The Orochen are one of the smallest ethnic groups in China with a population of just over 8,000. On the eve of Communist Liberation in 1949, Orochen bands ranged over a vast land covering the entire Great and Small Khingan Mountains, stretching from the edge of Hulun Buir plains to the Russian fort of Khabarovsk along a west-east axis. Their hunting grounds were bounded by the river Amur in the north, beyond which lay the taiga of the Russian Far East and Siberia, with a contracting border to the south, as the boreal forest steadily retreated before the northward progression of agrarian settlements. They were part of an extensive ethno-linguistic family which the Soviet anthropologist Shirokogoroff christened the ‘northern Tungusic complex’ and are last of a long line of hunter-gatherers who subsisted in the forested hinterland of northeastern China, representing an archaic way of life that had held sway in this remote corner of Asia since antiquity. When the Orochen moved into settlements under the Socialist ‘civilizing’ campaign in the 1950s, the final chapter had closed on the history of China’s northern nomadic hunters.

This is not to suggest that the Orochen were unchanging in their customs and lived in an ahistorical bubble of stagnant ‘ethnographic present’ up to the fateful moment of Socialist Liberation. Indeed, quite the contrary. Between the mid-sixteenth century when Manchus from the White Mountains and Black River founded the Qing empire and the mid-twentieth century when the Communist Party inaugurated a new era of socialism in China, important changes took place which significantly altered Orochen society and culture. These included technological innovations –– such as introduction of horse and firearms –– which re-molded fundamental aspects of their culture, as well as transformations in their social order, which came about both as a result of internal structural changes as well as external pressure. The catalyst for these changes was the incorporation of Orochen groups into the Qing empire, as the conquering Manchus sought to bring frontier groups living in the margins within the ambit of imperial administration and economy. We know from Qing records that formerly dispersed Orochen bands were organized into administrative units called ‘lu’ (literally, ‘roads’) beginning in Kangxi’s reign, and hereditary chiefs were created among the Orochen to rule over these units, under the overall command of the general of Heilongjiang. [i] At the same time, they were subject to an annual taxation payable in the form of sable pelt tribute [ii] and served in the imperial armies, both as patrols in the Amur region along the Russian border, and fought in campaigns in the northwest and southwest. In the thirty-fourth year of Emperor Qianlong’s reign, for example, three hundred Orochen cavalrymen were sent to fight in the war in Yunnan, of whom a hundred and thirty-seven perished by disease and war. [iii] However, it appears many of the reforms were quite superficial and in spite of sustained efforts to organize Orochen huntsmen into administrative-territorial units, the success of these policies was at best qualified. Throughout the Qing Dynasty, reports to the imperial court constantly complained of the difficulty of 'reforming' the habits of ‘wild’ Orochen who resisted the Manchu rulers’ ‘civilizing’ efforts with recalcitrance and stubbornly clung on to the old ways.

No other aspect of Orochen culture from the beginning of the Qing period to the dawn of Socialism was more enduring than the practice of hunting and gathering. Undoubtedly hunting methods evolved as new technologies were made available through contacts with other ethnic groups, particularly as the bands living on the western margins of the Manchurian forest slowly moved into the Hulun Buir grassland, and began to intrude upon the land occupied by Mongolian pastoralists, following a well trodden, ancient migratory route in the footsteps of Solon Evenk, who had moved along the same path a century earlier. During this period, one of the most crucial changes was the adoption of the horse: whereas the Orochen first appeared on the historical stage as reindeer herders, by the late Qing period many Orochen bands were firmly established as horse breeders, and began to exhibit marked differences from other North Tungusic groups in Siberia, with whom they once shared a common culture. In time, Orochen bands living in the western Khingan ranges developed a horse breeding nomadic culture entirely divorced from reindeer husbandry, which eventually gave rise to the popular image of the nomadic Orochen hunter astride a shaggy Mongolian horse. However, the ancient association with reindeer herding may still be seen from the name ‘Orochen’, which was etymologically derived from ‘oron chen’ –– ‘reindeer-people’. Nonetheless, a salient feature in the Orochen’s cultural make up and socio-economic orientation that persisted through this period of change was the focus on hunting as their primary economic activity, which distinguished them as the only sub-arctic hunters in China.

