"Evenk", in evenk means "people who live in the great mountains and forests". The picture shows the "Plucked Luozi" inhabited by the Evenk people, and the exterior is covered with birch bark.
Beijing, 18 Sep (Xinhua) -- On 18 September, the Xinhua Daily Telegraph carried a report entitled "Seeing Deer in Lin Shen -- Visiting the Last Evenk Reindeer Tribe."
Bliss
Ding-dong, ding-ding-dong, this sound flows like the wind and flows like a stream.
Whenever dusk falls and the street lights gradually turn on in the night, there will be a crisp sound in Juele's ears. Those sounds, from far and near, from urgent to slow, light, heavy, slid through the forest.
Listen carefully, the sound of each bell is slightly different, some qingyue, some low, some childish, some steady. Juele felt kind and familiar. In these intricate symphonic sounds, Juele can even hear the personality of the owner of the bell with each different sound.
Those voices always pulled Juele's thoughts to a distant homeland. Deep in the vast and deep forest, the thick night slowly falls, the sky becomes blue, and the stars appear in the sky above the treetops. Whether Juele is in the bar block of Sanlitun in Beijing or downstairs in the neighborhood where he has lived for many years, as soon as those clanging sounds sound, he immediately returns to the depths of the distant Daxing'anling Mountains.
It was the sound of a bell around the reindeer's neck.
The Aoluguya Evenk are the last hunting people in China and the only ethnic minority in China to raise reindeer. Here, each reindeer has a bell tied around its neck. Photo by Zhou Huacheng
Since childhood, Juele grew up listening to such deer bells. Reindeer was a good companion for him. In the primeval forest of Daxing'anling, the Evenk people Juele were the last reindeer tribesmen.
The sound of deer bells frequently rang in his ears, and Juele finally made up his mind that it was time to go back.
Since graduating from school and staying in Beijing to work, several years have passed. Jue Le had liked the bustle and bustle of the big city earlier, but the longer he went on, the more he missed the days in the mountains and forests.
I asked him, "What's in the woods that draws you back?" ”
Kyaw Lok thought for a moment and said, "It's a reindeer." ”
He quit his job in Beijing and returned to the distant Aoluguya Township. That's where the Evenks are now concentrated.
Aoluguya is located in the northwestern foothills of the Daxing'an Mountains, on the right bank of the Ergun River, and belongs to the Genhe City under the jurisdiction of Hulunbuir City in Inner Mongolia.
At the Aoluguya Township Health Center, I met Juele.
He was strong and had a warm personality. Not long ago, I took a career preparation exam. His wish was to pass the exam and then stay at the Aoluguya Township Health Center and use his medical imaging expertise to see the Evenk villagers.
People who study medicine, everyone finds ways to stay in the big city to work, so that there are many practical opportunities, business growth is fast, and life opportunities will be very different. Why did Kyaw Lok eventually decide to come back? He said he still liked the forest.
Not far from the township health center, you can see a large area of forest.
In winter, the snow is heavy, covering the sky, and the Daxing'an Ridge has become a forest and sea snow field, and the surrounding area is very quiet, like a fairy tale world. When the snow is heavy, people can't get out. On such a day, Juele is also willing to live alone in the mountains and guard his reindeer.
Heavy snow closed the mountain for several months, and it was okay to feel happy not to go down the mountain. This kind of mountain life makes people relax and calm, because he does not have to worry about all kinds of trivial matters in life.
We enter the mountain in November and return to the mountain in June of the following year. Half a year's winter reserves are ready, reindeer bean cake feed is sufficient, and they are not afraid of anything.
The snow in the mountains is more than a meter deep, and the reindeer have difficulty feeding, so they need to be fed bean cakes.
In other seasons, every ten days and half a month, he would go down the mountain once and go to Mangui Town to receive and send couriers.
The world in the forest, clean, simple, closer to the ideal state of bliss. In fact, that is also the safari lifestyle that the Evenks have passed down from generation to generation, but few people still maintain such a life.
Born in 1983, Kyaw Lok began to know what the life he wanted to be like.
Will a person in the mountains and no one speak be lonely?
Kyaw Lok said no, because there are a lot of things to do. For example, look for deer. To find deer is to follow the traces of the deer to see where they have gone, perhaps for a few hours in the mountains. The deer would also come back on their own every two or three days, and Juele would regularly feed them salt.
If nothing happened, he searched the woods for birch tears. It's a very easy job, but it can be monetized. Birch tears are a fungus found on birch trees that look like tears flowing from birch trees. This stuff sells expensive online. Finding birch tears is both a time to pass the time and a joy.
