Group of Uilta people |
| Total population |
|---|
| 360 (est.) |
| Regions with significant populations |
| Russia, Sakhalin Oblast: 346 (2002) Japan, Hokkaido: approx. 20 (1989) |
| Languages |
| Religion |
| Related ethnic groups |
|
Ainu, Nivkh, Itelmen, Evens, Koryaks, Evenks, Ulchs, Nanai, Oroch, Udege |
Oroks (Ороки in Russian; self-designation: ульта, ulta, ulcha) are a people in the Sakhalin Oblast (mainly the eastern part of the island) in Russia. The Orok language belongs to the Southern group of the Tungusic language family and is unwritten. According to the 2002 Russian census, there were 346 Oroks living in Northern Sakhalin by the Okhotsk Sea and Southern Sakhalin in the district by the city of Poronaysk.
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The name Orok is believed to derive from the exonym Oro given by a Tungusic group meaning "a domestic reindeer". The Orok self-designation endonym is Ul'ta, probably from the root Ula (meaning "domestic reindeer" in Orok). Another self-designation is Nani.[1] Occasionally, the Oroks, as well as the Orochs and Udege, are erroneously called Orochons.
The Russian Empire gained complete control over Orok lands after the 1858 Treaty of Aigun and 1860 Convention of Peking.[2] A penal colony was established on Sakhalin between 1857 and 1906, bringing large numbers of Russian criminals and political exiles, including Lev Sternberg, an important early ethnographer on Oroks and the island's other indigenous people, the Nivkhs and Ainu.[3] Russia underwent the Bolshevik Revolution forming the Soviet Union in 1922; the new government altered prior imperial polices towards the Oroks to bring them into line with communist ideology.[4] Before Soviet collectivization in the 1920s, the Orok were divided into five groups, each with their own migratory zone.[5]
Following the Russo-Japanese War, southern Sakhalin came under the control of the Empire of Japan, which administered it as Karafuto Prefecture. The Uilta were classified as "Karafuto natives" (樺太土人), and were not entered into Japanese-style family registers, in contrast to the Ainu, who had "mainland Japan" family registers.[6][7] Like the Karafuto Koreans and the Nivkh, but unlike the Ainu, the Uilta were thus not included in the evacuation of Japanese nationals after the Soviet invasion in 1945. Some Nivkhs and Uilta who served in the Imperial Japanese Army were held in Soviet work camps; after court cases in the late 1950s and 1960s, they were recognised as Japanese nationals and thus permitted to migrate to Japan. Most settled around Abashiri, Hokkaidō.[8] The Uilta Kyokai of Japan was founded to fight for Uilta rights and the preservation of Uilta traditions in 1975 by Dahinien Gendanu.[9]