Sarah Ward
Professor of Maritime Archaeology and Underwater Cultural Heritage, Dalian Maritime University, China

Richard T. Griffiths
Director of the Virtual Silk Road Museum, International Institute of Asian Studies, Netherlands

The Oroqen people were China’s last hunters. For millennia, they lived relatively undisturbed in the vast forest region of the 1,600 km long Greater Khingan or Da Hinggan Mountain range, which extends from the northwestern part of Heilongjiang, China’s northern-most province, into the neighbouring Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Hunting on horseback and fishing for their food, using the skins of their prey for clothing and the birch trees and bark for building their accommodation, canoes, baskets, and other necessities. Oroqen legends told that they had descended from bears of the forest, and their belief system was decidedly animistic.

After the creation of ‘New China’ in 1949, the government supervised ‘three leaps towards modernisation’. The Oroqen people were encouraged to give up their traditional way of life, come ‘down from the mountains’, live in a semi-rural setting, and invest in agriculture. In exchange, they received access to formal education, state-backed healthcare, and other social services provided by the then-newly formed PRC. The final leap was the prohibition on hunting and the surrender of their guns. Today, the Oroqen people are concentrated in what is now the Oroqen Autonomous, of which Alihe township is the administrative centre. The Oroqen language and culture are severely endangered, and the traditional way of life is no more.
In 1991, with the central government’s support, the Oroqen local government built the Oroqen Intangible Cultural Heritage Museum to bring Oroqen culture back from the brink of extinction. This short article highlights the vital activities of this safeguarding pioneer.

Oroqen Intangible Cultural Heritage Museum

Housed in a beautiful purpose-built building that mimics the shape and form of the traditional Oroqen teepee-like tents, known as Sierranju, the Oroqen Intangible Cultural Heritage Museum was first built as a ‘three-in-one’ structure, which included a museum, library, and archive. The library and archive were later relocated, and the Museum expanded to fill the building. With an extended area of over 3,200 square meters, the Museum now functions as much as a community cultural centre as a heritage museum.
The Museum displays the lifestyle and hunting culture of the Oroqen people. Today, it is divided into five parts: Forest Sea Hunters, Forest (Grab) Economy, Traditional Crafts, Material Culture, and Spiritual Culture. The exhibition starts with small, almost doll-like glass cases displaying traditional Oroqen hunting and fishing activities, associated artefacts and structures. There are also one or two life-sized maquettes. The remaining exhibits are predominately photographs and pieces of clothing made from treated animal hides and birch-bark arts, including the traditional birch-bark boats.
The Oroqen song and dance troupe rehearses on the second floor. Thirty people perform lively, energetic songs and dances that mimic traditional hunting, horse-riding, and other traditional activities to keep the customs alive and as a way of transmitting these practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, and know-how from one generation to the next.
The Art Gallery is devoted to the work of contemporary artists and their visions of Oroqen life past and present. The director’s office resembles an art gallery filled with paintings. It was shared, no surprises, with two resident artists. Next to the Museum is a handicraft room where people can learn and practice traditional skills such as making birch-bark boxes or paper cutting. A birch-bark canoe is being built on-site as a living exhibition. A short drive from the Museum is an artisanal workshop where clothing, canoes, bows and arrows, and birch-bark boxes are all traditionally produced and available for sale.
The Oroqen Intangible Cultural Heritage Museum is an important window into the past, yet its position in modern life is undeniable. The Museum has galvanized the Oroqen community. It serves as an essential education base in the Oroqen Autonomous Banner, as a classroom for teaching the traditional way of life, a centre for researching Oroqen language and culture, a museum for collecting, protecting, conserving, and promoting Oroqen history and local customs and a social space for gatherings.

Challenges
Despite its successes with the Oroqen Intangible Cultural Heritage Museum, the Oroqen nation still faces three distinct yet interrelated challenges. The first is the critical need to safeguard traditional Oroqen animistic/forest-based culture for future generations. The second is promoting the safeguarded culture to a broader audience, notably those outside China. The third challenge is to channel that broader interest into local economic activities that will keep the core communities intact.

