Ewenki Hunting Story Research

Ewenki is an ancient forest hunting ethnic group in northern China. As a group of people without written language, its culture belongs to oral cultural pattern and takes root in Ewenki traditional culture. Histories, folklores, beliefs, knowledge of production and life experiences of Ewenki were handed down by generations of group members, especially story-tellers. Ewenki hunting stories, which belong to folk prose narrative, mainly portray ancient hunting lifestyle of Ewenki. Most stories were devoted to hunting theme-all kinds of birds, beasts and hunters (which are called Morigen in Ewenki) as well as beliefs and taboo closely related to hunting activities. Ewenki enjoys an age-old hunting tradition; therefore, hunting stories are told and appreciated as "living stories" of Ewenki. Unfortunately, since these "living stories" were handed down orally without written records, some of these stories disappeared in history, while some others were passed down by eloquent people. This valuable oral literary heritage is the accumulation of ancestral wisdom, reflection of Ewenki spirit and embodiment of unique aesthetic pursuit.The author applies regional type research approach to the analysis of Ewenki hunting story on the basis of its old river culture characteristics. Ewenkies, distributed in the different rivers, formed their unique modes of production, values and beliefs during the development of their respective river cultures, and thus their hunting stories display apparent regional type characteristics. Hunting stories from different rivers developed to be a variety of types, which reflect local ecology, life style, value orientation and spiritual world of Ewenkies. On the basis of above study, the author explores two main themes and major character and image of Ewenki hunting stories. Ewenki animal stories portray the theme of human and animal relations, including human knowledge of animals, human-animal coexistence and human-animal marriage. Another theme is taboos, which include fire taboos and animal language taboos in their hunting life. The taboo theme and the taboo folk customs in hunting formed intertextual relationship. Morigen character and the mountain-forest image are the most dazzling and prominent aesthetic images in the Ewenki hunting stories. Through text interpretation, this thesis explores the unique aesthetic connotations of Morigen image as well as the spiritual pursuits and ancient beliefs of the mountain-forest images. Under the present cultural context, the Ewenki hunting stories are experiencing inevitable loses and gains under the strong impact of the modernization. Fortunately, along with world-wide deepening recognition of historic values of oral traditional culture, oral cultures of small minority ethnic groups display brand new vitality. At present, Ewenki hunting stories continue to develop and spread in the interaction of folk artists, folk literature writers, ethnic elites and government officials. This thesis launches a virgin exploration on hunting stories, the most important part of Ewenki oral tradition. Taking root in unique ecological environment and long hunting history of Ewenki, these stories reflect age-old folk culture, unique aesthetic taste, and rich spiritual world of Ewenkies. The stories are also a symbolic expression of Ewenki culture. With the methods of literary anthropology, thematology and performance theory, the author studies the hunting stories of a small ethnic group Ewenki from the interdisciplinary perspective of comparative literature. The intensive study on the Ewenki hunting stories will contribute to the academic understanding of the Ewenki ancient hunting culture, river culture, mountain culture and spiritual beliefs, and significantly improve the understanding of substantial cultural connotations of northern ethnic groups in China.