The Udege (; or , or Udihe, Udekhe, and Udeghe correspondingly) are a native people of the
Primorsky Krai
Primorsky Krai, informally known as Primorye, is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject (a krais of Russia, krai) of Russia, part of the Far Eastern Federal District in the Russian Far East. The types of inhabited localities in Russia, ...
and
Khabarovsk Krai
Khabarovsk Krai (, ) is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject (a krai) of Russia. It is located in the Russian Far East and is administratively part of the Far Eastern Federal District. The administrative centre of the krai is the types of ...
regions in Russia. They live along the tributaries of the
Ussuri
The Ussuri ( ; ) or Wusuli ( ) is a river that runs through Khabarovsk and Primorsky Krais, Russia and the southeast region of Northeast China in the province of Heilongjiang. It rises in the Sikhote-Alin mountain range, flowing north and formi ...
,
Amur
The Amur River () or Heilong River ( zh, s=黑龙江) is a perennial river in Northeast Asia, forming the natural border between the Russian Far East and Northeast China (historically the Outer Manchuria, Outer and Inner Manchuria). The Amur ...
,
Khungari, and
Anyuy Rivers. The Udege speak the
Udege language
The Udege language (also Udihe language, Udekhe language, Udeghe language) is the language of the Udege people. It is a member of the Tungusic family. It is a moribund language, and classified as critically endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the ...
, which belongs to the
Tungusic language family. Their religious beliefs include
animism
Animism (from meaning 'breath, spirit, life') is the belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence. Animism perceives all things—animals, plants, rocks, rivers, weather systems, human handiwork, and in ...
,
animal worship
Animal worship (also zoolatry or theriolatry) is an umbrella term designating religious or ritual practices involving animals. This includes the worship of animal deities or animal sacrifice. An animal 'cult' is formed when a species is taken ...
, and
shamanism
Shamanism is a spiritual practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with the spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spiritual energies into ...
. The Udege are mainly engaged in hunting, fishing, and
ginseng
Ginseng () is the root of plants in the genus ''Panax'', such as South China ginseng (''Panax notoginseng, P. notoginseng''), Korean ginseng (''Panax ginseng, P. ginseng''), and American ginseng (''American ginseng, P. quinquefol ...
harvesting. According to the 2002 census, there were 1,657 Udege in Russia, a slight increase from 1,500 in 1970. This was down to 1,496 Udege in Russia in the 2010 census. They are one of the closest ethnic groups to the
Manchu
The Manchus (; ) are a Tungusic peoples, Tungusic East Asian people, East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized Ethnic minorities in China, ethnic minority in China and the people from wh ...
and
Nanai, and are possibly of
Xi Yeren Jurchen origin.
The largest settlements of Udege are in:
* Khabarovsk krai: Gvasiugi (
Imeni Lazo District
Imeni Lazo District () is an administrativeResolution #143-pr and municipalLaw #194 district (raion), one of the administrative divisions of Khabarovsk Krai, seventeen in Khabarovsk Krai, Russia. It is located in the south of the krai. The area of ...
) and Arsenievo (
Nanaysky District
Nanaysky District () is an administrativeResolution #143-pr and municipalLaw #194 district (raion
A raion (also spelt rayon) is a type of administrative unit of several post-Soviet states. The term is used for both a type of subnational entity ...
)
* Primorsky krai:
Agzu
Agzu () is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, village (''village#Russia, selo'') in Terneysky District of Primorsky Krai, Russia, located on the Samarga River. Population: 169 (2005 est.), 140 of which are Udege people, Udege. During the ...
(
Terneysky District
Terneysky District () is an administrativeLaw #161-KZ and municipalLaw #133-KZ district (raion), one of the twenty-two in Primorsky Krai, Russia. It is located in the north of the krai and borders with Khabarovsk Krai in the north, the Sea of Japa ...
), Krasny Yar and Olon (
Pozharsky District
Pozharsky District () is an administrativeLaw #161-KZ and municipalLaw #191-KZ district (raion), one of the twenty-two in Primorsky Krai, Russia. It is located in the northern and northwestern parts of the krai and borders with Khabarovsk Krai i ...
