Nanai people

Nanai people
Alternative names:
Hezhen, Nanai, Hezhe;
Golds, Samagir
nanio, nabəi, nanai, kilən, χədʑən

Total population
(18,000 (est.))
Regions with significant populations
Russia, China
Russia Khabarovsk Krai	12,160[1]
China Heilongjiang Province	5,354[2]
Languages
Nanai, Russian (in Russia), Mandarin Chinese (in China)
Religion
Tibetan Buddhism, Shamanism

The Nanai people (self-designation нани Nani means 'natives, locals, people of the land/earth'; self-designation Hezhen means 'people of the Orient'; Russian: нанайцы, nanaitsy; Chinese: 赫哲族, Hèzhézú; formerly also known as Golds, Goldes, Goldi and Samagir) are a Tungusic people of the Far East, who have traditionally lived along Heilongjiang (Amur), Songhuajiang (Sunggari) and Ussuri rivers on the Middle Amur Basin. The ancestors of the Nanais were the Jurchens of northernmost Manchuria.

The Nanai/Hezhe language belongs to the Manchu-Tungusic languages. According to the 2010 census there were 12,003 Nanais in Russia.

Endonyms

Nanai family, Amur region of Russia

Own names are [kilən] ([nanio] and [nabəi]) and [χədʑən] ([nanai]).^[3] [na] means 'land, earth, ground, country' or, in this context, 'native, local' and [nio], [bəi], [nai] means 'people' in different dialects.

The Russian linguist L. I. Sem gives the self-name [xədʑən] in the Cyrillic form, хэǯэ най (Hezhe nai) or хэǯэны (Hezheni), and explains it as the self-name of the Nanais of the lower Amur, meaning, "people who live along the lower course of the river".^[4] It is the source of the Chinese name for the Nanais, formerly "黑斤" (Heijin), "赫哲哈喇" (Hezhehala), and modern Chinese name "赫哲" (Hezhe).^[5]

Traditional lifestyle and culture

Goldi shaman priest and assistant, 1895

Goldi tribesmen acting out folk drama, "The repulse of the kidnapper" 1895

Goldes hunter on skis on ice floe, with spear and rifle, 1895

A 1734 French map shows the Yupi people ("fish-skin" people) on both sides of the Ussuri and the Amur south of the mouth of the Dondon (Tondon), and the Ketching people further down the Amur (where Nanai, Ulch, and Nivkh people live now)

Some of the earliest first-hand accounts of the Nanai people in the European languages belong to the French Jesuit geographers travelling on the Ussury and the Amur in 1709. According to them, the native people living on the Ussury and on the Amur above the mouth of the Dondon River (which falls into the Amur between today's Khabarovsk and Komsomolsk-on-Amur) were known as Yupi Tartars (fish-skin tartars), while the name of the people living on the Dondon and on the Amur below Dondon was transcribed by the Jesuits into French as Ketching.^[6] The latter name may be the French transcription of the reported self-name of the Nanais of the lower Amur, [xədʑən], which was also applied to the closely related Ulch people,^[7]

According to the Jesuits, the language of the "Yupi" people seemed to occupy an intermediate position between the Manchu language and that of the "Ketching" people; some level of communication between the Yupi and the Ketching was possible.^[8]

Economy

As described by early visitors (e.g., Jesuit cartographers on the Ussury River in 1709), the economy of the people living there (who would be classified as Nanai, or possible Udege people, today) was based on fishing. The people would live in villages along the banks of the Ussuri, and would spend their entire summers fishing, eating fresh fish in the summer (particularly appreciating the sturgeon), and drying more fish for eating in winter. Fish would be used as fodder for those few domestic animals they had (which made the flesh of a locally raised pig almost inedible by visitors with European tastes).^[9]

A 1682 published Italian map showing the "Kingdom of the Niuche" (i.e., Nǚzhēn) or the "Kin (Jin) Tartars", as well as the lands of the "Yupy Tartars" - i.e. the "Fishskin Tartars" (Nanais and related tribes) further east.

