Oroqen Birchbark Boat Heritage

The birchbark boat of Orochen is one of the important tools in their traditional fishing and hunting life. The perspicacious Orochen people make use of the bark of birch and pine, which are abundant in their living area - Xinganling, to make birchbark boats which are used to hunt, fish, cross the river and carry things.This thesis studies the Orochen birchbark boat in the view of the folklore heritage. From the aspects of the heritage area, the characters of the heritage, the changes in the process of the heritage, inheritors and the difficulties in the heritage of the Orochen birchbark boat, the thesis exhibits the very special crafts of the birchbark boat and the centuries-old hunting life of Orochen people living in this area, shows the wisdom of Orochen people and the strong basis of the hunting culture hold in the Orochen birchbark boat. So, from both perspectives of the multiplicity and the ecology of the culture, it is urgent and necessary for us to protect and inherit the birchbark boat of Orochen.This thesis defines the birchbark boat as one kind of the ancient bark boat, and relates it to canoe on the base of the ethnography data. In the point of the birch culture and the proof of the archeology excavation, the thesis deduces that the birth age of birchbark boat was during the Neolithic, which are about 10000 years ago.The thesis compares the Orochen birchbark boat with the birchbark boat of Reindeer-breeding Ewenki and Hezhe, points out that only the Orochen birchbark boats are still in using and inherited nowadays. On the careful study on the social and historical research data of Orochen, it concludes that in different areas, the inheritance of Orochen birchbark boat is different. Now, the only heritage areas are Shibazhan Town, Tahe County and Baiyinna Town, Huma County in Hailongjiang Province.Combining with the author's fieldwork, the thesis takes the integral view of folklore, and put the Orochen birchbark boat which was inherited in Humar river area into its special ecology culture space, pays attention to Humar Orochen people and their traditional hunting life. It makes a typical case study of the inheritorcalled Guo Baolin, depicts his outstanding craft making and using skills on birchbark boat, regards the subjectivity of the inheritor, and breaches the ordinary abstraction and summary on the birchbark boat in the past. It studies the Orochen birchbark boat in the context of present, reflects the real traits that the heritage of the Orochen birchbark boat will be different because of the different time and people.