The Orochen’s heavy reliance on hunting was in common with many indigenous groups inhabiting the taiga belt across the Eurasian continents, as severe climatic conditions impose a natural limit on the role of other subsistence activities in the far north. Thus, unlike foragers in tropical forests who place a greater emphasis on gathering, hunter gatherers living in the boreal forest are first and foremost hunters, whose economy is supplemented by fishing and a limited extent of gathering in the summer. In many respects, hunting was the only viable mode of existence in much of Siberia and northern Manchuria, whereas conversely, Orochen’s nomadic hunter-gatherer culture represented an extreme adaptation to the sub-arctic environment. In this connection, it is worth considering the Soviet scholar A. P. Okladnikov’s comment that the Neolithic age in Siberia was precipitated by a series of important technological breakthroughs, chief among those being the invention of the bow and arrow, which enabled rapid social developments and the occupation of large parts of Siberia which were until then unpopulated. [iv]

The significance of the bow in north Asian indigenous cultures can hardly be overestimated, for prior to the introduction of firearms it was the most important tool to the hunter in the boreal forest, and proficiency in it use could carry a band over the fine line separating subsistence from starvation. The continuing relevance of archery as a subsistence activity is testified by the persistence of bow and arrows and their derivative hunting tools even in the early 1960s, despite the fact that firearms had been known among them since the early Qing period. [v] morgen’ –– is used synonymously to describe a person of intelligence and ability, which in native society is inevitably connected with skills in archery and the hunt. The symbolic value of the bow is also made manifest through taboos associated with its handling. To the present day, women are forbidden to touch men’s hunting equipment in many indigenous societies in north Asia, which they believe would pollute the weapons and bring bad luck. This ritual prohibition not only highlights the sacrosanct nature of hunting activities but also reinforces the hunter’s elevated (sacred) ritual position. And lying at the center of all hunting activities is the bow, which is the 'loci' of spiritual power and, as we shall see, a potent tool used in the communion with the spiritual world. And to the Orochen hunter nothing symbolizes his status as provider of food as well as his bow (or in a later period, his rifle), which beyond its value as a subsistence tool is also a social marker carrying great symbolic significance. This may be seen in the first place in the semantics of the Orochen language, where the term designates a good hunter.

In many ways, the ability to hunt defines the Orochen adult male and gives meaning to his existence. Naturally, there are many skills and different aspects of knowledge incumbent on an aspiring hunter, including intimate geographic knowledge of his hunting ground, the ability to track animals, and an understanding of their movements and seasonal habits, but none is considered as vital as the ability to shoot well, which is the sure mark of a true hunter, a morgen. The symbolic significance of the bow and the cultural value attached to its mastery is deeply embedded in Orochen consciousness, and in their myths the morgen inevitably appears as a cultural hero and defender of society, who combats primeval monsters and overcomes impossible odds by performing supernatural feats with his bow. The story of Morgen and Mangee, which I retell below, may be taken as representative:

There was a Mangee (monster) living in the forest. Many hunters have been caught and eaten by Mangee and eventually they decided to invite Morgen (the best hunter) to deal with him. Thereupon Morgen went along to find the cannibalistic Mangee and challenged him to a contest. First, they had a trial of strength. Mangee picked up a massive boulder and threw it to the other side of the river. Then Morgen picked up a boulder just as big and landed it on top of a hill across the river. Then they decided to have an archery contest, with the boulder on top of the hill as the target. Again, Mangee was the first to try. The first arrow pierced a hole in the edge of the boulder; but the second arrow only reached the foot of the hill; and the third arrow did not even make it across, but landed in the middle of the river, and was immediately washed away by the current; Mangee tired easily. Then it was Morgen’s turn to shoot; his first arrow penetrated right through the middle of the boulder. Terrified by Morgen's strength and skills, Mangee fled and never returned. [vi]

