people "rely on two plates to go up the mountain in winter and three plates to go down the river." Among them, "two boards up the mountain" refers to skis. In winter, the Hezhe people put on a white robe with a hidden effect, step on skis, and can quickly climb over the mountains and chase their prey.
Wu Mingxin, the Imakan inheritor of the Tongjiang Hezhe ethnic group, who is now in his 80s, was selected as a skier to participate in training in Jiamusi as a skier at the age of 20, and is a skier of the Hezhe ethnic group.
"Three plates on the lower river" refers to the boat. The Hezhe people are good at making birchbar boats. Using wicker as a skeleton, birch bark as the bottom of the boat and boat gang, the boat that comes out of this way is light and easy to carry, a person can carry it up, rowing up very fast, these are important tools for their fishery production and life.
The Hezhe people are also good at winter fishing, and the experienced Hezhe people can often judge when the fish are coming, where the fish are, and then chisel the ice under the big net. Winter fishing also has its own unique "dry hook fishing" method, the hook is about 10 cm long, looks like a small fish, the head and tail are advantageous hooks, cast with lead. The hook is hung with a line into the ice cave, and it is constantly pulled, imitating the small fish that are bouncing around alive, and luring other big fish to swallow.
The experienced Hezhe people can often judge when the fish are coming, where the fish are, and then chisel the ice under the big net. Visual China figure
The Paper: Do the Hezhe people also celebrate the Spring Festival? What are the local folk activities during the Spring Festival?
Li Dingren: The Hezhe people also celebrate the Spring Festival, and one of the most important activities of the year before that year was the aforementioned winter fishing, going down the river to make up fresh fish, and pulling them back with sleighs as ingredients for the New Year. On the evening of Chinese New Year's Eve, men, women and children put on festive costumes and eat a reunion dinner.
Killing raw fish is an indispensable delicacy for the traditional Spring Festival of the Hezhe ethnic group. Slice the meat on both sides of the fish body, cut it into strips, mix it with the lettuce, and put some vinegar, one for sterilization and the other for freshness. There is also a dish, which is also our intangible cultural heritage, called "Taraha", which also takes slices of meat on both sides of the fish, then wears them with wicker and grills them on a campfire. After baking, eat with salt noodles.
The Hezhe people burn a roaring bonfire on the river beach, and after three rounds of wine and five flavors, the old people of the Hezhe tribe will sing Imakan. The Imakan is a form of rap that was inscribed by UNESCO on the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding in 2011. It is a kind of rap literature, without the accompaniment of instruments, and the main content is the legendary story of the conquest of the Hezhe tribe.
The old man sings the Imakan, the children dance the shamanic dance, this is the image of the Hezhe new year, of course, they will also paste couplets, hang lanterns, and folk paper cuts like the Han people. In the past, they lived in ground prints and horse racks, and the windows would paste fish skins, and later derived the "fish skin window flower".
Killing Raw Fish Visual China Figure
The Paper: In 2006, the fish skin making skills of the Hezhe ethnic group were approved by the State Council to be included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list. Can you tell us about this technique? Is it still there?
Li Dingren: In fact, most of the ethnic minorities in the north have the tradition of fishing, eating fish, and wearing fish skins. However, only the Hezhe people have passed down this fish skin making technique, which has a history of more than 3,000 years.
The Hezhe people are very clever, they take the fish skin off, dry it, stack it on top of the anvil, beat it with a wooden stick, a mallet or rub it by hand until the fish skin is as soft as cotton, sew it into clothes, and put it on to carry both wind and cold protection. Usually, a set of fish skin costumes has about 100 salmon skins, which can also be made with sturgeon, silver carp, pike, carp, etc.
In the 1970s and 1980s, an old man of the Hezhe tribe named You Cuiyu passed on the fish skin making skills of the Hezhe tribe and taught it to her daughter You Wenfeng. Now Juve Phoenix is also more than 70 years old. In 2006, the fish skin making skills of the Hezhe people were included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list. As conservation workers of intangible cultural heritage, we are also training young people to learn this ancient skill.
