Udege people
Udege ( in Russian; endonym: удиэ and удиһе, or Udihe, Udekhe, and Udeghe correspondingly) are a people who live in the Primorsky Krai and Khabarovsk Krai regions in Russia, the native population of this region. They live along the tributaries of the Ussuri, Amur, Kungari, and Anyuy Rivers. The Udege speak the Udege language, which belongs to the Tungusic language family. Their religious beliefs include animism, animal worship, and shamanism. The Udege are mainly engaged in hunting, fishing, and ginseng harvesting. According to the 2002 census, there were 1,657 Udege in Russia, a slight increase from 1,500 in 1970 . According to the 2010 census there were 1,496 Udege in Russia. They are one of the closest ethnic groups to the Manchu and Nanai, and are possibly of Jianzhou Jurchen origin. Udege biggest settlements are in: - Khabarovsk krai: Gvasiugi (Imeni Lazo District) and Arsenievo (Nanaysky District) - Primorsky kra: Agzu (Terneysky District), Krasny Yar and Olon (Pozharsky District) Since the advent of Perestroika, the Udege, led by Pavel Sulyandziga, have been actively involved in the struggle for control over their traditional territories along the Bikin River. A central objective has been the establishment of a Territory of Traditional Natural Resource Use  of federal status, which was proposed in cooperation with the national umbrella organisation RAIPON and the Russian Institute of Anthropology and Ethnography but failed to be approved by the authorities. Out of 40 Udeges living in Ukraine, only 8 declared Udege as their native language. Most of the Udeges in Ukraine indicated Russian (19) or Ukrainian (6) as their native language. 7 of them named another language. Ethnonyms. Until the end of the 19th, beginning of the 20th century researchers (Russian and Western) did not separate Udege and Oroch, considering them one people (often called "Orochoni"). The first who substantiated  their ethnic isolation was "S. N. Brajilovsky". He was also the first to introduce the ethnonym udihe, udiheitsi (), which became an official, in particular autoethnonym already in the thirties of the 20th century. Until that time, the Udege did not have a common self-name. Each territorial group had its own self-name: Hungarian - Hungake, Bikinska - Bikinka, Anyuyska - Uninka, and so on. Also known is the eхonym udege kekari () — so called udege neighboring peoples, mainly orochi and Manchzhur, and this term is sometimes found in Western and Russian literature.