ann
(Ann)
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Theseaimanwomen, possibly hunted down like sable or any other
valuable boreal animal, were being used to produce new human resources
for the Romanov incorporation of the SAH basin to deploy indigenous
fighters against the Qing. Reports make it quite clear that the regional
order envisioned by the dynasty had a limited tolerance for a foraging
lifestyle, defined as people living“like wild beasts and birds.”Such an
existence sustained the ethnic fragmentation that Qing officials felt made
the region vulnerable to foreign incursion and obstructed their own
efforts to construct reliable New Manchus. The dynasty even exploited
the ambiguities of Cossack identity by taking Russian prisoners into Qing
ranks to redeploy them against Romanov forces.^110
Foraging, a way of life adapted to residence in the basin’sforest
ecology under preimperial conditions, required the devotion of consid-
erable dynastic resources to alter this practice and its embodiments
before, during, and after thefinal conflictwiththeRussiansinthe
1680 s. The Kangxi emperor implicitly acknowledged the incompati-
bility of forager and imperial identity when he remitted the penalties
for the 1685 defaults in Solon-Ewenki and Dagur pelt tribute. He
acknowledged that“the Solon and Dagur act as the great army of
Heilongjiang and staff its militarypostal relay stations. In consider-
ation of their efforts, they will be spared censure and receive their
statutory rewards.”Recognition of this incompatibility was even more
explicit in a 1690 decision that because one thousand new Dagur
recruits for expanded regional garrisons“would not be able to hunt
or fish for themselves, their presentation of sable tribute should be
stopped. They will be issued money for rations as per regulations on
provincial capital garrisons.”^111
There were also instances of mobilizing foragers as farmers or soldiers,
then demobilizing them back to hunters. In 1743 “hunting”(Ma:buthai)
Solon-Ewenki and Dagur who had been cultivating statefields resumed
pursuit of sable and other game, as did hunter-soldiers withdrawn from
“outposts”(Ma:karun)in 1698. The general trend, however, was to
transform foragers into sedentary stipended consumers of grain just like
garrisons in China proper. Forager tribute had become far less important
than mobilization of forager bodies.^112
Such bodies were, nevertheless, raw materials for“great army”service.
Many, like the impoverished Solon-Ewenki shifted to Ningguta in 1690 ,
required special “instruction” because they had “never understood
workingfields nor lived in houses,”but instead lived“like wild beasts
and birds without resting places.” Even in 1735 , Solon-Ewenki and
The Nature of Imperial Foraging in the SAH Basin 95
