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The Oroqen's hunting traditions, unchaged for centuries, are disappearing.Timothy O?Rourke / Sinopix

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Postcard: Inner Mongolia

TIMEApril 17, 2008By Austin Ramzy

Hunting is good. It's good for the body," says Baiyaertu, 83, his hazel eyes twinkling ashe smokes a cigarette from a long plastic holder. "After you come back with something,you feel really happy." A member of the Oroqen, an ethnic group from China'snortheast, he first pursued game in the wilderness as a child with his parents. It has beendecades since he last hunted, but his memories are strong.

For most Oroqen, memories of hunting are all they have. As with many of its dozens ofother ethnic minorities, China has moved aggressively to assimilate this small group ofhunter-gatherers into society. At a time when ethnic unrest in Tibet and Xinjiangthreatens to disrupt China's carefully planned Olympic celebrations, Beijing's experiencewith the Oroqen illustrates the benefits and costs of China's drive to modernity.

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For centuries, the group roamed the pine and birch forests of China's Greater and LesserXing'an Mountains, living in hide-covered dwellings called sierranju that are nearlyidentical to the teepees of North American Great Plains tribes. The Oroqen way of lifecontinued largely unchanged until the middle of the past century, even as China roseand fell under war, revolution and invasion. But the modern world began to encroachwith a vengeance after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Twoyears later, not long after the People's Liberation Army invaded Tibet, Baiyaertu andseveral other Oroqen leaders negotiated the formation of the Oroqen AutonomousBanner, a type of administrative division that dates back to the Manchu, on a23,000-sq.-mi. (60,000 sq km) corner of Inner Mongolia near the Russian border."There were so many of them and so few of us," he says. "What could we do?"

At that time there were just 2,251 Oroqen in China. By the 2000 census, the populationhad grown to 8,196. For many Oroqen, the end of a hunting lifestyle meant neverwondering where their next meal would come from. "Before liberation, Oroqen went tothe edge of extinction," reads a plaque at the Oroqen Museum in Alihe, the banner'scapital, which credits the Communist Party with helping the tribe make the leap fromprimitivism to modernity. "Oroqen are marching towards the magnificent future."

Not everyone agrees. The Oroqen's traditions are eroding; their children speak onlyMandarin. And they are now a minority in their own land. Immigration to InnerMongolia has increased the total population of their banner to nearly 300,000, of which90% are Han Chinese. "In the past, there was no road, no railroad. There were no Hanpeople. There was nobody here," says Baiyaertu. "You could see deer, roe deer,everything. Now there are people here, and the animals have all gone." Faced with adwindling supply of game, the government outlawed hunting on the Oroqen banner in1996. While it is permitted for part of the year in adjoining Heilongjiang province andsome Oroqen still head to the mountains to poach, hunting is vanishing as a way of life.For a people whose culture is based on the nomadic pursuit of game, the effect has beendevastating. "They can't adjust to the rhythm of modern life," says Baiyaertu's son BaiYing, 46, who works as a painter and cultural researcher in Beijing. "They can't farm, sothey drink every day."

The assimilation of the Oroqen has been only somewhat successful, says Hing Chao,chairman of the Orochen Foundation, a Hong Kong--based charity that works topreserve the tribe's traditions. "They are assimilated, yes. But they are not integrated intothe mainstream of society." To help the Oroqen cope, Beijing has launched initiativesincluding free housing, farming assistance and education. It's still possible that theOroqen's future under China will be magnificent. But by then much of their heritage,like the game they once hunted, will have disappeared into the forests for good.

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