How do people in a nomadic hunting society live? In what ways do they differ form people in modern society? These are the questions that have interested historians and anthropologists. This book about the Oroqens, a people inhabiting the Greater and Lesser Hinggan ranges in China's Helongjiang Province, provides some illumination answers.

One of China's smallest minorities, but one noted for bravery and steadfastness, the Oroqens lives as nomadic hunters in the final stage of a primitive society at the time of their liberation from the Japanese imperialist domination of 1945. It was only after the founding of New China, in 1949, that they began to exchange their drifting, uncertain mode of existence for a settled life.

This book contains detailed descriptions of three successive stages of Oroqen development – the clan community, the family community and the rural community – as well as many aspects of the primitve life of the Oroqen, such as their hunting methods, marriage customs, burial rites, literature and art, and religious beliefs. The author, Qiu Pu, is a researcher at the Nationalities Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He spent six years, from 1956 to 1962, investigating the region inhabited by the Oroqens, and gathering a vast amount of data and information about them

The book is illustrated with colour and black-and-white photos graphically recording the Oroqens' life and customs. It will give the readera comprehensive picture of the Oroqens as they were at the final stage of primitive society. [from the back cover]

The Oroqen people (simplified Chinese: 鄂伦春族; traditional Chinese: 鄂倫春族; pinyin: Èlúnchūn zú; Mongolian: Orčun; also spelt Orochen or Orochon) are an ethnic group in northern China. (They are not to be confused with the Oroch and Orok peoples of Russia.) They form one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China. As of the 2000 Census, 44.54% of the Oroqen lived in Inner Mongolia and 51.52% along the Heilongjiang River (Amur) in the province of Heilongjiang. The Oroqen Autonomous Banner is also located in Inner Mongolia.

The Oroqens are mainly hunters, and customarily use animal fur and skins for clothing. Many of them have given up hunting and adhered to laws that aimed to protect wildlife in the People's Republic of China. The government is said to have provided modern dwellings for those who have left behind the traditional way of life. The Oroqen are represented in the People's Congress by their own delegate and are a recognized ethnic minority.

Oroqen people in Wikipedia