)
Since the advent of
Perestroika
''Perestroika'' ( ; rus, перестройка, r=perestrojka, p=pʲɪrʲɪˈstrojkə, a=ru-perestroika.ogg, links=no) was a political reform movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the late 1980s, widely associ ...
, the Udege, led by
Pavel Sulyandziga
Pavel Vasilievich Sulyandziga ( born 20 February 1962 in Olon, Pozharsky District, Primorsky Kray) is a Russian indigenous rights activist of Udege people, Udege nationality. He is a member of the UN Working Group on the issue of human rights an ...
, have been actively involved in the struggle for control over their traditional territories along the
Bikin River. A central objective has been the establishment of a
Territory of Traditional Natural Resource Use
Territory of Traditional Natural Resource Use, TTNRU () is a type of land use and protected areas in Russia, established for protection of the traditional way of life of List of small-numbered Indigenous peoples of Russia, small-numbered Indigenou ...
of federal status, which was proposed in cooperation with the national umbrella organisation
RAIPON and the Russian
Institute of Anthropology and Ethnography
The Institute of Anthropology and Ethnography or N.N. Miklukho-Maklai Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology (; abbreviated as ИЭА in Russian and IEA in English) is a Russian institute of research, specializing in ethnographic studies of cultu ...
but failed to be approved by the authorities.
[Discrimination against indigenous small-numbered peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East of the Russian Federation]
(Parallel report submitted to the UN Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, RAIPON, June 13, 2008)
According to the
2001 Ukrainian census
The 2001 Ukrainian census is to date the only census of the population of independent Ukraine. It was conducted by the State Statistics Committee of Ukraine on 5 December 2001, twelve years after the last Soviet Union census in 1989.[Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...]
, only 8 declared
Udege as their native language. Most of the Udeges in Ukraine indicated Russian (19) or Ukrainian (6) as their native language. 7 of them named another language.
Ethnonyms
Until the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century Russian and Western researchers did not separate Udege and
Oroch, considering them one people (often called ''Orochoni''). The first who alleged their ethnic separation was S. N. Brailovsky (). He was also the first to introduce the
ethnonym
An ethnonym () is a name applied to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms (whose name of the ethnic group has been created by another group of people) and autonyms, or endonyms (whose name is created and used ...
Udihe, Udiheitsi (), which became an official, in particular autoethnonym already in the 1930s. Until that time, the Udege did not have a common self-name. Each territorial group had its own self-name: Hungarian – Hungake, Bikinska – Bikinka, Anyuyska – Uninka, and so on.
Also known is the
eхonym Udege Kekari () — so called udege neighboring peoples, mainly Orochi and Manchzhur, and this term is sometimes found in Western and
Russian literature
Russian literature refers to the literature of Russia, its Russian diaspora, émigrés, and to Russian language, Russian-language literature. Major contributors to Russian literature, as well as English for instance, are authors of different e ...
.
They were called Qiakala (恰喀拉, ) by the
Qing dynasty
The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...
.
File:Расселение удэгейцев в ДФО по городским и сельским поселениям, в %.png, Settlement of Udege in the Far Eastern Federal District by urban and rural settlements in%, 2010 census
File:Huang Qing Zhigong Tu, 1769, Qiakala people (恰喀拉).jpg, left, "Qiakala" people (恰喀拉), Qing
The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...
designation of the Udege. Huang Qing Zhigong Tu
''Huang Qing Zhigong Tu'' (; ''Collection of Portraits of Subordinate Peoples of the Qing Dynasty'') is an 18th-century ethnological study of Chinese tributary states, including Western nations that traded with the Qing Empire. It was published ar ...
, 1769
File:Удэгейская женщина с реки Максимовка (Кусун). Костюм туземный, обувь китайская. Начало XX века.jpg, Udege woman
File:Один из первых фотоснимков удэгейского стойбища, сделанный В. К. Арсеньевым, с его автографом. 1906 г.jpg, Udege village, 1906
Notes
References
External links
* Maksim Russo
Map of languages of Russia: Udege(
Polit.ru, 10 March 2019)
* http://www.tooyoo.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/Russia/bibl/Udege.html
{{Authority control
Tungusic peoples
Indigenous peoples of Siberia
Indigenous small-numbered peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East
People from Khabarovsk Krai
People from Primorsky Krai
Ethnic groups in Russia
Ethnic groups in Siberia