Tungusic peoples

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Tungusic peoples

1612 map by Isaac Massa showing Tingoesen landt (land of the Tungus, i.e. Evenks)
Total population
Approx. 11 million
Regions with significant populations
China	10,646,954
Russia	78,051
Taiwan	12,000
Japan	1,020
Ukraine	610
Mongolia	537
United States	200
Languages
Tungusic languages, Russian (in  Russia), Mandarin Chinese (in  China), Mongolian (in  Mongolia)
Religion
Various religions (including Shamanism and Buddhism)

Tungusic peoples are an ethnolinguistic group formed by the speakers of Tungusic languages (or Manchu–Tungus languages). They are native to Siberia, China, and Mongolia.

The Tungusic phylum is divided into two main branches, northern (Evenic or Tungus) and southern (Jurchen–Nanai). An intermediate group (Oroch–Udege) is sometimes recognized.

Name

The name Tungusic is artificial, and properly refers just to the postulated linguistic phylum (

The name Tunguska, a region of eastern Siberia bounded on the west by the

Tungusic people on the Amur river like Udeghe, Ulchi and Nanai adopted Chinese influences in their religion and clothing with Chinese dragons on ceremonial robes, scroll and spiral bird and monster mask designs, Chinese New Year, using silk and cotton, iron cooking pots, and heated homes from China.[7]

The Manchu originally came from Manchuria, which is now Northeast China and the Russian Far East. Following the Manchu establishment of the Qing dynasty in the 17th century, they have been almost completely assimilated into the language and culture of the ethnic Han population of China.

The southern Tungusic Manchu farming sedentary lifestyle was very different from the nomadic hunter gatherer forager lifestyle of their more northern Tungusic relatives like the Warka, which left the Qing state to attempt to make them sedentarize and farm like Manchus.^[8][9]

During the 17th century, the Tsardom of Russia was expanding east across Siberia, and into Tungusic-speaking lands, resulting in early border skirmishes with the Qing dynasty of China, leading up to the 1689 Treaty of Nerchinsk. The first published description of a Tungusic people to reach beyond Russia into the rest of Europe was by the Dutch traveler Isaac Massa in 1612. He passed along information from Russian reports after his stay in Moscow.^[10]

Ethnic groups

"Tungusic" (Manchu-Tungus) peoples are divided into two main branches: northern and southern.

The southern branch is dominated by the Manchu (historically Jurchen). Qing emperors were Manchu, and the Manchu group has largely been sinicized (the Manchu language being moribund, with 20 native speakers reported as of 2007^[11]).

The

Tungusic peoples are:

List of the modern Tungusic peoples
Ethnonym	Population	Main country	Religion
Manchus	10,424,785	China	Manchu shamanism, Buddhism, Chinese folk religion, Roman Catholicism
Sibes	190,481	China	Buddhism, Shamanism
Evenks	69,503	Russia	Shamanism, Russian Orthodoxy, Buddhism
Evens	22,487	Russia	Shamanism, Russian Orthodoxy
Nanais	17,514	Russia	Buddhism, Russian Orthodoxy, Shamanism
Oroqens	8,659	China	Shamanism, Buddhism
Ulchs	2,841	Russia	Shamanism, Russian Orthodoxy
Udeges	1,538	Russia	Shamanism
Orochs	815	Russia	Shamanism, Russian Orthodoxy, Buddhism
Negidals	565	Russia	Shamanism
Oroks	315	Russia	Shamanism, Russian Orthodoxy
Taz	274	Russia	Russian Orthodoxy

Population genomics

Full genome analyses on Northern East Asian populations, including Tungusic peoples, revealed them to descend primarily from Ancient Northeast Asians, with varying degrees of admixture associated with agriculturalist populations from the Yellow River region. Tungusic peoples display their highest genetic affinity with Mongolic peoples, but also share varying degrees of genetic affinity with Turkic peoples, which however have significant West Eurasian admixture. Tungusic peoples display the highest genetic affinity to Ancient Northeast Asians, represented by c. 7,000 and 13,000 year old specimens.^[12]

Previous studies argued for a potential shared ancestry between Tungusic, Mongolic, Turkic, Koreanic, and Japonic populations via Neolithic agriculturalist societies from Northeast China (e.g. the Liao civilization) as a part of the hypothetical Altaic language family. However, recent data contradicts this because while West Liao River ancestry was found among the "macro-Altaic" Koreans and Japanese, it was absent among the "micro-Altaic" Tungusic and Mongolic populations.^[13]

The Manchu, the largest Tungusic-speaking population, displays increased genetic affinity with Han Chinese, and Koreans, compared to with other Tungusic peoples. The Manchu were therefore an exception to the coherent genetic structure of Tungusic-speaking populations, likely due to the large-scale population migrations and genetic admixtures with the Han Chinese in the past few hundred years.^[14]

Paternal haplogroups

Tungusic peoples display primarily paternal haplogroups associated with

The maternal haplogroups of Tungusic peoples are primarily shared with other Northern East Asians. Maternal haplogroup diversity seems to reflect some amount of gene flow with peoples living around the Sea of Okhotsk (Koryaks, Nivkhs, Ainus, etc.) on the one hand and peoples living in Central Asia (Iranian, Turkic, Mongolic peoples) on the other.^[25][26]

According to a total of 29 sample from the mtDNA studies of

• 
  Portrait of a Tungusic man by

  Carl Peter Mazer

  (1850)
• 
  The Manchu people in Fuzhou in 1915
• 
  A Manchu guard
• 
  An Evenks wooden home
• 
  Sibe military colonists (1885)
• 
  An Udege family (early 20th century)
• 
  Tungus man in Vorogovo, Siberia (1914)
• 
  A Manchu man in traditional clothing

See also

• Eskeri
• Xeglun
• Sinicization of the Manchus

References

• Mile Nedeljković, Leksikon naroda sveta, Beograd, 2001.