At 2:27 a.m. on August 20, 2022, "China's last female chief" Maria Soyin died at the age of 102 due to old age and physical exhaustion.
Although he has experienced a hundred years of wind and frost, he also has to take a faltering step to see his beloved reindeer, and finally die peacefully next to the reindeer.
"When I think of the Facth people who don't have shotguns and no places to keep reindeer, I want to cry, and I cry in my dreams!" Faced with the gradual demise of the Reindeer and hunting culture of the Evenk people, the ninety-year-old man confided in the people outside the forest.
She once said: "The mountains raise deer, the deer raise me, I don't go down the mountain." Her appearance with the reindeer was recorded by the famous Mongolian singer and photographer Burenbayar, and was included in the photo album "Long Live Hulunbuir" and used as the cover of the book.
The Aoluguya Ewenke tribe is a miniature group of only 200 people, and the only reindeer breeding nation in China, known as "China's last hunting tribe". As the chief of the tribe, Maria Sox has a high prestige in the tribe, not only because of her old age, but also because of her previous experience of hunting and managing the tribe.
When she was a teenager, she practiced a body of skills, she was talented, not only mastered the marksmanship, but also trained the skills of reindeer. When she grew up, she married Rajimi, who was 12 years older than herself, and the years did not treat her kindly, and after marriage, her husband became addicted to alcohol, and in the face of the current situation, she was not depressed, and with her own bloody and vigorous style of doing things, she occupied a place in the male society. She not only monopolized the power of the family, but later became the core of the family.
In this modern era, here is still living a nomadic life that has been passed down for a hundred years: living in wooden houses, wearing traditional costumes, burning wood for fire, going out to walk with deer, relying on hunting for a living...
The last female chief of China
Throughout his life, he was accompanied by reindeer and relied on mountains and forests
Finally bury your passion in this land.
Remember Maria So.
Let's pass on the culture for her.