Juele is a second-generation Evenk. He said that this generation of young Evenks has lost a lot of their national language and forgotten a lot of traditional things. Many people no longer live with reindeer. If you go on like this, what proof do you have that you are an Evenk?
His mom is 74 years old and in poor health. If she is in good health, Mom is willing to live in the mountains every moment, and she loves life in the mountains. Juele hopes to learn more traditional things from his mother.
Kyaw Lok is now an "amphibian" person. He has an off-road vehicle that can juggle life up and down the mountain.
At yamashita, he is a doctor who fulfills the requirements conferred by this profession. Yamashita also has the convenience necessary for modern life. For example, tourists come here all year round, bringing the noise of the outside world and bringing fresh feelings. Every day, the courier will send the specialties of Aoluguya Township, such as deer antlers, deer antlers, mountain goods and other specialties to all parts of the country through the logistics network. Juele can also buy back any living materials he needs through Taobao.
When he was on vacation, he drove back to the mountain, back to the old forest in the mountains. There, he had been haunted by the jingling deer bells that rang around him every day.
reindeer
We traveled from the Mohe River in Heilongjiang to the Genhe River in Inner Mongolia, all the way through the vast forest sea of the Daxing'an Mountains. The Donea Bu tribe was the first reindeer tribe we saw.
Curious, we went to inquire. The mountain gate was hidden, and then I went inside, and asked aloud" "Is anyone" aloud, and before I could hear the answer, a puppy rushed out.
Immediately after that, a hostess greeted her from a tent in the woods. "Yes, yes, there are reindeer... All in the mountains... Today it was a coincidence that you could see reindeer. ”
The "Donia Bu" in the tribe's name was the mistress's mother-in-law; the mistress's husband, named "Big Stone", was on the mountain at the moment, with the reindeer.
Little did we know at the time that this Donya Bu was Kyaw Lok's mother, who was old and recuperating at the foot of the mountain.
Before meeting Kyaw Lok the next day, we first met his brother, Big Rock, in the woods.
"Evenk", in evenk means "people who live in the great mountains and forests". Around 2000 BC, the ancestors of the Evenk lived in Lake Baikal and the Trans-Xing'an region. From the 17th century onwards, some evenks living in Russia began to migrate to the Lena River (now known as the Lena River) and the Erguna River Valley, and then continued to migrate. In the 19th century, the four clans of the Evenk people (Bulitotian, Gudelin, Sorogong, Kartakun, corresponding to the Chinese surnames divided into Bu, Gu, Suo, He or Ge), a total of more than 300 people from 75 households, with more than 600 reindeer, migrated through the Amur River Basin at the confluence of the Erguna River and the Shileka River, migrated to the rapids river basin in the city of Daxing'anlinggenhe, settled in the forest, and lived in reindeer and hunting for generations.
Donia Bu is the patriarch of the Buritotian clan of the Reindeer tribe of Evenkyakut. For decades, she has been living deep in the mountains of Daxing'anling, maintaining the traditional tribal way of life.
The place where they live is "Aoluguya", which means "place where poplar forests flourish" in Evenk. The Aoluguya Evenk are the last hunting people in China and the only ethnic minority in China to raise reindeer.
We headed up the hill, hoping to meet the reindeer.
This place can be said to be a feeding point for reindeer. Reindeer prefer unpolluted moss and need to walk around the mountain forest all year round; the litmus and table salt needed for reindeer to survive need to be provided by humans, so reindeer have become accustomed to and dependent on the migration and rearing environment of the Evenk people.
Following the guidance, we walked through the mushroom-mossy birch forest and into the depths of the dense forest. Generally speaking, deer colonies are almost thirty or forty kilometers away. The evenks who keep deer walk on such forested mountain roads. Few outsiders know exactly where their herd is, except for themselves.
Fortunately, we didn't walk long before we heard a crisp clanging of bells from far away. Looking in the direction of the sound, we couldn't see anything, but we knew it was herd of reindeer.
Soon, we saw a herd of deer.
Where deer colonies inhabit, white smoke for mosquito repellent rises and floats through the forest. The man walking in front of the deer herd was the big stone.
Later the Evenks told me that reindeer were the most loyal companions of the Evenks and a part of every Evenk's life. They believed that the lives of people and reindeer were connected.
The reindeer, commonly known as the "Four Unlikes", is called "Oren" by the Evenk people, and was once a means of transportation for the Evenk people, also known as the "Boat of the Forest".
In August 2003, evenk made hundreds of lu tribes and nearly a thousand reindeer begin a settled life in Aoluguya Ethnic Township on the western outskirts of Genhe City. At present, there are 316 evenk people in Aoluguya Ethnic Township and 211 people in the Lingluguya ethnic group.
