The Tungus-Manchus and Mongols
(63rd Annual Meeting Ulaanbaatar, 2021)
From all the ethnographic complex of the Mediaeval Tungus-Manchus modern Tungus-Manchus modern Tungus-Manchus preserved only one ethnic indicator – the combined ear rings in the form of a ring with a stone or a coin run through. Such ear-rings were current in the 17th – 18th – 19h cc. However the Udeges, living now in the basins of the rivers Khor, Anui, Samarga, and in Late Mediaeval Past settling all the territory of Primorye and a part of Priamurye, have got the second type of women ear-rings, named as Vaiga. They are of two kinds: the first one has a form of “a question -sign”, the other – of “a broken ring”.
The construction of ear-rings of “question-form” consists of two parts – ear and pendant ones. The ear part – represents a broken ring with a sharpened tip being passed through ears. Sometimes a flat round stone or glass decoration with a hole in its center was put on ear part of the ear-ring. A pendant part represents a vertical rod with three round stone or glass beads of different diameter. The end of the rod was a wire loop, with a Chinese coin or a flat linen button thread through. From the bottom beads were fastened with wire, fastened with some turns at the base of the ear broken ring.
In the Mediaeval archaeological cultures of Primorye and Priamurye – the Mokhe, Pohai, Jurchen, existing till the 13th c. and relating to the Tungus-Manchus community, there are no ear-rings of “a question-form”. Appearance of such ear-rings is connected with the Mongols conquests who borrowed such ear-rings from the European Nomads and then spread this type on the vast territory – from the Middle Asia to the Far East. It is significant that ears of “a question-form” were secured in the indigenous culture of the Tungus-Manchus till the 20th c. It is natural that for such a long time this type of ear-rings was somewhat transformed and absorbed some Tungus-Manchus elements. For example, there appeared round flat stone or glass discs. So the presence of such a type of decoration in the Udege culture gives an opportunity to note a Mongol element in their culture; probably, it had got the ethnic-genetic significance.