The traditional clothing was made out of fish skins. These skins were left to dry. Once dry, they were struck repeatedly with a mallet to leave them completely smooth. Finally they were sewn together.^[9] The fish chosen to be used were those weighing more than 50 kilograms.^[10] In the past centuries, this distinct practice earned the Nanai the name "Fish-skin Tartars" (Chinese: 鱼皮鞑子, Yupi Dazi). This name has also been applied, more generically, to other aboriginal groups of the lower Sungari and lower Amur basins.^[11]

Agriculture entered the Nanai lands only slowly. Practically the only crop grown by the Yupi villagers on the Ussuri River shores in 1709 was some tobacco.^[9]

Religion

"Idol poles" (totem poles) of the Nanais ("Goldi"). Drawing by Richard Maack, between 1854-1860

The Nanais are mainly Shamanist, with a great reverence for the bear (Doonta) and the tiger (Amba). They consider that the shamans have the power to expel bad spirits by means of prayers to the gods. During the centuries they have been worshipers of the spirits of the sun, the moon, the mountains, the water and the trees. According to their beliefs, the land was once flat until great serpents gouged out the river valleys. They consider that all the things of the universe possess their own spirit and that these spirits wander independently throughout the world. In the Nanai religion, inanimate objects were often personified. Fire, for example, was personified as an elderly woman whom the Nanai referred to as Fadzya Mama. Young children were not allowed to run up to the fire, since they might startle Fadzya Mama, and men always were courteous in the presence of a fire.

Nanai shamans, like other Tungusic peoples of the region, had characteristic clothing, consisting of a skirt and jacket; a leather belt with conical metal pendants; mittens with figures of serpents, lizards or frogs; and hats with branching horns or bear, wolf, or fox fur attached to it. Bits of Chinese mirrors were also sometimes incorporated into the costume.

The deceased were normally buried in the ground with the exception of children who died prior to the first birthday; in this case the child's body was wrapped in a cloth or birchbark covering and buried in the tree branches as a "wind burial". Many Nanai are also Tibetan Buddhist.

Modern population

Russia

In Russia the Nanais live on the Sea of Okhotsk, on the Amur River, downstream from Khabarovsk, on both sides of Komsomolsk-on-Amur, as well as on the banks of the Ussuri and the Girin rivers (the Samagirs). The Russians formerly called them Goldi, after a Nanai clan name. According to the 2002 census, there were 12,160 Nanais in Russia.

In the Soviet Union, a written standard of the Nanai language (based on Cyrillic) was created by Valentin Avrorin and others. It is still taught today in 13 schools in Khabarovsk.

China

The Nanais are one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China where they are known as "Hezhe" (赫哲族 Hèzhé-zú). According to the last census of 2004, they numbered 4,640 in China (mostly in Heilongjiang province). Chinese Nanais speak the Hezhen dialect of Nanai. They also have a rich oral literature known as the Yimakan.^[12] The dialect does not have a written system in China and Nanais usually write in Chinese. (Second language literacy is 84%.) However, as of 2005 teachers have recently finished compiling probably the first Hezhe language textbook.^[13]

Distribution

By province

The 2000 Chinese census recorded 4.640 Nanai in China.

Provincial Distribution of the Nanai

By county

County-level distribution of the Nanai

(Only includes counties or county-equivalents containing >0.45% of China's Nanai population.)

Notable Nanais

Dersu Uzala

• Japanese director Akira Kurosawa's 1975 film Dersu Uzala, based on a book by Russian explorer Vladimir Arsenyev, describes the friendship of a Russian explorer and his Nanai guide named Dersu Uzala.
• Nanai female shaman Tchotghtguerele Chalchin performed an incantation recorded in Siberia for the song "The Lighthouse" (an adaptation of the poem "Flannan Isle" by English poet Wilfred Wilson Gibson) on French producer Hector Zazou's 1994 album Chansons des mers froides (Songs from the Cold Seas). Lead vocals were performed by Siouxsie Sioux and background music included performances by the Sakharine Percussion Group and the Sissimut Dance Drummers.
• Kola Beldy (Russian: Кола́ Бельды́) (1929–1993) was a popular singer in the Soviet Union and Russia, particularly known for his rendition of "Увезу тебя я в тундру" (I will take you to the tundra).
• Han Geng, a Chinese pop singer, actor, former member of Korean boy band Super Junior and former leader of subgroup Super Junior-M.

Autonomous Areas

Gallery

• 
  Goldi family group, north of Khabarovsk 1895
• 
  Goldi chiefs north of Khabarovsk, 1895
• 
  Goldes shaman priest in his regalia, 1895
• 
  Goldi village chieftain 1895
• 
  Goldi village on the Amur, north of Khabarovsk 1895
• 
  Goldi village along the Amur River, north of Khabarovsk 1895

References

General

• Ethnolog on Nanai
• Notes on the Nanai
•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "^{article name needed}". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Nanai people.

• The Nanai National Mentality and World Model by Tatyana Sem
• http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071411/ "Dersu Uzala" a film by Akira Kurosawa about a Goldi (Nanai) and a Russian Army Officer.

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