Daur of the Nen River Plains and Their Ancient Game of Hockey

In the far northeast of China, on the plains of the Nen river and the edge of the great Hulunbuir grassland, live the Daur, a settled farming people of Mongol root in a land of herders, forest, and river. Held by many to descend from the ancient Khitan who once ruled the north, they are tillers of the black soil who kept also cattle, hunting, and fishing, and who are famed across China for their ancient game of field hockey and for the shamanism of the north.

This account follows the Daur from their origins among the Mongolic peoples of the north, through their river-plain villages and their service to the Manchu state, into their Mongolic tongue, their shamanic faith and the rite of the oboo, and the hockey, wrestling, and birch-bark ware that mark them. It ends with the Daur of today, a settled people of the northern plains keeping their sports and their customs alive in modern China.

The Farmers of the Nen River Plains
Daur, Dagur, and the Name of the People
The Daur Tongue of Mongol Root
The Plains of the Nen and the Hulunbuir Grass
The Villages, the Clans, and the Old Order
The Clan, the Village, and the Bonds of the Daur
The Shaman, the Oboo, and the Spirits of the North
The Hockey, the Wrestling, and the Ways of the Daur
The Farmers, the Carvers, and the Makers of Birch
Grain, Milk, and the Table of the North
The New Year, the Oboo Rite, and the Feasts
From the Mongols and the Manchus to Modern China
The Daur in Modern China

The Farmers of the Nen River Plains

In the far northeast of China, on the plains of the Nen river and the edge of the great Hulunbuir grassland, live the Daur, a settled farming people of Mongol root in a land of herders and forest. Numbering some hundred and thirty thousand, they dwell in the Morin Dawa banner of Inner Mongolia and about the city of Qiqihar in Heilongjiang, a people of the northern rivers and the open steppe.

The Daur speak a language of the Mongolic family, and this Mongol root is the clearest mark of their origin, for they are held by many to descend in part from the Khitan, the people who founded the Liao dynasty and ruled the north a thousand years ago, or from other Mongol peoples of the northeast. Whatever the exact line, they are kin in speech to the Mongols and the other Mongolic peoples.

Unlike the herding Mongols of the steppe, the Daur became a settled farming people, tilling the fertile plains of the Nen river and living in villages of fixed houses, while keeping also cattle and horses and hunting and fishing in the rich north. This mix of farming, herding, hunting, and fishing, in a land where the forest, the river, and the grassland met, gave the Daur a distinctive way of life.

To speak of the Daur is to speak of a settled people of the northern plains, of Mongol root yet farmers rather than nomads, keepers of a lively tradition of field hockey and wrestling and of the shamanism of the north. On the meeting ground of forest, river, and steppe in the far northeast, they hold their own place among the peoples of China.

Daur, Dagur, and the Name of the People

The people are known as the Daur, or in other spellings Dagur or Dahur, the name they give themselves, and it is by this name that the state recognises them as one of its nationalities and sets aside the Morin Dawa Daur autonomous banner in Inner Mongolia. The name is their own word for who they are, binding together the communities of the Nen plains and the northern rivers.

The meaning and the origin of the name are debated, and some connect it to words in the Mongolic tongue, but for the people it is simply the name of their nation, borne through the centuries in the far northeast. Under various renderings it appears in the records of the Qing and earlier, marking a people long settled on the northern frontier of the Chinese and the Manchu worlds.

The Daur are held by many scholars to be linked to the ancient Khitan, the Mongolic people who founded the Liao dynasty and ruled the north for two centuries before the rise of the Jurchen and the Mongols. If this link holds, the Daur carry into the present a thread from one of the great powers of the medieval north, a people whose empire once stretched across the northern lands.

Whatever the origin of the name and the exact line of descent, the Daur know themselves as one people, a settled folk of Mongol root on the northern plains, keepers of their tongue, their sports, and their shamanic faith. The name Daur marks them among the peoples of the northeast, kin in speech to the Mongols yet distinct in their settled and many-sided way of life.

The Daur Tongue of Mongol Root

The Daur speak a language of the Mongolic family, close kin to Mongolian and to the other Mongolic tongues, yet distinct enough, and marked by old features, that scholars study it with special interest, some seeing in it traces that support the link to the ancient Khitan. It is the everyday speech of the Daur villages, carried in the home, the field, and the gathering.

Set among Mongol, Manchu, Chinese, and other neighbours in the northeast, the Daur language took in words from these tongues, above all from Chinese and, in earlier times, from Manchu, which the Daur often knew and used, for many Daur served the Qing state and learned its language. Yet the Mongolic core and grammar of the Daur tongue endured through these borrowings.

