Xingan Mountains of Oroqen Ethnic Group

Step down from the Xingan Mountains

“There was a large forest in the Xingan Mountains”
“In the forest lived brave Oroqens.”
“With a hunting horse and a hunting gun,”
“Capture the endless animals all over the mountains and plains.”

Before the foundation of P. R. China, the Oroqen had been always leading a migrated hunting life. The social development was very slow and they still lived in the gentile community phase of the late primitive society. The productivity level was low. After the foundation of P. R. China, to help the Oroqen people develop their economy and culture and to catch up with the development level of the advanced nationality, the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) and government adopted a series of special policies such as derating various taxes and encouraging the development of agriculture, forestry and other industries; appropriating special funds to help with the development of various projects; letting all the Oroqen people in the forest region eat commodity grain; offering food subsidy; uniformly providing guns to the hunters; reimbursing all the hospitalization costs for the Oroqen; providing stipend for the students in primary school and middle school. Especially, our government spent a lot of human resources and material resources in conducting the Oroqen people to give up the hunting life and lead a resident life.

By adopting many measures such as propagation and education, visiting the large cities and demonstrating typical examples, the government gradually made them realize that the scattered and migrated life was bad for the development of the nationality and only the settlement could develop the production and improve their life. In 1953, 9 settlements and 313 broad and bright houses were set up in Heilongjiang province and the Oroqen realized their settlement. Between 1954 and 1958, 6 hunter villages and 214 houses were successively set up in the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region. The Oroqen people who had led a migrated hunting life for generations began to successively step down from the Xingan Mountains and began a new resident life.   

In the early days of settlement, the economy of Oroqen was mainly the hunting industry. From then on, the CCP and the government conducted them to transit their single hunting economy into multi-industry economy and to progressively develop the multi-industries such as forestry, stock, agriculture, by-industry and breeding. The life of Oroqen was greatly improved and their thought gradually caught up with the step of the age. To save the wild animals resources that became rare, on January 1st, the Oroqen Autonomous Banner held a preserve conference and launched the “Notice on the preserve of wild animals”. From then on, the hunting life that the Oroqen people led for generations has been totally terminated. Under the leadership of the CCP, the Oroqen nationality steps into a new age.