With all the attention now on the possible DNA link between Dawoer people and the Khitan, how bout a thread on the recent Dawoer history and people.

For a long time, many Dawoer was classify as Mongol in order to get recognition, but between Mongol minorities in China.. the Dawoer was often look down on. However even though they is small in number, there was some rather important Dawoer's



it was claim that Henry Pu Yi's miss was actually a Dawoer (around this time they was better known as New Manchu, a classificatoin that was broad and consist of many northern groups)
some background on her I find
婉容纪念馆
姓名:郭布罗婉容
别名:字-慕鸿;别号-植莲
生辰:1905年10月27日(阴历9月29日)
祭日:1946年6月20日
籍贯:北京
地区:北京地安门帽儿胡同
国家:中国
民族:达斡尔


Another Daur who go under Mongol designation was Ulanhu. He was former Vice-Chairman of the People's Repubilc of China , Vice-Premier of the State Council
and Chairman of the People's Government of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region was concurrently first President of Inner Monglia University. (from Inner Mongolia University site)



The most common Daur/Dawoer pic you will find. Unfortunately most sites (American and Chinese) recycle the same information and the same picture. Worse is when sometime they use a picture of another ethnic group to pass them off as Dawoer. The clothing style look very similar to Manchu style.



A recent picture, I find this caption next to it.. however my Chinese is not good, maybe some one else can be help here :)
caption: "达斡尔少年把小鹿姐姐"
团团围住

I am curious to what this is, new gate for a Daur area? anyone care to translate the title? Found it while googling for Daur

I'm not well-informed about the minority national in China.. would love to know more about Dawoer..

"达斡尔少年把小鹿姐姐团团围住" means "Daur youths surrounding little Miss Lu".

The words on the gate read "China Daur Nationality Cultural Park" - one of those parks where tourists can see Daur people performing some traditional activities or dances and all.

Yeah, Wan Rong was actually quite pretty (unlike Pu Yi's other wives) - it's a pity Pu Yi didn't have any interest in her.

Too bad I can't continue translating the book on the Khitan until I have more time on my hands. Let me just point out here that the Daur play hockey as their traditional sport, and the Khitan are also said to have liked hockey and may even have invented it, according to some theories.

Thanks for the translation!

I think I found the pic of the Daur Hockey!


I assume the name is 曲棍球

here is another Daur picture I found.
http://www.neimengguok.com/web/nmgwh/2003-12/1071038781.html

It seem so far, they look very indistinguishable from the typical Han you find in Beijing.

There seem to be once a de-facto independent region call Dauria, roughly in the same area where Daur nationality inhabit, but extending into current day Russia. Even now, Russia still have a region called Dauria in Chita province.

http://www.dauria.ru/

will post more later, but the Daur was vital in repelling Russian intruder during the Qing Era.

Some quotes from "The Mongols at China's Edge" Written by Bulag, Uradyn Erden. 2002

The Daurs, an important but numerically small group, are today scattered in eastern Inner Mongolia and the neighboring Chinese province of Heilongjiang. They are also some in Xinjiang. Once tributaries of the Horchin Mongols, they were conquered by the Manchus and organized in the imperial Manchu eight banner system, seperate from the Mongols. During the Qing Dynasty they were closely identified with the Manchus, so closely that they were called "new Manchu." However, they were not confused with the Manchus. All the banners were seperately labeled "Solon," "Daur," "Barga" and so on (see Lattimore 1969). As the boundary between the Qing and Russia was drawn in the treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689 and the treaty of Kiakhta in 1727, some Daurs, along with other groups such as Ewenki, Orochon, and Barga (Mongols), were sent to Hulunbuir, where the Daurs played a dominant role in defending the Qing border... (p148)


In 1926, while editing comprehensive data on China's transportation and military affairs, Guo published the eight-volume Heishui Guoshi Jiacheng, of which three volumes survive (Ao-Dong 1989)..... Guo Kexing, however, had a completely sinocentric view of the origins of the Daur. Dahuer (Daur), he wrote, was originally descended from huaxia, that is, the Chinese. But as they moved to the nothern steppe, they adopted a pastoral economy and became "barbarian" (yong yi bian xia). He lamented the lack of written tradition that contributed to the obliteration of the true history of the Dahuer:

"When people talk about nationalities in Heilongjiang province, they usually refer to the Solon, Manchu, and Mongol. And the Daur people also shook the world as the crack force of the Solon, and when the Manchus and Mongols moved in and ruled China, they (the Daur) were also proud of being Solon, Manchu or Mongol, forgetting who they were. Pity! Forgetting ancestors would be ridiculed by people. (Guo 1987: 127)"

Degulai, another prominent Daur politician, who wrote the preface, was to become an important official working for the Mongolian border government of the Mongolian prince Demchugdonrob....... the Daurs' Mongol identity was officially affirmed in Japanese controlled Manchukuo. Daur-Mongol identity resided, then, in both a linguistic and a genealogical imagination. Curiously, there was little effort on the part of the Mongols to claim that the Daurs were their lost brothers, and indeed, as of today I have yet to find a single piece written by Mongols insisting that the Daurs were Mongols. (p154)

The ambivalence of the Mongols tot he Daur claim of Mongol identity was evidenced in the new nickname given by Mongols to the Daurs-- "September 18 Mongol," implying that they became Mongols only after the Japanese conquest of Manchuria on September 18, 1931... When Japanese scholar Ikeshiri (1982) published a book in 1943 entitled Daur nationality, many Daurs were enraged, accusing the Japanese of attempting to split the Mongolian nationality (tegusi, interview 1996). (p155)

The Manchugo emperor Pu Yi's wife Wan Rong was a Daur. The highest Mongolian commander within Manchukuo was Daur, Guo Wenling. Together with Lingsheng, another Daur notable from Hulunbuir, Gui was instrumental in persuading Pu Yi to become emperor of Manchukuo in 1932. (p155)

On the other hand, the Daurs' fiercely independant character was a constant challenge to Japanese expansionism. Their insistence on their autonomy from Japan was treated by the Japanese as indicative of strong Mongol nationalism.

will post more from the book later.

Daur speaks in ancient Mongolian language. Ancient Mongolian language was uset in Secret History of Mongols (SHM) and may daur scholars worked on the SHM. Daur means "additional" in Mongolian Language. It is very close to the Khitan language. Linguists encoded 1004 Big Scripts and 397 Small scripts of Khitan. They read 44 inscriptions in Khitan Scripts. These texts are completely different than Chinese sources.

Images of Khitan Script.