In this myth, the hunter was able to drive away the man eating monster with an impressive display of strength and archery skills. Significantly, the figure of mangee is universal in the mythic traditions of indigenous societies across north Asia –– known, for instance, as manggus in Mongolian –– which symbolically embodies the untamed elemental forces that continually threaten man’s fragile existence within nature. In all these traditions mangee is invariably portrayed as shaggy and massive with human if troll like characteristics, possessed of tremendous strength, and preys on human beings. To understand the significance of this imagery we have to understand the lived-in environment of the Manchurian forest and Siberian taiga, in whose vast wilderness man is exposed to the unremitting harshness of nature and competes with other animals of prey for limited resources. Man the hunter lives at the mercy of the elements, and in every hunting expedition he runs the risk of forceful currents, storms, snowdrifts, and attacks by bears and wild boars, so that at any given moment he could have the table turned against him and become man the prey. Among Orochen elders I have heard heart breaking tales of husbands and fathers lost in the forest, and when their bodies were eventually found they bore unmistakable signs of a fierce struggle against amaha, the grandfather, which is the name by which they call the revered Asiatic Black Bear. Only against this background of daily struggle for survival can we truly appreciate the symbolic force of the story of mangee and morgen, for the only security an Orochen hunter has as he ventures out into the forest are his personal weapons, of which the most important are his bow and arrows.

However, what does the Orochen bow look like? According to Song Zhaolin, one of the earliest Chinese ethnographers to study the Orochen in the early 1960s, they had two types of bows: the standard composite bow used in the Qing military, and a type of wooden self-bow manufactured by the Orochen themselves. [vii] [viii] Other ethnographers indicate pine as the wood of choice for making bows –– a fact corroborated by Bayartu, the last Orochen bowyer. [ix] There are very few extant Orochen bows today, and the tradition of archery and bow making has discontinued since their settlement in the 1950s. Most of the surviving specimens were collected by Chinese ethnographers in the early 1960s and are stored in the National Museum, inaccessible to the public, in Beijing. There is also a simple trapping device, consisted of a short wooden self-bow and a releasing mechanism (also made of wood), in the National Museum of Ethnology in Japan, which was collected in Inner Mongolia in the 1930s. The only other Orochen bow I know of is in my own personal collection, which was made by the oldest living Orochen hunter, Bayartu, as a gift to me in 2004. To my knowledge it is the only Orochen bow that has been made in recent times. Different types of wood seemed to have been used, according to the bowyer’s preference and the materials available. The bow Song collected is made of birch (or so he believes), while Qiu Pu, who studied the Orochen around the same time, gave pine and elm as the preferred materials. However, regardless of the type of wood used for bow-manufacture, its basic shape is consistent and shows a classic “D” cross section typical of self-wood longbows.

For the sake of comparison, it is worth quoting in full Bayartu’s account of bow making:

The most important consideration in making the longbow (per) is the choice of material. First of all, the wooden stave must be selected from a limb on a pine tree growing on a slope directly exposed to the sun. After the bark is removed from the limb it should have a slightly red hue, which indicates the tree received direct sunlight and was strong and healthy. It is important that the limb is free from any lumps and has a nice curve, which gives it flexibility. It has to be balanced on both ends, with a circumference of about 6cm, and not tilted to one side.

The bow-string (per ushiin) is made from deer’s neck skin, which is cut into a leather string with a width of about 1.5cm, of about the same length as the bow.

To make the bow, the tree limb is reduced to a stave measuring about two arms in length, and the bark is removed with a hunting knife. It is gradually fashioned into a flat, round shape, adjusted to the desired weight, with the middle of the bow slightly broader than the ends. It is then laid down on a long stool, flattened, and firmly fastened to the stool with leather ropes. It remains in this position for a day or so, out of the reach of the sun, to increase the bow's flexibility.
The leather string for use as a bow string should be made as taut as possible. Then it should be thoroughly rubbed back and forth with a short leather belt, so that the tension is even across the string. After that it should be tightened again and left for a while.  

