Chinese Nation - Ewenki nationality

Ewenki is the national name of Ewenki nationality, which means “people living in big mountain forest”.

The language and culture of the Ewenki nationality are unique, belonging to the northern branch of the Tungusic language family of the Altaic language family. In daily life, most Ewenki people use their own national language without their own characters. Ewenki herdsmen mostly use Mongolian, while farmers widely use Chinese.

Ewenki people are from nomadic development to settlement, engaged in animal husbandry production. Their traditional culture has great richness, the most prominent is the clothing culture and food culture.

In the past, Ewenki mostly believed in Shamanism, and the residents in pastoral areas also believed in Lamaism. Before 1945, there were remains of animal worship, totem worship, and ancestor worship. Some clans took birds and bears as totem worship objects. There are shamans in various clans or large families, most of which are headed by the chief.

The Mikoulu Festival, which is held on May 22 every year, is a traditional folk festival of the Ewenki people and is popular among the Ewenki people in the Achenbach banner, Inner Mongolia. On this day, people will hold horse racing and horse race and cut the ears of lambs produced in that year as a mark. According to the traditional custom, the old people should give lambs to their offspring’s mothers to wish them a happy life in the future. They should also hold a banquet to entertain their relatives and friends and announce the number of their young animals in that year.

“Ominareng” is a grand religious activity and entertainment festival in pastoral areas, which is generally held in August.

Also, Oboo is a large religious festival in pastoral areas. When offering sacrifices to Oboo, we should slaughter cattle and sheep as sacrifices to pray for the safety of people and animals.

Ewenki people have a long history of raising reindeer. It is said that long ago, their eight ancestors hunted in the mountains, captured six wild deer, and brought them back for breeding. Over time, they developed into reindeer that are now artificially raised. According to relevant experts, the Ewenki people’s deer breeding can be traced back to before the Han Dynasty. The record of “raising deer-like raising cattle” in the book of Liang refers to the northern people who raised reindeer here. Due to the development of history and the changes of the times, reindeer have disappeared in other northern nationalities, only in Ewenki hunters.

The Ewenki people, no matter men or women, old or young, love and protect reindeer very much. They regard them as the symbol of auspiciousness, happiness, and enterprising, as well as the symbol of pursuing beautiful and lofty ideals. Therefore, reindeer have the characteristics of national culture and are representative. At the same time, the Ewenki people identified reindeer as the mascot of the Ewenki people.

The traditional clothing of the Ewenki people is mainly made of leather. Winter gowns, trousers, panties, boots, hats, gloves, socks, etc. are made of roe deerskin, deerskin, sheepskin, etc. Women’s robes are mainly made of cloth. In rural areas, the robes should be lined with the edge. When wearing robes, they should be covered with long and short shoulders. Aoluguya Ewenki women wear dresses with large collars and white, black, and red collars. Front-facing. Ewenki women in the Achenbach banner wear dresses in winter and summer, with narrow upper body and wide pleated lower body. Married women’s sleeves are sewn with an inch wide colored cloth around the sleeves and wear scarves with colored cloth rims. The man’s hat is conical. There are red tassels on the top, mostly with a blue cloth as the surface. In summer, they are single cloth hats. In winter, they are made of lambskin, otter skin, or lynx skin. Ewenki people have a variety of leather gloves, of which five fingers have beautiful patterns, which are very refined. The boots made of roe deer and dog skin are beautiful, moisture-proof, light, and wear-resistant. They are suitable for walking in the mountains and snow.

The Ewenki people living in the primeval forest of the Daxinganling Mountains in the north of China eat meat as their daily staple food. They eat Hada meat, deer meat, bear meat, wild boar meat, roe deer meat, chinchilla meat, flying dragon, pheasant, black pheasant, fish, and so on. Their eating methods are slightly different from those in pastoral areas. In general, the liver and kidney of Hada meat, deer, and roe deer are eaten raw, while the other parts are cooked.

The Ewenki people in pure animal husbandry production areas mainly eat milk, meat, and noodles. They can’t leave milk tea for three meals a day. They not only drink milk tea but also process milk tea into yogurt and dairy products. The main dairy products are cream, butter, milk residue, dried milk, and milk skin. The most common way to eat is to spread the extracted cream on bread or snacks.

The traditional cooking utensils of Ewenki nationality have their own characteristics, such as cups and chopsticks made of Handa bone, wine cups made of antlers, boiled meat in the belly of Uzzi, grain bags made of deerskin sewn by Handa’s tendon, and various bowls and dishes made of birch and skin. Nowadays, porcelain, aluminum, iron, and plastic products have been widely used.