Ewenki people 鄂温克族
Ewenki people or Evenki
鄂温克族 are an official recognized ethnic group of China. Ewenki are Tungusic people of North Asia with about 32,000 living in China and about 35,000 living in Russia near Lake Baikal and Amur River regions. The Ewenki are sometime conjectured to be connected to the Shiwei people who inhabited the Greater Khingan Range in the 5-9th centuries, although the native land of the majority of Ewenki people is in the vast regions of Siberia between Lake Baikal and the Amur River. Most Ewenki in China live in the NE most of Inner Mongolia's Hulunbuir Prefecture 呼伦贝尔, near the city of Hailar 海拉尔 along with the Daurs 达斡尔族. There also around 3,000 of them in the bordering Heilongjiang Province. Traditionally Ewenki in China were reindeer herders while their counterpart in Russia were horse breeders, although many move to other industries today in China. The Ewenki were incorporated into the Manchurian banners after the were conquered by the Manchu.
In China most of the Ewenki belong to a subgroup called Solon Ewenki 索伦鄂温克; the remaining are the Oroqen people 鄂伦春族 (10,000) and the Yakut Ewenki 雅库特鄂温克. The Oroqen are separated into another ethnic group in China and the Yakut remain with the Ewenki and is the only group in China engage in reindeer herding. The Solon that traveled with the Xibe in the "Westward Migration" in 1763 to Xinjiang under the order from Emporer Qianlong are pretty much assimilated into the Xibe group.
The Ewenki speak a Manchu-Tungusic language and most of them are animists, Shamanists and Tibetan Buddhists.
Official portrait of an Ewenki family
An Ewenki reindeer herder family having lunch by their yurts in NE China
Most Ewenki live around Hulun Lake area in NE Inner Mongolia
A wall mural depicts the lives of Ewenki
An ancient rock drawing shows the Ewenki were herders of reindeer
for a long time
Ewenki adopted Manchu scripts
Before the adoption of the Manchu scripts this was one way to pass their histories to the next generations. The others being songs, stories, folklore ...etc