Oroqen

The Oroqen are a Tungusic people of the northern Manchurian forests, whose self-name means “people who keep reindeer”. Their ancestors, traced to the medieval Shiwei groups of the Amur basin, ranged south of the Outer Khingan and north of the Amur, hunting deer and elk in exogamous clan bands.

Their Northern Tungusic language is close to Evenki and had no traditional script. They lived in conical tents called sierranju, covered with birch bark in summer and deer hide in winter.

In the 1600s the Russian advance drove part of the Oroqen south into the valleys of the Greater and Lesser Khingan, where they entered the sphere of the Qing. Qing documents knew them as the Orunchun, organized into the Kumar and Bilar tribal divisions.