Oroks (Ороки in Russian; self-designation: Ulta, Ulcha), sometimes called Uilta, are a people in the Sakhalin Oblast (mainly the eastern part of the island) in Russia. The Orok language belongs to the Southern group of the Tungusic language family. According to the 2002 Russian census, there were 346 Oroks living in Northern Sakhalin by the Okhotsk Sea and Southern Sakhalin in the district by the city of Poronaysk. According to the 2010 census there were 295 Oroks in Russia.
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The name Orok is believed to derive from the exonymOro given by a Tungusic group meaning "a domestic reindeer". The Orok self-designation endonym is Ul'ta, probably from the root Ula (meaning "domestic reindeer" in Orok). Another self-designation is Nani.[2] Occasionally, the Oroks, as well as the Orochs and Udege, are erroneously called Orochons. The Uilta Association in Japan claims that the term Orok has a derogatory connotation.[3][4]
Furthermore, Orok people live on the island of Hokkaido, Japan – in 1989, there was a community of about 20 people near the city of Abashiri. Their number is currently unknown.[8][9]
History
Orok oral tradition indicates that the Oroks share history with the Ulch people, and that they migrated to Sakhalin from the area of the Amgun River in mainland Russia. Research indicates that this migration probably took place in the 17th century at the latest.[9]
The Russian Empire gained complete control over Orok lands after the 1858 Treaty of Aigun and 1860 Convention of Peking.[10] A penal colony was established on Sakhalin between 1857 and 1906, bringing large numbers of Russian criminals and political exiles, including Lev Sternberg, an important early ethnographer on Oroks and the island's other indigenous people, the Nivkhs and Ainu.[11] Before Soviet collectivization in the 1920s, the Orok were divided into five groups, each with their own migratory zone.[9] However, following the Bolshevik Revolution in 1922, the new government of the Soviet Union altered prior imperial policies towards the Oroks to bring them into line with communist ideology.[12] In 1932, the northern Oroks joined the collective farm of Val, which was specialised in reindeer breeding, together with smaller numbers of Nivkhs, Evenks and Russians.[9]
The Oroks share cultural and linguistic links with other Tungusic peoples, but before the arrival of Russians, they differed economically from similar peoples due to their herding of reindeer. Reindeer provided the Oroks, particularly in northern Sakhalin, with food, clothing, and transportation. The Oroks also practiced fishing and hunting. The arrival of Russians has had a major effect on Orok culture, and most Oroks today live sedentary lifestyles. Some northern Oroks still practice semi-nomadic herding alongside vegetable farming and cattle ranching; in the south, the leading occupations are fishing and industrial labor.[9]
Men of Oroks From a book written by Mamiya Rinzō & Murakami Teisuke(1810, Japan).
Women of Oroks From a book written by Mamiya Rinzō & Murakami Teisuke(1810, Japan).
Rites of passage
The Orok boys, when it came of time, would usually participate in a Sturgeon Hunt, usually hunting for the Beluga or Kaluga Sturgeon variants. This involved a lone Orok going out, with only a small supply of food (usually enough to last him a week) and armed with a special type of spear. Once the sturgeon was killed, the hunter would take one of the predator's teeth and carve a mark in his forehead or arm, which indicated that the hunt was successful. Due to the fish's size, strength and fierceness, failure to successfully kill the Sturgeon usually resulted in the hunter's death.
Suzuki, Tessa Morris (1998), "Becoming Japanese: Imperial Expansion and Identity Crises in the Early Twentieth Century", in Minichiello, Sharon (ed.), Japan's competing modernities: issues in culture and democracy, 1900-1930, University of Hawaii Press, pp.157–180, ISBN978-0-8248-2080-0
Weiner, Michael (2004), Race, Ethnicity and Migration in Modern Japan: Imagined and imaginary minorities, Taylor and Francis, ISBN978-0-415-20857-4
Further reading
Missonova, Lyudmila I. (2009). The Main Spheres of Activities of Sakhalin Uilta: Survival Experience in the Present-Day Context. Sibirica: Interdisciplinary Journal of Siberian Studies, 8:2, 71–87. Abstract available here (retrieved November 9, 2009).
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