For most of their history the Daur had no writing of their own for their language, and used Manchu, and later Chinese, for writing, while their own tongue was carried in speech and in the rich body of Daur song and oral lore. Many Daur were literate in Manchu in the days of the Qing, and served as officials and scribes on the northern frontier.

In the modern age standard Chinese has become the language of writing and of school, and most Daur are bilingual, using Chinese for the wider world and their own Mongolic tongue at home. The Daur language, unwritten and set among larger tongues, is among the more fragile of the Mongolic languages, and its keeping among the young is a matter of concern for those who cherish this distinctive northern speech.

The Daur name written in script

The Plains of the Nen and the Hulunbuir Grass

The homeland of the Daur is the far northeast of China, above all the plains of the Nen river, which runs down from the north to join the great rivers of Manchuria, and the eastern edge of the Hulunbuir grassland. The greater number live in the Morin Dawa Daur autonomous banner in the east of Inner Mongolia, with large communities about the city of Qiqihar in Heilongjiang, and a scattering far to the west in Xinjiang.

This is a northern land of long, hard winters and short, warm summers, where the forest of the Greater Khingan mountains meets the open grassland and the fertile river plains. The Daur settled the plains of the Nen and its tributaries, where the black soil bore good crops, and there they built their villages of fixed houses, tilling the fields while keeping cattle and horses and hunting and fishing in the rich country around.

The meeting of forest, river, and grassland gave the Daur a land of many gifts, the black earth for the plough, the grass for the herds, the forest for game and timber, and the rivers for fish, and their way of life drew on all of them. The Nen river, running through their country, was the artery of their homeland, giving fish, water, and a way through the plains.

Rooted to the plains of the Nen and the edge of the Hulunbuir grass, and gathered in the Morin Dawa banner and about Qiqihar, the Daur made their homeland in the far northeast. It is a land of river, forest, and steppe, of black soil and open sky, where a settled people of Mongol root kept their tongue, their sports, and their shamanic faith through the long northern winters.

The Villages, the Clans, and the Old Order

In the days before the reach of the modern state, the Daur lived in their river-plain villages as settled farmers, under the sway of custom, the guidance of elders, and the bonds of the clan, and, above them, the officials of the Manchu state, whom many Daur served. Each village was a community of farming households, ordered by the ties of clan and the authority of the old men.

The Daur way of life drew on the many gifts of their land, the tilling of the black soil for grain, the keeping of cattle and horses, and the hunting and fishing of the rich forest and rivers. Wealth was reckoned in land, in animals, and in the standing of the family and the clan, and the round of the northern farming year, with its long winter, set the rhythm of life.

The Daur were a people much valued by the Manchu state, for they were reckoned able soldiers, hunters, and administrators, and many were enrolled in the banners, served as officials and scribes, and were settled by the state on distant frontiers, even as far as Xinjiang, to guard the marches. This service bound the Daur to the Qing and spread them far from their northern home.

Governed by custom, by elders, and by the clan, and serving the Manchu state that valued them, the Daur lived as settled farmers, herders, and hunters of the northern plains. A people of Mongol root on the meeting ground of forest, river, and steppe, they kept their tongue, their sports, and their shamanic faith through the long centuries of the northeastern frontier.

The Clan, the Village, and the Bonds of the Daur

Daur society rests on the clan and the village, the ties of descent that bind families across the river plains. Descent is reckoned through the father’s line, and the Daur are ordered into clans, each bearing its name and tracing a common ancestor, and the members of a clan honour the same forebears, owe one another the duties of kin, and marry outside the clan, so that marriage binds the clans of a district together.

The village was often the seat of a clan or a group of related families, a settled community of fixed houses on the river plain, guided by respected elders and the heads of the clans. The Daur built no wide state of their own but lived under the Manchu banners and officials, and authority within the village rested on age, on descent, and on standing, and, in the days of the Qing, on rank in the service of the state.

Marriage was arranged by the families according to custom, marked by the exchange of gifts and by feasting, and the ties of marriage bound the households and clans together. The extended family, often several generations under one roof or in one courtyard, was the foundation of Daur life, and respect for elders and for the ancestors ran through the whole of society.

Women held an honoured place, working in the fields and the household and, as weavers and workers of cloth and birch bark, making the goods of daily life. The Daur were known for a lively social life, for their sports and their gatherings, and the clan, the village, and the bonds of kin bound the Daur individual into a close and ordered community of the northern plains.

