Photograph: Healing shamanistic rite over a patient suffering from spillage of bile

Udege

Far East Krai, Khabarovsk Okrug

1930

8,5 x 11,5

РЭМ 5654-225/1

The place of worship is a platform cleared in the snow, 3 m long, 1.5 m wide, furnished on the sides with nine willow rods. Near each of them is an image of the spirit of the amba tiger made of dry grass. On the narrow western side, in the center, there is the largest image - the main spirit of the tiger, the owner of the taiga. The first six rods are connected in pairs with a rope on which chips are hung. The ritual performed by two shamans is a scene of gradual entry into the “house” of spirits and, finally, a conversation with the main spirit in the form of a tiger, the result of which was his “demand” to sacrifice a dog, a rooster and kill a kite. In the spiritual culture of the Udege, Oroch, Nanais and others, the tiger occupies one of the leading places. It is drawn on ongons and shamanic attributes, made of wood and straw, carved on birch bark boxes, embroidered on clothes.