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emperor was told that the only way to obtain pine nuts and pine cones
was to cut down trees, then being done throughout the northeast.
The emperor decreed an end to this practice, which also pertained to
honey gatherers, and ordered that“a method must be established to climb
the trees”instead.^142 Bannermen had actually been climbing pines as far
back as 1647 and, significantly, had been rewarded for their skill. Given
their preference for old growth forests, sable may also have been driven
elsewhere or reduced by pine-felling over time.^143 Some such combination
of these cultural and ecological factors fomented incidents such as that in
1754 when nineteen Hunting Solon-Ewenki, failing tofind any quarry in
their Heilongjiang forests, poached 253 sable pelts from a Jilin preserve to
meet their tribute obligations.^144
Although it is difficult to trace the ultimate causes of many accounts of
resource depletion in the historical record, shortfalls in pheasants, storks,
pine nuts, and sable indicate that imperial foraging, rather than Han
poaching, could play a primary role in ways not exclusively attributable
to human violation of regulations. This is certainly not to minimize
evidence for Han encroachment into banner resource enclaves, particu-
larly in search of valuable ginseng and most evident from the mid-
eighteenth century on. Banner personnel nevertheless poached as well.
Foragers had been duly and regularly warned by theGongbusince at least
1666 that they were not permitted to cut down trees containing honey,
fish, or even carry bows and arrows when on ginseng-gathering exped-
itions. Yet ginseng cases involving banner foragers emerged, such as that
of the twelve Plain White Banner honey gatherers apprehended in the
wave of violations investigated in the first decade of the eighteenth
century.^145
However, a relatively exclusive focus on ginseng tends to divert atten-
tion from dearth of other resources and, so, from other causes such as
imperial foraging.^146 Imperial foraging and Han encroachment could
synergistically operate to erode Manchu tradition as well as foraging
space. The connections between tree-climbing and the gathering of pine
nuts and honey are representative. Abandonment of the foraging skill of
tree-climbing and a commensurate rise in tree-felling may be a response to
the steady or increasing demands of bureaucratized hunting and
gathering. Commercial markets substantially sustained by Han consump-
tion may, meanwhile, develop in tandem. Human resources, tree-climbers
in this instance, are simultaneously degraded as skills incompatible with
demands are abandoned. Deforestation soon affects other members of the
ecosystem, such as sable, creating further declines. A distinct and more
104 Across Forest, Steppe, and Mountain