Morin Dawa, the Daur banner in Hulunbuir

The Shaman, the Oboo, and the Spirits of the North

The older faith of the Daur was the shamanism of the north, a worship of the spirits of the sky, the earth, the mountains, the rivers, and the forest, and of the ancestors, in which the shaman stood as the link between the people and the unseen world. The shaman, drumming and dancing into a trance, journeyed to the spirits, healed the sick, read the causes of misfortune, and led the great rites of the community.

The Daur shamanism is among the best known and most studied of the shamanic traditions of the north, and the Daur shaman, with the drum, the mirror, and the costume hung with iron and cloth, was a figure of power and awe, chosen and called by the spirits and trained in the vast lore of the chants and the rites. The clans had their own shamans and their own ancestral spirits, honoured with offering and sacrifice.

A distinctive rite of the north kept by the Daur is the worship at the oboo, the sacred cairn of stones raised on a hill or a high place, where the community gathered to make offerings to the spirits of the land and the sky and to pray for rain, for good pasture, and for the welfare of the people. The oboo rite, shared with the Mongols, was among the great occasions of the Daur year.

In later times the Daur took in something of the Tibetan Buddhism and the Chinese folk religion of the peoples around them, and in the modern age the old shamanism has weakened under the pressures of a changing world. Yet the memory of the shaman, the reverence of the oboo, and the honouring of the ancestors and the spirits of the north remain deep in the Daur sense of themselves.

The Hockey, the Wrestling, and the Ways of the Daur

The most famous of Daur traditions is their ancient game of field hockey, the beikou, played with curved sticks and a ball of felt, wood, or, in the old days, even a ball that could be set alight for a night game, a sport the Daur have played for centuries and at which they excel. So strong is the tradition that the Daur homeland has become known as a home of hockey in China, and Daur players have carried the game to the wider country.

Wrestling is another cherished Daur tradition, a test of strength and skill contested at the festivals and gatherings, and horse-racing and archery, the sports of the northern peoples, have their place among them. These sports, drawn from the life of the plains and the steppe, are woven into the festivals and the social life of the people.

The shamanism of the north, with the shaman, the drum, and the rites of the oboo, runs as a tradition through the life of the Daur, binding the community to the spirits and the ancestors. The rich body of Daur song and oral lore, the myths, the history, and the ritual chants, carried in memory, is among the treasures of their tradition.

Around these run the customs of the year and of life, the sports and the gatherings, the courtship and the weddings, and the rites of the ancestors and the spirits. Through the hockey, the wrestling, the shaman, and the song, the Daur mark the passages of life and the turning of the year in ways carried down from their forebears on the northern plains.

The Farmers, the Carvers, and the Makers of Birch

The crafts of the Daur are the crafts of a settled people of the northern forest and plain, drawing on the gifts of their land. The tilling of the black soil and the growing of grain were their great skills, and they were noted farmers among the peoples of the north, but they worked also in the materials of the forest and the river around them.

The working of birch bark was a notable Daur craft, for the birch of the northern forest gave a light, strong, and waterproof material that the Daur fashioned into boxes, baskets, buckets, and the vessels of daily life, often decorated with incised or painted patterns. Birch-bark ware was among the characteristic goods of the Daur and of the other forest peoples of the north.

The Daur made the curved sticks of their hockey and the gear of their sports, built their houses of timber and earth against the northern cold, made carts and sledges for the plains and the snow, and worked leather and wool from their herds. The women wove and sewed the cloth and the dress of the household, and the making of the goods of daily life drew on the skills of a self-reliant people.

The hunting of the forest and the fishing of the rivers gave the Daur furs, skins, and the materials of their trade, and the working of these was a skill of the north. Yet it is for their farming, their birch-bark ware, and the gear of their famous sports that the crafts of the Daur are known, an art bound to the many-sided life of a people on the meeting ground of forest, river, and steppe.

Grain, Milk, and the Table of the North

The food of the Daur is the food of the northern plains, built on the grain that their fields bore, above all the millet, the buckwheat, and the other hardy grains of the north, ground into meal and cooked as porridge, cakes, and steamed foods. Millet porridge was a mainstay of the table, and the grain of the black soil gave the Daur a fuller store of bread and porridge than the herding peoples of the steppe.

To the grain were added the milk and dairy of the herds, the meat of the cattle and of the game taken in the hunt, and the fish of the rivers, for the Daur drew on all the gifts of their land. The dairy foods, the milk, the cheese, and the cream of the northern herds, and the smoked and preserved meat and fish, gave food against the long winter.

