Source: China News Network
The family of Maria Suo, the protagonist of "The Right Bank of the Erguna River" and the last female chief of China, issued an obituary on the 22nd that Maria Sou died at the age of 101 next to her beloved reindeer.
Obituary: The loving mother Maria Sola died at the age of 101 at 2:27 p.m. on August 20, 2022 due to her advanced age and the gradual exhaustion of various physical functions. Recently, although she was in poor health, she still wanted to go up the mountain to see the reindeer she had raised all her life, and she only wanted to return to the reindeer. Finally, the mother died peacefully at hunter's point.
Good at hunting and managing ethnic groups
She is "the last female chief of China"
Born in 1921, Maria Sou was an Evenk and lived with her people in the southernmost mountain forest of the Taiga Forest Belt around the Arctic. She is the prototype of the protagonist of the Mao Dun Literature Prize-winning novel "The Right Bank of the Erguna River" and is known as "China's last female chief".
The Aoluguya Evenk were the last deer tribe in China and the only people in China to raise reindeer.
The life of Maria Sola has experienced a century of changes in the Evenk people who have traveled, settled and developed.
Maria So's father was the chief of the Chigan tribe. Under the influence of her father, Maria Sou has developed good hunting skills from an early age, and many men are not her opponents.
After the death of her husband, Maria So began to shoulder the burden of the family, and because of her adept at finding reindeer and managing hunters, she soon became the nucleus of the clan and established her own prestige.
Maria So is not only industrious but also versatile, animal skins sewn in her hands into gloves, hats, clothes, birch bark after she weaves into baskets and baskets. The old man always has endless folk stories, beautiful songs often echo in the forest, and the rhythm of the harmonica conveys the long history of the Evenk nation between her lips.
"Reindeer are like my children,
I love them very much."
Reindeer are the treasures of the deer tribe, so that the deer people can not hunt without reindeer. In the winter, when the snow is deep, people ride reindeer to fight gray rats, and in their eyes "people will be lazy to work, but reindeer will not be lazy." Therefore, in the past, the deer people never killed or ate reindeer, and when they saw a reindeer who was sick and dead outside, they used a shelf to put the body on a high place to prevent it from rotting or being eaten by other wild animals, which was called "wind burial".
In the documentary "Aoluguya Aoluguya", although Maria Suo is already old and dying of old age, she still remembers the mountains, forests and rivers of Daxing'anling, the future of reindeer and the fate of the Evenk people.
The old man has adhered to the mountain forest all his life, and when he was more than 90 years old, he still raised reindeer in the mountains, thinking of inheriting the reindeer culture for his country and nation.
Maria So often said: "Reindeer are like my children, I love them very much. ”
From primitive society to coming out of the mountains
Evenk national culture is being passed on
"My mother lived in the mountains and forests all her life with reindeer, leading the deer Evenk people from primitive society to today's happy life." Maria So's daughter, Deksha Ho, said.
With the acceleration of modern civilization, the population of the Aoluguya Evenk people and the cultural environment in which they live are undergoing tremendous changes. Today, there are still a small number of deer Evenk who accompany reindeer to live in the dense forests of the hinterland of the Daxing'an Mountains and live a nomadic life. Many people have also gone out of the mountains and moved into new homes in the 300-kilometer city of Nehe, and they are no longer engaged in hunting.
Aoluguya Evenk Ethnic Township has also become a window for people to understand the Ewenke people, through the Reindeer Culture Museum to introduce the unique local charm of the "deer culture" and "hunting culture", some of the Evenk people living here have developed ethnic tourism, in another form to spread and continue the national culture.
"We are very close to nature, we live our own lives, we don't need too much money, nature has everything." It may not be possible to go back to the past, but Maria Sou did not choose to deviate from the land where her ancestors lived for generations, she guarded the mountains and forests, guarded the beloved reindeer, and her life became the legend of Aoluguya.