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Objects

Tiger’s image, an idol. Oroche

Title:

Tiger’s image, an idol

Ethnic groups:

Oroche

Territory:

Far East, river Koppi, Ussuri Krai, village Tepty-Dattanikna

Date:

late 19th - early 20th centuries

Collectors-person:
Arseniev Vladimir K.
Material:

Wood; glass: colored glass; cloth: cotton; metal: iron; paint

Dimensions:

length 46.0; height 18.0; width 14.5

Number:

РЭМ 1870-47

Annotation:

Sevokhi amba guty or kuty mafa, a shamanic cult object, a figure of a tiger standing on four paws. Carved from wood. The body is painted in black vertical stripes imitating the tiger’s hide coloration. Shown along the back are two snakes, a symbol of speed, serving for the shaman’s flash-like traveling across the Universe’s worlds. On the sides of the tiger figurine are two black disks symbolizing bronze mirrors. They served to protect the tiger against evil spirits’ arrows. On the tiger’s head is a skull, the symbol of the shaman’s ancestor. This tiger represented the shaman’s patron ghost and his guide across the worlds. It was the shaman’s animal twin, on which the shaman’s life depended.

Albums:
“... You can rely on me”: Vladimir Arseniev’s collections in the Russian Museum of Ethnography
Rus:
Изображение тигра – идол. Орочи