33 - NANAI FIGURE

NANAI FIGURE NANAI PEOPLE, AMUR RIVER, EASTERN SIBERIA, EARLY 20TH CENTURY carved larch wood, depicting an an anthropomorphic figure with a diamond face and pronounced brow-line, with a rectangular torso and bent legs 34.5cm tall Provenance: Galerie Frédéric, Paris, France Arnaud Kurc, Paris, France Private collection, Belgium Private collection, London, acquired from the above Within the culture of the Nanai people of the Middle Amur Basin, if a person were to suffer an ailment of the mind or body, a shaman would be called to determine which spirit was causing the problem. The shaman would ask a craftsman to create a wooden figure that would act as a container for the spirit, which could only be made with an axe or knife, hence the distinctive 'hacked' look present here, and they could only be spoken about as having been 'made' rather than 'cut' or 'sawn'. The figure could not be made with eyes, arms or nostrils as it was believed that if the spirit was enclosed in a figure with these features, they could do harm to the people around it. Once made, the shaman would cut away any malignant manifestations of the spirit and move the spirit into its wooden figure. This would transition the spirit from being a sevhe(a free spirit and patron of the natural elements) into a sevhen(the enclosed spirit); the sevhen, having been pacified by the shaman, would then act as the shaman's assistant, with more powerful shamans would often have several sevhen.