On August 22, 2022, Maria So, 101, china's last female chief, passed away.
The experience of Maria Suo and her ethnic group has touched many people at home and abroad, and the female writer Chi Zijian's novel "The Right Bank of the Erguna River" based on Maria Suo has won the "Mao Dun Literature Award".
The stage play "Aoluguya" created by female director Uzina caused a sensation because of the story of the Maria So ethnic group.
Compared with Maria Sou's life, her later years were the most superior in material conditions, and her old age was also the most hurtful.
More than a decade before her death, Maria Sou said in an interview with reporters that she was crying in her dreams, that she had lost her soul life in her old age, and that the original intention of life that was closest to people was doomed to disappear.
Maria So is an Evenk, a people known during the Ming Dynasty as the "Savage Jurchens".
In fact, the Evenk people are not really Jurchens, Jurchens originate from the northeast, and evenk people originate from the Lake Baikal region of Russia, with their own language and no writing.
Hundreds of years ago, some of the Evenk migrated to China, distributed in Inner Mongolia, Northeast China, Xinjiang and other places, and now there are more than 30,000 people.
In terms of numbers, the Evenk are not rare, and the real rarity is Maria So's ethnic group. Maria So's group of fewer than three hundred people, who, because of their symbiosis with an animal, have the charm of "immortality".
Maria So's ethnic group moved from the Lena River in the Arctic Ocean system to the Erguna River valley in The head of the Heilongjiang River three hundred years ago, when the entire tribe was only about 700 people.
This small group of people in the primary forest of Daxing'anling makes a living by hunting, and they herd reindeer as a means of transportation, known as the "Evenk of the Deer Tribe".
Reindeer, also known as horned deer, live in the high latitudes of the northern hemisphere and have the name of reindeer because they were heavily domesticated by the Nordics. The "Finnish" Santa Claus gives Christmas presents to the sleigh, which is the reindeer pulling through the door.
The area of fifty-two degrees north latitude of Daxing'anling is the southernmost point of reindeer life, and no reindeer can be seen in the forest area with lower latitude.
In the hunting era of "Making Deerbe Evenk", in the snowy fields of Linhai, if someone met Maria So, riding a reindeer, would he be surprised by the immortals?
The reindeer was maria so's lifelong complex and a lingering wound in her later years. As a child, maria saul's reindeer were few and far between, and there was only one. One of her childhood dreams was to have many reindeer in her family in the future.
The "Evenk" is the last hunting tribe in China, but also a world-class hunting tribe, reindeer is their hunting mount, but also their means of transport, and can even be said to be their "family".
Symbiosis and empathy with reindeer is the hallmark of the hunting era "Making The DeerBe Evenk" and is their most distinctive way of life.
In the age of hunting, the "Evenk of the Deer Tribe" would light up smoke in the skin of the ground coat in the camp during the day, and their reindeer would go home when they saw the smoke.
The smoke from the lichen skin can drive away mosquitoes, and reindeer can be less bitten by mosquito bites by resting at night and resting in places with mosquito repellent smoke during the day. This is one of the methods of herding reindeer by the "Evenk of the Deer Tribe".
Reindeer are all free-range, and the "Evenk" people put bells on their reindeer to make it easier to understand where their reindeer are, and they can also use the sound of bells to scare the natural enemies of reindeer such as bears and wolves.
Stocking reindeer will not cost anything other than adding salt to the reindeer and feeding feed such as bean cakes for added nutrition.
Reindeer are mountain spirits, mainly feeding on the moss in the mountains, but also eat grass, leaves and other green plants.
They are very friendly to nature, foraging habits while walking and eating, not guarding a place to nibble light, and the grass and trees where they pass are still green.
The feeding habits of reindeer make their range of activities very large, "so that the deer evenk" is accompanied by reindeer, and will also migrate with the reindeer, and in ten and a half days, they will move the camp once.
Otherwise, the reindeer drifted away and would not return to the "Evenk of the Deer Tribe".
In addition to finding places with more moss for reindeer, the camp also has to find places for people with more prey such as gray rats. In addition, the new camp must also have good water and firewood.