Tongjiang Street Jinkou Hezhe fishing village, fishskin clothing production heirs You Wenfeng made fishskin clothing. Visual China figure
For example, we have now developed some fishskin paintings, fishskin bags, fishskin shoes, etc., and also cooperated with some international brands. At present, 8 intangible cultural heritage workshops have also been established in Tongjiang City, and rescue, protection, inheritance and development are all carried out simultaneously.
Hezhe fishskin costume Visual China figure
The Paper: As far as I know, every year In Tongjiang, many cultural tourism activities will be carried out around the Culture of the Hezhe ethnic group, so what kind of Hezhe style can tourists experience when they come to Tongjiang?
Li Jincheng: There are 10 townships in Tongjiang City, of which 2 townships are Hezhe Townships, one is called Jiejinkou and the other is called Bacha.
In 2016, after General Secretary Xi jinping inspected Bacha Village in Bacha Town, Bacha Village has also become a Hezhe cultural village that we focus on building, for example, we have launched 4 Hezhe boutique tourism routes, so that tourists can feel the Elements of hezhe whenever they come here all year round, and there is also an intangible cultural heritage exhibition hall and a Hezhe folk museum to show the Hezhe culture in an all-round way. Jiejinkou Town is closer to Tongjiang City, and now the entire Jiejinkou Hezhe Folk Culture Village has become a national 4A-level scenic spot.
Tongjiang City Hezhe Intangible Cultural Heritage Exhibition Hall Li Dingren Picture
This year, in response to General Secretary Xi Jinping's call for "Iceberg Snow Mountain is also Jintai Yinshan Mountain" and to celebrate the Beijing Winter Olympics, we launched a series of activities of the Snow Festival, the theme of which is called "Burning Ice and Snow • Win-win Winter Olympics", including the Rural Spring Festival Gala, the online series of exhibitions of traditional sports projects of the Hezhe ethnic group, the online exhibition of fish skin painting, etc., and also organized the "My Ice and Snow Dream" snow sculpture exhibition, curling experience, ice and snow sports in primary and secondary schools.
In 2021, the number of tourists visiting Tongjiang City will reach 1.49 million, and the tourism revenue generated will reach 600 million.
The Hezhe people dressed in national costumes. Visual China figure
The Paper: In recent years, what innovations have been made in the development and revitalization of the Hezhe intangible cultural heritage?
Li Jincheng: The most famous cultural and creative products of the Hezhe people are fish skin painting, fishbone painting, and birch bark painting. In the past, we had a village shareholding economic cooperative, but it was not an institution that could directly connect with market capital, so in 2021, we set up a village investment company and set up a company with the village as a unit to assume this intermediate role.
In the initial stage, we encouraged village secretaries and village cadres to take the lead in registration. After registration, small workshops with characteristic cash crops or handicrafts can cooperate with the village investment company, which is responsible for attracting investment and investment. This change in business model is a highlight of our recent years. As far as I know, as of September 2021, Tongjiang City has established 98 village head companies, and almost every village has a village investment company.
With the development of the era of self-media, according to the interest of the public, the path of construction aiming is also changing. For example, in the Jiejinkou Hezhe Tourist Resort, we are currently building an inn with Hezhe elements, which we call "woodcut", which is a characteristic wooden traditional house, and we are also planning to build a "Hezhe food street". We also produced the Hezhe Imakon opera "La Hassusu" to let people know the history of the Hezhe through easy-to-understand stories.
Heilongjiang Jiamusi Street Jinkou and Bacha Township held Wurigong activities, Hezhe shaman dance. Visual China figure
Li Dingren: We often talk about culture, and today's culture covers a lot of content, such as red culture, historical culture, traditional culture, national culture, etc., but in the Tongjiang area, if we want to do a good job in the integration of culture and tourism, we must pay attention to the inheritance and development of national culture. The protection of intangible cultural heritage is in the contemporary era and beneficial in the future.