FEATURE 122 FIG. 25 (right): “Earth spirit” (note resemblance to fi g. 21). Nivkh, Amur region, eastern Siberia. 19th or early 20th century. Wood. H: 22 cm. Collected in 1910–1911. Russian Ethnographic Museum, St. Petersburg. From Grusman and Konovalov, 2006: 82. FIGS. 24a and b (below): Anthropomorphic fi gures (note resemblance to fi g. 21). Nivkh, Amur region, eastern Siberia. 19th or early 20th century. Wood. H: 13.5 and 18 cm. Collected in 1927 and 1914. N. I. Grodekov Khabarovsk Territorial Museum. From Iskusstvo Narodov Priamur’ia, 2012: 211 and 212. FIG. 22 (left): A Nanai shaman holding a staff with a cast bronze human fi gure at the top almost identical to that in fi g. 21. Photo taken during Lev Shternberg’s 1910 Amur expedition. Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, St. Petersburg, photo no. 1837-37. FIG. 23 (below left): The Nanai shaman’s staff, mittens, and drum stick. Photo taken during Lev Shternberg’s 1910 Amur expedition. Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, St. Petersburg, photo no. 1837-44. FIG. 21 (above): Anthropomorphic casting with hollow base that was probably used as the top of a shaman’s staff. Nanai, Amur region, eastern Siberia. 19th or early 20th century. Copper alloy. H: 6.5 cm. Private collection. Also among this shaman’s possessions were two bronze mokha fi gures of tigers with ayami “riders” (fi gs. 27a and b; see also fi gs. 28a and b for similar mokha but without riders). Mokha fi gures with riders had the greatest shamanic power and were used to protect against gastrointestinal and cancer pain (Maltseva, 2012). The rider is a symbolic image of the shaman and his ayami protector-spirit. Seven of this type personifi ed the spirit of the tiger (or panther, leopard) as the ancestor and embodiment of male and female shamanic powers, and also as an intervener in gynecologic diseases. Among the Gorin Nanai of the Lower Amur, roughly carved wood fi gures with either an elongated forked or nubbed tail (fi g. 26), as well as the bronze examples with nubbed tails shown in fi gures 27 and 28, were called mokha (“shaman’s male power”), whereas similar fi gures that are well rounded and with completely tapered tails were called khapo (“shaman’s female power”). According to shamanist beliefs, the mokha had a tail with a nubby thickening at the end, and after creeping into the human body it moved its tail, causing pain (Maltseva, 2012, and personal communication). The task of the shaman was therefore to remove the mokha,
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