For hundreds of years, the "Lubu Evenk" people have been constantly migrating in the deep mountains and old forests of the Daxing'anling Mountains, and they are familiar with the camps with good conditions. Their relocation ranges from Inner Mongolia in the west to Heilongjiang in the east, with a radius of thousands of miles.
Each time the reindeer is relocated, the adult reindeer, which weighs 35 to 60 kilograms, also acts as the main labor force for the relocation.
The relocation first packed all kinds of daily necessities, then dismantled and packed the barracks, and finally inspected and extinguished all the fires in the camp. The forest is home to the "Evenk of The Deer Tribe", who attach great importance to forest fire prevention.
The packed items were carried by the reindeer, and the reindeer were tied in a row to prevent them from scattering. A "King Maru" reindeer walks in the forefront, followed by a reindeer who carries goods, the reindeer in the back carries the old man and child of the tribe, and the young and middle-aged people of the tribe follow on both sides of the reindeer queue.
In the winter, when the camp is relocated, the "Evenk of The Deer" will hunt on the way to the relocation. Maria So recalls that there used to be a lot of gray rats in the cold weather, and one winter when the camp was relocated, her aunt hit thirty gray rats on the road in one day.
Maria Saul remembers in her later years that she once had a very spiritual reindeer.
She rode this reindeer to fight the gray rats in winter, and no matter how deep the snow was, the reindeer would not sink. She could still communicate with the reindeer, the branch in her hand pointed to the right, the reindeer went to the right, and the reindeer pointed to the left and went to the left, without the need to control the direction with the head and reins.
In the era of hunting, the "Evenk of the Deer Tribe" people only used reindeer as mounts and means of transport, and did not eat reindeer meat. "Where to cultivate feelings, I am willing to eat." Maria So said.
Not only did they not eat reindeer, their own reindeer died, and some of the "Evenk" people who "made the deer tribe Evenk" would cry while holding the reindeer carcass.
In order to prevent the carcasses of reindeer from being eaten or rotted by wild animals, the "Evenk of The Deer" people will specially set up wooden frames, put reindeer carcasses on wooden shelves and "wind burial", treating reindeer as family.
After the end of the hunting era, there was no source of prey for some of the "Evenks" who "made the deer tribe Evenk" to start eating reindeer meat.
As the last chief of the "Evenk of The DeerBe", Maria Sou could not stop others under the new way of life, but she herself did not eat reindeer meat. "I eat any meat, I just don't eat reindeer meat." She said.
Reindeer used to be the main property of the "Evenks of the Deer Tribe". When hunting for a living, "make The DeerBe Evenk" rely on the mountain to eat the mountain, the food has prey meat, clothing and animal skins, and the prey can also be exchanged for salt and other necessities of life, and does not need any money.
But in the mountains and forests of large-scale activities, reindeer is indispensable, especially in the summer can not use sleds, reindeer almost become the only means of transportation for long-distance activities, so reindeer in the "deer tribe Evenk" group has a very high value.
"To make the deer evenk" people marry relatives, reindeer is the dowry, the bride's dowry is also reindeer. In general, the number of reindeer heads is equal to that of dowry and dowry, and even the number of reindeer in the dowry will be slightly more.
Otherwise, the man's dowry will not have reindeer, and the daughter will be distressed when she marries the mother's family.
When Maria Sow was married, there were six reindeer as a dowry, and considering that when she was a child, there was only one reindeer in the family, and some girls did not have a dowry for a reindeer, maria Sou had a sense of happiness.
The reindeer production season in May and June is also the memory of Maria Sou's dreams. This season the women who "make the deer evenk" are the happiest, the female reindeer finds a place to lay lambs in the forest, and the women find newborn reindeer lambs in the forest.
The gray, flowery, black reindeer lamb was born in the heart of Maria So, and when she looked at the reindeer lamb, she tasted happiness.
Unfortunately, the reindeer lamb can only see and cannot touch, let alone hold. Reindeer mothers are very picky about the taste, and once people come into contact with reindeer lambs, the reindeer mother smells the odor and will cruelly abandon the child.
The people who "make The DeerBe Evenk" know the habits of reindeer very well and will not do such a stupid thing as touching reindeer lambs.
After the end of the hunting era, Maria So's soul remained in the mountains. "Evenk" means "evenk" in evenk, "people who live in the mountains."