Future Safeguarding
The Oroqen culture is cut adrift from the natural context and rhythms that gave it its essential features. The nation no longer lives in extended family/ clan groupings, hunting, gathering, and moving through the mountain forests
be a means to creativity and expression. The singing and dancing troupe has, for example, helped to keep the language alive. Performances of traditional hunting songs known as Zandaren, love songs, narratives, and shamanic chants are all delivered of Oroqen. Changing the perception of the language may increase the incentive to study it and keep using it.
The material culture is in good hands. The Oroqen Intangible Cultural Heritage Museum balances the retention of past practices, such as birch-bark art, with the transmission of the modern techniques needed to adapt to the present. New birch-bark texture painting techniques preserve the traditional forms and texture. Fine art students are adapting conventional clothing design and materials to modern fashion.
according to the seasons, or retelling their myths and legends around communal fires. Future safeguarding is thus about
present and future generations in a new way. The Oroqen local government works closely with the Oroqen Intangible Cultural Heritage Museum, cultural custodians, community leaders, and stakeholders.
The Oroqen language has been phonetically recorded and translated into Chinese, as have many traditional tales and songs. Language is a carrier of memory, but it could also be a means to creativity and expression. The singing and dancing troupe has, for example, helped to keep the language alive. Performances of traditional hunting songs known as Zandaren, love songs, narratives, and shamanic chants are all delivered of Oroqen. Changing the perception of the language may increase the incentive to study it and keep using it.
The material culture is in good hands. The Oroqen Intangible Cultural Heritage Museum balances the retention of past practices, such as birch-bark art, with the transmission of the modern techniques needed to adapt to the present. New birch-bark texture painting techniques preserve the traditional forms and texture. Fine art students are adapting conventional clothing design and materials to modern fashion.

Oroqen performers showcased the ‘horse-riding’ dance in the rehearsal space at the Oroqen Intangible Heritage Museum, Alihe. © Sarah Ward

Cultural Promotion
engagement through participatory inclusion is essential to reversing the current cultural decline. Although the Oroqen community has successfully raised the profile of this endangered minority culture within China, they are keenly aware of the need to provide learning opportunities for Oroqen stakeholders disconnected from their culture.

Within China, the Oroqen internet presence is significant. Official Government sites outline the history of the Oroqen people. The Museum has Weibo, WeChat and TikTok accounts, where they have over 37,000 followers. The social media accounts showcase the traditional way of life, promote the language, and demonstrate hunting and fishing techniques. However, raising awareness for its sake is not sustainable. Promotion needs to be done in such a way as to stimulate economic growth and encourage sustainable development sufficient to provide living income streams for all members of the community, many of whom remain in poverty.

Economic Sustainability

Promoting the local economy is vital if the drift of youth away from the area is to be arrested. The most direct means is through tourism. Although the Museum is extraordinary, there is a shortage of suitable hotel accommodation. Yet increasing the provision of hotel beds risks promoting the kind of mass tourism that can destroy the very integrity of the experience offered.
Foreign tourists may provide a more discerning source of demand, attracted by the unique culture and the beautiful scenery, though this poses other difficulties. Individual foreign tourism is not well developed. For this reason, the Museum is working with Oroqen leaders to develop an Oroqen-led tour company with a bilingual guide and control of the narrative. In this sense, the Oroqen people can tell their own story, and the profits will remain in the community and support those who most need it. The internet could also be used as a channel for online purchasing – not only the birch-bark boxes already on offer but also bespoke clothing, paintings by local artists, and CDs and DVDs of their music and dances. In addition, translations of the already existing illustrated storybooks could introduce the nation’s adventures and legends to a broader international audience.

Final Reflection
The Oroqen Intangible Cultural Heritage Museum facilitates the continual co-creation of a modern Oroqen culture that is both developed and adapted by the Oroqen people and provides them with a sense of identity, belonging, and continuity. The significance of today’s Oroqen culture lies not in the tangible manifestation of it–the boats, skins, and birch- bark crafts, for example–but in the wealth of knowledge and skills transmitted through it; transmission that is at the heart of the Oroqen Intangible Cultural Heritage Museum.

Recreating the traditional Oroqen way of life. © Sarah Ward