RITUAL BRONZES 121 FIG. 16 (left): Metal burkhan belonging to the shaman Alexander Kotkin depicting a fl ying dragon and snakes, from which are suspended fi gures of the spirits Maci and Buchu. Beneath the fl ying dragon is an edehe spirit fi gure. Dudi village, Amur, 1958. Horizontal length: 22 cm. From Smoliak, 1991. FIG. 17 (below left): The Nanai shaman Molo Oninka, Dzhari village, Amur, 1970. Helper spirits appear on his clothing, the spirit Upa is resting on his lap, and an edehe protector is suspended around his neck. Dudi village, Amur, 1958. From Smoliak, 1991: 38. FIG. 18 (above left): A nineteenth-century Nanai shaman wearing a large collection of ayami and edehe fi gures around his neck. Collection of the Russian Ethnographic Museum, St. Petersburg. FIG. 19 (above right): The seven “Duskhu Moygani Adzhehako,” which includes a central anthropomorphic fi gure fl anked by two zoomorphic (tiger?) fi gures on a looped wire armature with fl attened ends. Nanai, Amur region, eastern Siberia. 19th or early 20th century. Leather, metal. H: 16.5 cm. Khabarovsk Museum, acquired before 1914. From Titoreva, 2012: cat. no. 98. FIG. 20 (right): The seven “Girki Ayami” with assistant “Edehe” suspended from its neck. Nanai, Amur region, eastern Siberia. 19th or early 20th century. Wood. H: 14.6 and 6.3 cm. The names are inscribed in pencil on the backs of the fi gures. Khabarovsk Museum, acquired before 1914. From Titoreva, 2012: cat. no. 373. shaman, or more correctly, an expert on Gol’d mythology (an experienced Gol’d storyteller) as his own opinion. And further (pp. 262–263), Lopatin writes that “… every shaman always has many wood and metal idols. The shaman wears on a strap around his neck two idols (Adzhekh), the images of his assistants and protectors, that were previously sprinkled with vodka. Adzhekh idols are forged of iron.” Other metal edehe pendants have been illustrated by Okladnikov and Smoliak (fi gs. 15–17), and a late-nineteenthcentury photograph (fi g. 18) shows a Nanai shaman with a number of ayami and edehe pendants hanging from his neck. Additional wood and metal ayami and edehe fi gures are shown in fi gures 19–20. A related type of anthropomorphic copper alloy fi gure was found at a former Amur River Nanai settlement approximately 70 km north of Khabarovsk among the possessions of an eighteenth- or nineteenth-century Nanai shaman (fi g. 21), together with an iron headdress, belt bells, tigers, human fi gures, and other rusted shaman’s paraphernalia. On stylistic grounds, this casting would appear to originate with the adjacent Nivkh people, who made somewhat similar human fi gures in wood (fi gs. 24–25) that do not appear to have been recorded among the Nanai. However, in the course of his 1910 Amur expedition, Lev Shternberg photographed a Nanai shaman holding a staff with an almost identical bronze fi gure at the top (fi gs. 22–23).
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