Maria So was born on the banks of the Riptide River, and from the time she could lead reindeer, she followed her parents to hunt, helped her parents feed reindeer, and lived a mountain hunting life in old age, which made her completely unable to adapt to a modern life that was more superior than hunting.
Changing the safari lifestyle is also to maintain the continuation of the "Evenk of The Deer" group.
Before the founding of New China, the "Lubu Evenk" people lived in the deep mountains and old forests that were almost isolated from the world, and when they had diseases, they could not be cured, and they could only rely on "shamans" to jump gods to "save" lives.
In Chi Zijian's novel "The Right Bank of the Erguna River", once the "shaman" jumping god "saved" a sick person, and a reindeer paid for his life. Another time "saved" a patient, but a woman lost three children.
These coincidences show that before the founding of the People's Republic of China, "Evenk Made DeerBe" had no medical conditions at all.
Before the founding of the People's Republic of China, the "Evenk of Lubu" with a population of several hundred lost about 200 people due to tuberculosis and hives and other diseases, and the various disasters of the Eight-Year War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression reduced the population of "Evenk of Lubu" by 200.
There are also more than 200 people who "made Lubu Evenk" return to their ancestral land to avoid Japanese invasion, and their later lives and deaths are unknown. By the time of the founding of New China, there were only one hundred and dozens of "Lubu Evenk" people left.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the government was very concerned about the lives of this micro-ethnic group, in order to improve their living conditions and consolidate border defenses, in 1957 the government set up a settlement for them in Qiqian Township at the northern end of Ergun City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and in April 1958 established Qiqian Ewenke Nationality Township.
In 1960, the Qiqian Township People's Committee and the Qiqian People's Commune were established, but the "Evenk Ofe" people still made a living from hunting, and only a few people went down the mountain to settle down.
Five years later, Sino-Soviet relations deteriorated further, the "Linglubu Evenk" people on the border needed to move inland, and the development of forest areas forced the "Lubu Evenk" to find a new hunting ground, and the government established a new settlement for the "Lubu Evenk" people in mangui town in the northern part of the Erguna Left Banner in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, at the intersection of the Riptide River and the Erguna River.
This settlement is called Aoluguya in the Evenk language, which means "a place where poplar forests flourish".
Thirty-five households "brought down the Kabe Evenk" people this time, and the government built more than thirty houses for them, equipped with medical stations, grain stores and other infrastructure.
Maria So believes that settlement is not the wish of the "Evenk of The DeerBe", but she is still satisfied with the settlement of Aoluguya, and feels that this settlement is closer to the conditions for the choice of camp by the "Evenk of the DeerBe".
The house where the "Evenk" people lived when they were hunting in the forest was called "Pickles".
This kind of house is made of twenty or thirty thick pines with bowls in a tapered shape, and the outside is covered with canvas and birch bark. Houses generally open to the south, and the other three sides are beds with braziers in the middle.
The "plucked luozi" is about three to five meters high, the ground is four to six meters wide, and a hole is left in the top for the window.
In Chi Zijian's novel "The Right Bank of the Erguna River", you can lie on the bunk at night and see the stars from the hole in the top of the "Plucked Luozi". The starlight shines into the heart, and that kind of scenery looks at it for a long time, which will make people reluctant to leave the "plucked Luozi".
The novel is beautifully written, but living in the deep mountains "Pick-up" is no more comfortable than living in a house in a settlement, and it is necessary to live in "Pick-up" can also be built in a settlement.
What really made Maria Saul reluctant to leave the mountain forest was the reindeer full of spirituality.
The herding of reindeer migrating with reindeer is the most soulful way of life of the "Evenk" people, and it is also the way of life they move the world.
Even though this way of life is fraught with hardships and dangers, there are still many "Evenk" people who are unwilling to give up.
Every time the reindeer returned to the camp, the "Evenk of the Deer Department" would count the numbers, and when they found that there were fewer reindeer in their homes, they would go out to look for them.
The "Evenk" people are very experienced in finding reindeer, and by observing the traces of vegetation on the ground, they can judge the direction in which the reindeer are walking. Reindeer have strong feet, and it is common to find reindeer to go out for three or four days.