Finally, removing the bow from the stool, indentations are made about 3cm from both ends to fashion the nocks, which should have sufficient depth for fastening the bow string. Then, the string is tied to the bow, adjusting the pull weight as you do so. After this the bow is complete. [x]

The Orochen bow belongs to the type of north Asian bow used by indigenous groups across much of northeastern Siberia. An unstrung Solon bow collected in the Hulun Buir plains in the early 20th century by the German ethnographer, Walther Stötzner, which is now in the Museum of Ethnology in Dresden shows essentially the same characteristics with a rounded body, subtly tapering towards the limbs, and displays nocks of identical design, albeit somewhat smaller. Undoubtedly, the basic design of the bow is archaic and its structure is similar to primitive self-bows found in large parts of the world, including northern Asia, the Japanese archipelago, northern Europe and north America. Being a perishable material, there are not many surviving specimens of ancient bows in north Asia. However, the simplicity in the design of the Orochen bow suggests its form has changed little from prehistoric times, which is perhaps a little surprising given the significance of the bow in Orochen culture. Below, I postulate two main reasons for the stability in Orochen bow design over an extended temporal span.

In the first place, the relative homogeneity of the flora across the sub-arctic zone in north Asia means indigenous bowyers have a limited selection of wood to choose from. Superior woods for bow manufacture, such as yew, cedar and osage-orange, which have good compression strength, resilience and flexibility, are simply not available to hunter gatherer groups living in the far north. The properties of these types of wood allow the manufacture of bows that are lightweight and powerful, and whose shape can be manipulated for the best design for casting an arrow. [xi] Not having these materials at their disposal, Orochen bow makers made up for the lack of strength and flexibility in the native woods by creating bows of immense size and weight.

Secondly, technological innovations and developments often arise in response to new economic, social, and political challenges, and the very stability in bow form suggests it was perfectly adequate in meeting the needs of subsistence hunting. Indeed, throughout the historical period, the Orochen have shown great readiness and aptitude in adapting new technologies to subsistence activities, as demonstrated by their active import of equestrian skills and technologies from the Mongols and Manchus and adoption of firesarms. Indeed, given that the composite bow was also known among the Orochen, that the old, native self-bow continued to be in use suggests it was sufficient for hunting purposes. Due to the paucity of functional Orochen bows today it is hard to gauge the actual (range of) weight of their bows, but if the bow made by Bayartu could give us any indication then a typical Orochen hunting bow would probably be around 45 pounds at 24” draw. Studies have shown that war bows characteristically have a much heavier draw weight than hunting bows. As a general rule, bows used in hunting seldom pull over 50 pounds whereas war bows frequently have draw-weights in excess of 70 or even 100 pounds, particularly where they were designed to pierce protective armor. [xii] This would explain why the Orochen bow never developed features that would enhance the bow’s performance in battlefield –– such as the ability to withstand stress over a sustained period of use, a heavier pull, and a more stable and smooth cast –– neither acquiring the great length of the English war bow, [xiii] nor developing the sinew backing of the Eskimo bow, [xiv] which are different ways of allaying the tremendous tension put on the back of a heavy war bow when it is in full draw. In this regard, I am inclined to think that an important reason for the Eskimo’s advanced bow technology was the frequency of inter-tribal warfare –– a fact attested by the elaborate pieces of Eskimo amour collected by ethnographers in the 19th century, [xv] although according to Orochen oral traditions warriors of old employed massive pine bows which could out-perform more elaborate composite horn bows used by the Manchus. [xvi] At our present state of knowledge we cannot verify the claim one way or the other, and have no way of determining whether surviving specimens of Orochen bow are indicative of ‘cultural degeneration’, or whether they did in fact possess a more powerful bow which had been forgotten and fallen into disuse, and was replaced by a cruder type of bow used only for hunting.

How did the Orochen shoot? On the basis of the limited available materials, it is difficult to reconstruct the Orochen shooting methods, for early ethnographers did not pay too much attention to indigenous archery practices, and there are very few old hunters left who are cognizant of the use of bow and arrows. Song Zhaolin, one of the only Chinese ethnographers to have studied the Orochen’s hunting methods, suggests that the thumb-ring was probably used in archery practice. By his own admission, his argument is based on the accidental discovery of an elk bone thumb-ring during the process of assembling an Orochen ethnographic collection, although he also says that the Orochen had already forgotten how it was used. [xvii] However, Song did not seem to have studied their archery methods, and the method he proposes of how the Orochen used the thumb-ring is contradictory to what we know about its use in general, and in any case his hypothesis betrays a lack of understanding in fundamental archery principles.

