|
Hokkaido University Collection of Scholarly and Academic Papers >
The Hokkaido University Museum >
北海道大学総合博物館研究報告 = Bulletin of the Hokkaido University Museum >
第6号（環オホーツク海地域における前近代交易網の発達と諸民族形成史の研究） >
近世の環オホーツク海地域南部におけるクロテン，ギンギツネの流通と狩猟方法
| Title: | 近世の環オホーツク海地域南部におけるクロテン，ギンギツネの流通と狩猟方法 |
| Other Titles: | Commercial distribution of fur products and technology of sable and fox hunting in the pre-modern southern Circum-Okhotsk Sea region |
| Authors: | 佐々木, 史郎1 Browse this author →KAKEN DB |
| Authors(alt): | Shiro, Sasaki1 |
| Keywords: | Amur River basin | | fox | | hunting | | sable | | Sakhalin |
| Issue Date: | Mar-2013 |
| Publisher: | 北海道大学総合博物館 |
| Journal Title: | 北海道大学総合博物館研究報告 |
| Journal Title(alt): | Bulletin of the Hokkaido University Museum |
| Volume: | 6 |
| Issue: | 1348-169X |
| Start Page: | 86 |
| End Page: | 102 |
| Abstract: | In this brief paper I will discuss the socio-economic background of the changes in circulating routes of sable and silver fox fur and techniques for hunting these animals in the Circum-Okhotsk Sea region, beginning in the seventeenth century. Sable fur and silver fox fur were highly appreciated by the Chinese, Mongolians, and Manchurians, as well as the European people. According to the historical records of the Qing dynasty (the last and largest Manchurian-established dynasty in Chinese history), the dynasty imported a large amount of sable fur and silver fox fur from the present Lower Amur region and Sakhalin. Documents show that when the dynasty had just been established at the beginning of the seventeenth century, it promptly began to organize the people into “fur tribute payers.” The sable and silver fox pelts were a politically and economically important strategic commodity for the people in northeast Asia. The Qing government determined that every household of the tribute payers had to pay a piece of sable fur each year, while the government gave them, in turn, a set of rewards that consisted of cotton and silk costumes and a certain amount of cotton cloth. It also decided that those who paid 304 pieces of sable fur, 2 pieces of highest quality fur (black fox), 2 sheets of carpet made of medium quality fur (yellow-blue fox) and 4 sheets of carpet of normal quality fur (red fox) were able to marry the daughters of Manchurian officers and become kin to Manchurian aristocrats. Local hunters in the Lower Amur basin and Sakhalin made every effort to develop techniques that enabled them to acquire more sable and fox in superior conditions. Fundamentally their hunting methods and tools consisted of using traps. They used nets, dead fall traps, and snare traps, which were able to capture fur-bearing animals causing little damage. No imperfection was permitted because the users were the imperial family of China. At the same time the people of the Lower Amur region quested for another way to access the fur resource. They noticed that the Japanese were eager to buy silk costumes and cloth in return for providing high quality fur, not appreciating the value of sable and fox fur. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the Lower Amur region people developed trading routes from northeastern China to Sakhalin and Hokkaido and enthusiastically engaged through the Ainu in trade activities with the Japanese. Starting in this century, Japan became a fur export country. Situations drastically changed in the middle of the nineteenth century, when modern countries like Imperial Russia and modernized Japan accessed the regions. Modernism radically changed the local hunter’s methods, equipment, and values of hunting for fur-bearing animals. Moreover, it changed the status of the local people from the privileged tribute payer to the poor “primitive” hunter-gatherers. |
| Type: | bulletin (article) |
| URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/2115/52567 |
| Appears in Collections: | 北海道大学総合博物館研究報告 = Bulletin of the Hokkaido University Museum > 第6号（環オホーツク海地域における前近代交易網の発達と諸民族形成史の研究）
|
Submitter: 江田 真毅
|
