North of the Onon steppe and east of the Ingoda the country is taiga and hill forest, thinly peopled by Tungusic hunters, reindeer herders and fishers on the Shilka, the Argun and the Amur's source rivers.
They are bands of a few families, with no rulers, who trade furs for iron and cloth with the steppe peoples and who pay tribute to no one that the sources name. The Tayichi'ut and the Mongol clans of the Onon steppe use the south edge of the forest for hunting. Nothing at all is recorded of events here in 1200.
Who holds it
- Title
- Band heads; no chiefs known to history
- Confidence
- low
What it holds
- Taiga hunting grounds
- River fisheries
- Reindeer
Allies and rivals
Neighbours of the Tayichi'ut (south), the Khingan hunters (east).
How things stand that morning
Self-governing; no state reaches this far in winter.
Wealth
Furs (sable, squirrel), game, fish, reindeer.
Military
Bands of archers; no army.
Threats
- Steppe raiders on the south edge
Places of note
- Winter camps (guess): No sites are known.
Where the sources disagree
- The brief has the forest peoples of the Sayans and Baikal as 'peoples'; we use the same realm for the Shilka-Argun country. Ethnic labels (Evenk, Daur) are modern and not attested for 1200.
Evidence: Archaeology and later ethnography; no 1200 events.
On the map: A broad guess for a country with no towns or chiefs.
Sources and studies
- Evenks (Wikipedia): Tungusic hunters and reindeer herders of the Siberian forest
- Christopher P. Atwood, Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire (2004)
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.