Fortunately, there is a black and white photograph from the 1960s which shows an Orochen hunter taking an aim with a bow, and presents a clear picture of how they shot –– or at least one version of it. The photograph shows an Orochen hunter clothed in deer skin holding a typical Orochen D-shaped self-bow, with a rounded body slightly wider in the handle than the limbs, and what appears to be a twisted leather rope for bow string. Interestingly, the arrow is unfletched and is without an arrowhead, which suggests he was posing for the photographer and that the equipment he was using might have been made specifically for this purpose, for an unfletched arrow has no aerial stability. In fact, I should point out that most of the arrows I have seen in museums (including those made by Bayartu) do not have feathers attached to them. On one occasion, I brought up this issue with Bayartu who explained that arrows were fletched in the past, and the reason why the ones he made for me were bare was that he did not have suitable feathers. [xviii] This suggests that most of the arrows –– made after the 1920s and 1930s –– were specimens made for ethnographic collection and not intended for use. On the other hand, the type of arrow shown in the picture fits very well with Qiu Pu’s description, which states that some of the arrows were made from a single piece of birch wood and sharpened at one end. [xix] [xx] The shooting method is what one might expect from this type of wooden self-bow, which has a short draw length and is pulled back employing the ‘Mediterranean draw’ –– a misnomer given that this is one of the most common techniques in archery traditions around the world. We cannot tell from this picture whether the bow is at full or half draw, although the properties of this type of self-bow and the performance of my own Orochen bow suggest it is close to a full draw. Indeed, studies of archery traditions in North America show that what we consider to be a full draw was not used in many indigenous societies, which often favored a shorter –– and quicker –– release.

Perhaps there was another method of arrow release in Orochen archery practice that made use of the thumb-ring. It has already been shown above that beside the indigenous pine self-bow the Orochen also had the Manchu composite bow. In so far as the Orochen were part of the Manchu military organization and served in its armies, it seems likely that they also learnt the standard method of using the composite bow with the thumb-ring release. The presence of thumb-rings in a number of Orochen ethnographic collections –– including two thumb-rings at the Museum of Ethnology in Dresden, one at the Museum of Ethnology in Leipzig, and at least one at the National Museum in Beijing –– indicate that thumb-rings were common among the Orochen. That many of them were locally manufactured (made of animal –– and particularly elk –– bones) further suggests that the wearing of thumb-ring had become part of the local custom, even if it was originally brought in from outside (which seems likely given that the wearing and use of thumb-ring is not practiced among other northern Tungusic peoples). Nonetheless, given the fashion of the wearing thumb-rings among upper class Manchus, it is possible that thumb-rings were worn for aesthetic and symbolic reasons rather than used in actual archery practice. In any event, the original purpose of the thumb-ring seems to be quite forgotten by the mid-20th century, at a time when hunting was itself beginning to fade into memories of the past.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s when Chinese ethnographers visited Orochen settlements in Heilongjiang province and Inner Mongolia, the bow had already been replaced by modern rifle as the primary hunting tool, and the hunters they interviewed were the last Orochen bowyers and archers. Already by that time, few hunters used bow and arrows for subsistence hunting, though many continued to make a shorter type of wooden bow as part of a self-releasing mechanism for protecting their horses at night, which they called ‘ground-arrows’. Many Orochen hunters had forgotten the art of bow making, though the elders still remembered how their ancestors hunted with arrows tipped with iron or bone arrowheads. [xxi] Within a few short years, the Cultural Revolution would bring about changes that would transform the social and natural landscape of the Khingan Mountains beyond recognition, and draw a curtain on the Orochen’s history as hunter gatherers. However, even as the bow retreated from the Orochen’s daily activities, it continued to play a part in their cultural life and identity. Even though fewer bows were made for subsistence purposes, hunters continued to make miniature bows for their children –– one of my Orochen friends, Meng Luanfeng, recalled playing with a toy bow and arrows his father made him when he was growing up in the 1980s. Another surviving archery practice until recent years was the use of bow and arrows in funerary ritual, whereby a hunter would release an arrow into the forest to guide the spirit of a deceased relative. [xxii] This custom reminds us of the bow’s unique significance to the Orochen hunter, which protected him and his family during his lifetime, and served as a guide to his spirit after he had moved on from this world.