The Daur are known for their fondness for the foods of the north, the millet and buckwheat, the dairy and meat, and the wild plants, berries, and mushrooms gathered from the forest, and for a hearty cooking suited to the cold. Tea, at times with milk in the manner of the steppe, was drunk and offered to guests, and the offering of food and drink was a mark of the warm hospitality of the people.

Grain wine and other liquors, brewed in the household, were the drink of hospitality and of the festivals, poured for guests and shared at the great occasions and the sports. From the millet and buckwheat of the black soil to the dairy of the herds, the fish of the Nen, and the game and berries of the forest, the food of the Daur is that of a many-sided people of the northern land.

The New Year, the Oboo Rite, and the Feasts

The festivals of the Daur turn on the northern year and on the honouring of the spirits and the ancestors, and they gather the community for feasting, sport, and song. The new year, kept in the depth of the northern winter, is the greatest of family occasions, with the gathering of kin, the wearing of the best clothes, the sharing of the good things of the table, and the visiting that binds the community after the long cold.

The worship at the oboo, the sacred cairn on the hill, is among the great communal rites of the Daur year, when the people gather to make offerings to the spirits of the land and the sky, to pray for rain and good pasture and the welfare of the people, and then to hold the sports and the feasting that follow. The oboo festival joins the sacred rite to the games and the gathering.

The sports of the Daur, the field hockey, the wrestling, the horse-racing, and the archery, are woven into the festivals and gatherings, contested with vigour before the assembled community, and they are among the liveliest occasions of the Daur year. The song and the dance of the people fill these gatherings, and the festivals are times of both devotion and joyful contest.

The passages of life, birth, marriage, and death, gather the kin for ceremony, the wedding above all celebrated with feasting and song. At all these occasions the sports, the songs, the dress of the people, and the grain wine bring colour and warmth against the northern cold, so that the Daur meet the great moments of life and the year with feast, with sport, and with the honouring of the spirits.

From the Mongols and the Manchus to Modern China

The origin of the Daur reaches back into the tangled history of the northern peoples, and many scholars connect them to the ancient Khitan, the Mongolic people who founded the Liao dynasty and ruled the north for two centuries before the rise of the Jurchen and the Mongols. Whatever the exact line, the Daur emerged as a distinct people of Mongol root, settled on the plains of the Amur and its tributaries in the far north.

In earlier times the Daur lived further north, along the Amur river, until the coming of the Russians into that country in the seventeenth century, and the wars and pressures that followed, led many Daur to move south to the plains of the Nen, under the protection of the rising Manchu state. There they settled and became the northern people known today.

The Manchu Qing state valued the Daur highly, enrolling them in the banners as soldiers, hunters, and officials, and settling some of them on distant frontiers, even as far as Xinjiang, to guard the marches, so that Daur communities were spread far from their northern home. Many Daur served the state with distinction, and were reckoned among its abler frontier peoples.

After the founding of the People’s Republic the Daur were recognised as one of the official nationalities of China, and the Morin Dawa Daur autonomous banner was established in their homeland. The modern age has brought roads, schools, and the reach of the state to the northern plains, drawing the Daur into the wider life of the country, while their sports and their shamanic heritage remain the marks of their identity.

The Daur in Modern China

Today the Daur number some hundred and thirty thousand, living still chiefly on the plains of the Nen river in the far northeast, above all in the Morin Dawa Daur autonomous banner in Inner Mongolia and about the city of Qiqihar in Heilongjiang, with the far-scattered community in Xinjiang that the Qing settled there long ago. A settled people of Mongol root, they remain rooted in the northern rivers and the edge of the grass.

Modern life has come to the Daur plains in the shape of roads, railways, schools, and the reach of the market, and the black soil of their country is farmed with modern means, while the city of Qiqihar has grown into a large industrial centre in which many Daur live. The many-sided old life of farming, herding, hunting, and fishing has changed with the times.

The Daur are celebrated across China as a home of field hockey, and their players and their tradition of the game have carried the fame of the people, so that the sport has become a proud emblem of the Daur. Yet the pull of the cities and standard Chinese schooling press upon the Daur tongue, which, unwritten and set among larger languages, is among the more fragile parts of their heritage.

Through change the Daur carry their heritage with pride. Their field hockey and wrestling, the shamanism and the oboo of the north, the birch-bark ware, the songs, and the ties of the clans endure as marks of who they are. A settled people of Mongol root on the meeting ground of forest, river, and steppe, the Daur keep their sports and their customs alive in modern China.