The Daur people are an ethnic group. They form one of the officially recognized in the People's Republic of China. They numbered 132,394 according to the latest census , and most of them live in the Morin Dawa Daur Autonomous Banner in Inner Mongolia autonomous region of China. There are also some near Tacheng in Xinjiang, where their ancestors were moved during the Qing Dynasty.
Language
Daur is a . There is no written standard, although a Pinyin-based orthography has been devised by the native Daur scholar Merden Enhebatu.
The Daur language retains some Khitan substratal features, including a number of lexemes not found in other Mongolic languages. It is made up of three dialects: Bataxan, Hailar, Qiqihar.
History
Genetically, the Daurs are descendants of the , as recent DNA analyses have proven. The Daurs gave their name to the region of , also called Transbaikal, now the area of Russia east of Lake Baikal.
Facing the Russian expansion in the Amur region, between 1654 and 1656, during the reign of Shunzhi Emperor, the Daurs were forced to move southward and settle on the banks of the , from where they were constantly conscripted to serve in the banner system of the Qing emperors. The Daurs were engaged in border skirmishes with the Cossacks in 1643 and 1651. When the Japanese invaded Manchuria in 1931, the Daurs carried out an intense resistance against them.
Culture
There is a very noticeable hierarchic structure. People sharing the same surname are in groups called ''hala'', they live together with the same group, formed by two or three towns. Each ''hala'' is divided in diverse clans that live in the same town. If a marriage between different clans is made, the husband can go to live with the clan of his wife but he does not hold any property rights.
In the weddings, the fiancé goes out to look for the fiancée when the sun when coming out. It is custom that offers wine, meat and paste to all the neighbors who are attending. The celebration of the wedding usually concludes with a festival of flat racing.
During the winter, the Daur women wear long dresses, generally blue in color and boots of skin that they change by long trousers during the summer. The men dress in winter made orejeros caps in fox or red deer skin. In summer, they cover its head with fabrics with white color or straw hats.
A customary sport of the Daur is Beikou, a game similar to field hockey or street hockey, that has been played by the Daur for about 1,000 years.
Religion
Many Daurs are shamanists. Each clan has its own shaman in charge of all the important ceremonies in the lives of the Daur. However there are a significant number of Daurs who have taken up Lamaism .
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