The man left the camp alone to look for the reindeer, and the woman who stayed at home would be worried. Spending the night outside the camp, you can only collect some birch bark, put up a fire for the night, and there is a high probability of accidents.
Many of the men who "made the deer evenk" disappeared without a trace because they went out to find reindeer.
The person who "made the deer evenk" can calculate the distance of the reindeer from themselves from the feces of the reindeer. Discovering fresh feces from reindeer is the happiest thing for reindeer hunters.
The characteristics of the "Evenk of the Deer Tribe" were protected by the government, and after many years of banning hunting, the "Evenk of the Deer Tribe" was the only legal hunting group on the mainland.
However, with the continuous reduction of the original forest area and the introduction of various ecological protection policies, the hunting career of the "Evenk Ofeke" people in 2003 came to an end.
In this year, the government built a very distinctive new settlement for the "Lubu Evenk" people in Genhe City, and the "Linglubu Evenk" people no longer made a living hunting, and the reindeer were also changed to captivity.
Maria Saul had many sad moments in her life, and she had a good relationship with her husband, who was twelve years older than her, but her husband left her early because of his alcoholism. Her son was also drunk, allowing her to send a brunette to a white-haired man.
However, ending her hunting life at the age of eighty-three was the deepest pain in Maria Sou's life, because her memories of her husband and son were also mixed with the years of hunting in the mountains and forests.
Every time she went out hunting with her husband, his prey was carried home by her reindeer, and after losing her husband and losing her hunting life, Maria Sou's whole spirit was empty.
"When I think of Evenk without shotguns, no forests, no places to keep deer, I want to cry, I cry in my dreams." Maria Saul said this in an interview at the age of ninety.
Some young "Evenk of The Deer" are also reluctant to give up the safari life, whether male or female, they want to maintain their original way of life, because of the ease of life in the mountains and forests, and the emotion of symbiosis with reindeer.
"Reindeer cannot be kept in captivity like cattle and sheep." Some of the "Evenks of the Deer Tribe" still think so, even if they make money by keeping reindeer in captivity for sightseeing.
The quality of reindeer in captivity is declining, and there is no such aura as stocking, and it is natural that no one, deer, and nature coexist.
In the past, the hunters of the Daxing'anling Road and Railway, and the "Evenk Department of the Deer Department" almost all went to be guides, leaving only women to watch over the reindeer.
But the more roads are built, the less primeval forests there are, and the nomadic and reindeer-herding lifestyle is unsustainable.
Maria So insists that there are many benefits to "keeping the Kabe Evenk" people alive.
She said in an interview: "From the day of liberation, the Evenk hunters have been rangers. Where the forest was struck by lightning, where the forest was on fire, not all the Evenk people took the Hundred Mile Mountain Road down the mountain to report, and led people to light fire in the forest. ”
Maria So felt that to let the "Kabe Evenk" people go out of the mountains and give up their safari life was to forget their role in the mountain forest.
What particularly upset Maria So was that the Genhe settlement had good material conditions, but it was bad for reindeer farming.
She felt that the Root River settlement was too close to the city and there were no forests. "Reindeer are inseparable from the forest, and the farther away from the crowd, the better." ...... How many reindeer died after the relocation? ”
And "the shotgun was taken away, like our rice bowl smashed." Without guns, the "Evenk" people who insisted on herding reindeer in the mountains could not scare the bears that hurt the reindeer.
After a reindeer was bitten and scratched by a bear, the police officers of the police station down the hill went up the hill with guns for two days, but they did not guard anything. The police officers came down from the mountain bear again, and the reindeer were injured a few more times and would run away and never come back.
Soon after most of the "Evenk" people descended the mountain, poachers also targeted herding reindeer. They killed more than twenty reindeer and cut out a bunch of white bones, and Maria Soo watched as her heart dripped blood.
It can be said that the last female chief Maria Sow left this world with deep regret.
However, in the era of wildlife protection, the nomadic lifestyle will eventually fade out, and perhaps some "Evenk" people will become professional armed rangers, who can continue reindeer stocking and maintain the characteristics of this group of "making deer", so that the last female chief Maria Suo can also smile at the Nine Springs.