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The Manchu ethnic minority
 Like the Han people, the majority ethnic group in
China, over 70 per cent of the Manchus are engaged in
agriculture-related jobs. Their main crops include soybean, sorghum,
corn, millet, tobacco and apple. They also raise tussah silkworms. For
Manchus living in remote mountainous areas, gathering ginseng,
mushroom and edible fungus makes an important sideline. Most of the
Manchu people in cities, who are better educated, are engaged in
traditional and modern industries.
Manchus have their own script and language, which belongs to the
Manchu-Tungusic group of the Altaic language family. Beginning from
the 1640s, large numbers of Manchus moved to south of the Shanhaiguan
Pass (east end of the Great Wall), and gradually adopted Mandarin
Chinese as their spoken language. Later, as more and more Han people
moved to north of the pass, many local Manchus picked up Mandarin
Chinese too.
An ethnic group originally living in forests and mountains in
northeast China, the Manchus excelled in archery and horsemanship.
Children were taught the art of swan-hunting with wooden bows and
arrows at six or seven, and teenagers learned to ride on horseback in
full hunting gear, racing through forests and mountains. Women, as
well as men, were skilled equestrians.
The traditional costumes of male Manchus are a narrow-cuffed short
jacket over a long gown with a belt at the waist to facilitate
horse-riding and hunting. They let the back part of their hair grow
long and wore it in a plait or queue. During the Qing Dynasty
(1644-1911) the queue became the standard fashion throughout China,
eventually becoming a political symbol of the dynasty. Women coiled
their hair on top of their heads and wore earrings, long gowns and
embroidered shoes. Linen was a favorite fabric for the rich; deerskin
was popular with the common folk. Silks and satins for noble and the
rich and cotton cloth for the ordinary people became standard for
Manchurians after a period of life away from the mountains and
forests. Following the Manchus' southward migration, the common people
came to wear the same kind of dress as their Han counterparts, while
the Manchu gown was adopted by Han women generally.
In places around Aihui County, Heilongjiang Province, however, Manchu
people lived by their old traditions and customs and used their own
ancient language until 1949, when the People's Republic of China was
founded.
Houses of the Manchus were built in three divisions, with the middle
used as a kitchen and the two wings each serving as bedroom and living
room. By tradition, the bedroom had three "kang" (brick beds which
could be heated in winter), which were laid against the west, north
and south walls. Guests and friends were habitually given the west
"kang", elders the north, and the younger generation the south. With
windows generally open to the south and west, the houses stayed warm
in winter and cool in summer.
 A favorite traditional Manchu meal consisted of steamed millet or
cakes of glutinous millet. Festivals were traditionally celebrated
with dumplings, and the New Year's Eve with a treat of stewed meat.
Boiled and roast pork and Manchu-style cookies were table delicacies.
Monogamy has always been practiced by the Manchus, with youngpeople
engaged at the age of 16 or 17 by parental will.
On the wedding day, the bride had to sit the whole day on the south
"kang", an act inaugurating "future happiness." When night fell, a low
table with two wine pots and cups would be set. The bride and
bridegroom would, hand in hand, walk around the table three times and
sit down to drink under the light of a candle burning through the
night on the south "kang". They were congratulated amid songs by one
or several guests in the outer room. Sometimes the ceremony was marked
with well-wishers casting black peas into the bridal chamber before
they left the new couple. On the fourth day, the newlyweds would pay a
visit to the bride's home.
A variety of manners were observed by the Manchus. Children were
required to pay formal respects to their elders regularly, once every
three to five days. In greeting their superiors, men were required to
extend their left hand to the knee and idle the right hand while
scraping a bow, and women would squat with both hands on the knees.
Between friends and relatives, warm embraces were the commonest form
of greeting for all men and women.
The Manchus used to believe in Shamanism, which in the early days was
divided into the court branch and the common folk branch. The former
was generally practiced by priestsorcerers in the palace. During the
early Qing period, those eligible for the office of "shaman" were
mostly clever and smart people with a good command of the dialect of
the royal
Aisin-Gioro clan. Shamans were employed to chant scriptures and
perform religious dances when imperial services were held. Shamanism
remained popular among the Manchus in the area of Ningguta and Aihui
County in northeast China until the nation-wide liberation.
Shamans of the common Manchus generally fell into two categories:
village shamans, who performed religious dances to exorcise evil
spirits through the power of the gods, and clan shamans who presided
only over sacrificial ceremonies. Every village had its own shaman,
whose sole job was to perform the spirit dance. Only seriously ill
patients saw a real doctor. Religious rite was generally performed by
a shaman attired in a smock and a pointed cap festooned with long
colored paper strips half-concealing his face. Dangling a small mirror
in front and bronze bells at the waist, he would intone prayers and
dance at a trot to the accompaniment of drumbeats.
 Military successes and triumphal marches or returns were inevitably
celebrated with sacrificial ceremonies presided over by shamans. Up to
the eve of the country's liberation, making animal sacrificial
offerings to
the gods and ancestors was still a big event among the Manchus in
Aihui County.
The Manchu funeral arrangement was unique. No one was allowed to die
on a west or north "kang". Believing that doors were made for living
souls, the Manchus allowed dead bodies to be taken out only through
windows. Ground burial was the general practice.
Jumping onto galloping horses from one side or onto camels from the
rear was the most popular recreational activity among the Manchus.
Another favorite sport was horse jumping in celebration of bumper
harvests in the autumn and on New Year holidays at the Spring
Festival.
Skating is also a long established sport enjoyed by the Manchus, as it
is by the whole Chinese people. In the Qing Dynasty before the
mid-19th century, skating was even undertaken by Manchu soldiers as a
required course of their military training. Pole climbing, swordplay,
juggling a flagpole, and archery on ice are the more interesting
sports of the Manchu people.
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