[i] In the 6th year of the emperor Kangxi’s reign (1667) the institution of zuolin (jiangin in Orochen) administration was imposed on the Orochen, with the creation of five lu – corresponding to five major rivers in the Khingan Mountains – and eight jiangin officials. See Song, Zhaolin, The Last Hunters (zui hou de pu lie zhe), Shandong Posters Publications, 2001, pp. 18-19.

[ii] The Orochen were the most important suppliers of sable-pelts to the Manchu court, and most of the imperials records that deal with the Orochen were concerned with sable-pelt tribute. See Bai, Ying & Wu, Yuanfeng(ed.), The Compendium of Chinese and Manchu Records in the Qing Dynasty (Qing dai elunchun man han wen dangan huibian), Nationalities Press, Beijing: 2001.

[iii] Ibid., pp. 640, 643, §§189, 197.

[iv] Okladnikov, A. P., Ancient Population of Siberia and Its Cultures, Peabody Museum, Massachusetts: 1959, P. 12-21

[v] Song, Zhaolin, op. cit., pp. 83-87.

[vi] The story of the mangee and morgen is popular among the Orochen and there are many different versions of it. See for example ‘Legend of Gaxian Cave’, Orochen Folk Stories (Elunchun minjian gushi ji), Inner Mongolia People’s Publications, 1981:Holhot, pp. 25-27.

[vii] Song, Zhaolin, op. cit., p. 12.

[viii] Ibid. p. 12; Qiu, Pu, Orochen’s Social Development, Shanghai People’s Publications, Shanghai: 1980, p. 21.

[ix] See Shirokogoroff, S. M., Social Organization of the Northern Tungus, Garland Publishing, NY & London: 1979, originally published by the Commercial Press, Shanghai: 1929; also Zhao, Fu-xing, The Culture of Orochen Nomadic Hunters (Elunchun zu youlie wenhua), Inner Mongolia Peoples’ Publications, Holhot: 1991, pp. 25-27.

[x] The account is based on an oral interview with Bayartu in summer 2004, after he completed making his bow. It was previously published in the Orochen Foundation’s annual magazine, Uncooked, issue 1, December, 2005, pp. 10-13.

[xi] For discussion on the properties of yew and osage bows see Strunk, J., ‘Yew Longbow’, and Hardcastle, R., ‘Osage Flat Bow’, both in The Traditional Bowyer’s Bible, vol. One, The Lyons Press, 1992: Conneticut, pp. 117-131, 131-148. It is also worth remarking that of the other types of wood discussed by Paul Comstock for making bows, he does not mention pine although he includes birch in his list.

[xii] Baker, Tim, ‘Bow Design and Performance’, The Traditional Bowyer’s Bible, vol. One, p. 78.

[xiii] Soar, Hugh D. H., The Crooked Stick: A History of the Longbow, Westholme Publishing, 2005.

[xiv] Callahan, Errett, ‘Archery in the Arctic’ (Parts One to Three), Primitive Technology II: Ancestral Skills (Wescott ed.), Gibbs Smith, 2001, pp. 119-133.

[xv] Burch, Ernest S., Jr., ‘War and Trade’, Fitzhugh, William W. & Crowell, Aron (ed.), Crossroads of Continents: Cultures of Siberia and Alaska, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988, pp. 227-232.

[xvi] Zhao, Fu-xing, op. cit., p. 27.

[xvii] Song, Zhao-lin, op. cit., pp. 14-15.

[xviii] Qiu, Pu, op. cit., p. 21. Qiu Pu states that the Orochen used swan and wild goose feathers as fletches.

[xix] Ibid.

[xx] Bohr, Roland, ‘Indigenous Archery on the North American Plains: Adaptation and Survival’, World Traditional Archery: The Current Situation and Tasks Ahead, published by the World Traditional Archery Festival, 2007, pp. 151-206.

[xxi] Abridged History of the Orochen (Elunchun zu jianshi), Inner Mongolia People’s Publications, Holhot: 1983, p. 34. By the time socialist ethnographers conducted their survey archery was no longer practiced as a subsistence activity, although the old people remembered a time when it played a more important role in the hunt.

[xxii] See Song, Zhaolin, op. cit.; Zhao, Fu-xing, op. cit.; etc.