Although the Evenk people bid farewell to hunting life, they could not leave the reindeer, and reindeer breeding sites were retained in the mountain forest.
The Donia Bu tribe now handed over to her two sons. Dashi and Kyaw Lok take turns going up the mountain to see the deer, in contrast, Kyaw Lok prefers mountain life and reindeer more than his brother.
Their herd of deer had reached sixty or seventy, which was now the largest herd in the deer tribe.
In a documentary film, "O Sacred Deer, Our Sacred Deer", the Evenk female painter Liuba graduated from university and worked in the city for seven years, feeling deeply lonely mentally. In the spring of 1992, the painter returned to Daxing'anling and returned to the reindeer. The emotional tone of this documentary is solemn and sad, and the reindeer running through the forest and the brisk sound of deer bells are the most joyful and fresh music.
tribe
In the mao dun literature prize-winning novel "The Right Bank of the Erguna River", the writer Chi Zijian has this passage describing the Evenk people of the reindeer tribe: "I don't want to sleep in a house where I can't see the stars, I have spent the night with the stars all my life... If I can't hear the deer bells like running water, I will definitely be deaf... My body was given by the gods, and I will return it to the gods in the mountains. ”
Every Ewenke may face the same choice. Today, they have largely lived a modern life that is completely different from the jungle.
In Aoluguya Township, there is a reindeer culture museum. The museum has a wealth of objects and pictures to introduce the history and culture of the Evenk deer people, and in the museum, we also saw the introduction of evenk celebrities, including Maria Suo, the "last female chief of China", the painter Liuba, the poet Vega and so on.
Aoluguya Evenk Ethnic Township, a series of imitation Nordic loft-style Evenk houses are very beautiful, each household is 88 square meters. Many shops have been opened in these houses, selling deer products and various souvenirs to tourists. Some people have also opened homestays, kebab shops, and small bars in their own houses. Local friends told me that more than half of the hunters here now work in tourism-related industries.
Evenk made the deer tribe live in the Daxing'anling area for about 400 years. The tribe of about 200 people and more than 1,000 reindeer live in harmony with nature, living a simple and happy life.
In 2013, as the only tribe in China to raise reindeer, Aoluguya enabled the Evenk people to win the opportunity to hold the Fifth World Congress of Reindeer Breeding in Genhe.
Founded in Norway in 1997 as a membership-based non-governmental organization, the World Reindeer Breeders Association includes Member States such as Russia, Norway, Sweden and Finland, and its main purpose is to promote professional, cultural and economic and social exchanges among reindeer breeding peoples around the world, strengthen international cooperation among reindeer farmers, and promote the development of the reindeer industry. At present, reindeer are raised by more than 20 ethnic groups in only 9 countries in the world.
At the World Reindeer Farming Congress, 160 delegates from nine countries, including Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Russia and Mongolia, as well as domestic and foreign media journalists, attended the congress. The pomp and circumstance of the congress is also recorded at the entrance of the Reindeer Culture Museum in Aoluguya Township.
The more important significance of the reindeer is that it has jointly built an ecological chain in the pan-Arctic region with the hunting and gathering and safari of the evenk, Sami, Evanki, Nenets and other deer peoples.
The settlement life in Aoluguya Township has enabled the Lu'ewenke people to live a warm life in all seasons, and many elderly people can enjoy more convenient medical conditions. Liu Yuzhu, president of Aoluguya Township Health Center, took us to visit the health center with perfect medical conditions, the special medical resources of Evenk, and also led us to see the ambulance donated by Alibaba.
In the past, many times hunters became ill and only took their own methods, rather than accepting other treatments. Now, Dean Liu and his medical staff are systematically training them at 14 hunter-gatherer points in Aoluguya Township to ensure that they can master basic medical first aid and prevention knowledge. Especially in the wild, this allows them to have better medical protection.
Li, a young girl of the Evenk ethnic group, opened a tourist souvenir shop in Aoluguya Township and served as a museum narrator. With more and more tourists, she also opened a short video platform account, and uploaded several small videos every day. She already has thousands of followers and is also a small influencer. Posting short videos brings a lot of fun to her life and has become an important channel for her to communicate with the outside world.
When I left Aoluguya Township, I was ready to go back to the mountain to see the deer's happiness and say goodbye to us. He invited us to have the opportunity to join him and go into the mountains for a while while the snow was closing the mountain.
"Live for at least half a month, so that you will have a deeper understanding of the feelings we have made the evenks of the deer people for the reindeer, for the forest." Kyaw Lok said, I am waiting for you in the forest.
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