Feb 16, 2025
Tales of the Amur by Gennady Pavlishin: Nanai Folktales From Far East Russia
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Tales of the Amur by Gennady Pavlishin: Nanai Folktales From Far East Russia
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Alexander Khimunshin continues his portrait project 'The World in Faces' by spending 6 months photographing indigenous people in Siberia.
Fishskin Robes of the Ethnic Tungusic People of China and Russia
Oroch woman’s festive robe made of fish skin, leather, and decorative fur trimmings [image source].
Nivkh woman’s fish-skin festival coats (hukht), late 19th century. Cloth: fish skin, sinew (reindeer), cotton thread; appliqué and embroidery. Promised gift of Thomas Murray L2019.66.2, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minnesota, United States [image source].
Back view of a Nivkh woman’s robe [image source].
Front view of a Nivkh woman’s robe [image source].
Women’s clothing, collected from a Nivkh community in 1871, now in the National Museum of Denmark. Photo by Roberto Fortuna, courtesy Wikimedia Commons [image source].
The Hezhe people 赫哲族 (also known as Nanai 那乃) are one of the smallest recognized minority groups in China composed of around five thousand members. Most live in the Amur Basin, more specifically, around the Heilong 黑龙, Songhua 松花, and Wusuli 乌苏里 rivers. Their wet environment and diet, composed of almost exclusively fish, led them to develop impermeable clothing made out of fish skin. Since they are part of the Tungusic family, their clothing bears resemblance to that of other Tungusic people, including the Jurchen and Manchu.
They were nearly wiped out during the Imperial Japanese invasion of China but, slowly, their numbers have begun to recover. Due to mixing with other ethnic groups who introduced the Hezhen to cloth, the tradition of fish skin clothing is endangered but there are attempts of preserving this heritage.
Hezhen woman stitching together fish skins [image source].
Top to bottom left: You Wenfeng, 68, an ethnic Hezhen woman, poses with her fishskin clothes at her studio in Tongjiang, Heilongjiang province, China December 31, 2019. Picture taken December 31, 2019 by Aly Song for Reuters [image source].
Hezhen Fish skin craft workshop with Mrs. You Wen Fen in Tongjian, China. © Elisa Palomino and Joseph Boon [image source].
Hezhen woman showcasing her fishskin outfit [image source].
Hezhen fish skin jacket and pants, Hielongiang, China, mid 20th century. In the latter part of the 20th century only one or two families could still produce clothing like this made of joined pieces of fish skin, which makes even the later pieces extremely rare [image source].
Detail view of the stitching and material of a Hezhen fishskin jacket in the shape of a 大襟衣 dajinyi or dajin, contemporary. Ethnic Costume Museum of Beijing, China [image source].
Hezhen fishskin boots, contemporary. Ethnic Costume Museum of Beijing, China [image source].
Although Hezhen clothing is characterized by its practicality and ease of movement, it does not mean it’s devoid of complexity. Below are two examples of ornate female Hezhen fishskin robes. Although they may look like leather or cloth at first sight, they’re fully made of different fish skins stitched together. It shows an impressive technical command of the medium.
赫哲族鱼皮长袍 [Hezhen fishskin robe]. Taken July 13, 2017. © Huanokinhejo / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0 [image source].
Image containing a set of Hezhen clothes including a woman’s fishskin robe [image source].
The Nivkh people of China and Russia also make clothing out of fish skin. Like the Hezhen, they also live in the Amur Basin but they are more concentrated on and nearby to Sakhalin Island in East Siberia.
Top to bottom left: Woman’s fish-skin festival coat (hukht) with detail views. Unknown Nivkh makers, late 19th century. Cloth: fish skin, sinew (reindeer), cotton thread; appliqué and embroidery. The John R. Van Derlip Fund and the Mary Griggs Burke Endowment Fund; purchase from the Thomas Murray Collection 2019.20.31 [image source].
Top to bottom right: detail view of the lower hem of the robe to the left after cleaning [image source].
Nivkh or Nanai fish skin boots from the collection of Musée du quai Branly -Jacques Chirac. © Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0 [image source].
Detail view of the patterns at the back of a Hezhen robe [image source].
Read more:
You Wenfeng, who belongs to an ethnic group of 5,000 people, is giving Han Chinese students an education in folklore and craft she learned f
Hello All, I received a request to research the costume and embroidery of the Nanai, a people who live on the lower Amur River in the Russ
Nanai woman, Russia, by Alexey Pavlov
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Young Nanai girl The Nanai are a Tungusic people of Eastern Asia who traditionally live along the Heilongjiang, Songhuajiang and Wusli rivers of China and Russia. Roughly translated, their name for themselves means “People of the Earth” (Nanai) or “People of the lower river” 赫哲" (Hezhe). To the Nanai, fish were most valuable and sacred. In the summer months, they fished all season long, with the sturgeon being greatly respected. In winter, they ate dried fish. Large fish weighing over 50kg were turned into clothing by drying and pounding the flesh with a mallet until it was smooth and malleable. This custom earned the Nanai the nickname “Fish-skinned Tartars” (鱼皮鞑子, Yupi Dazi). They are a generally Shamanist people with great reverence for the bear (Doonta) and the tiger (Amba). They believe that all things in the universe possess their own spirit which wanders freely throughout the world. They worship the natural world and pay tribute to the sprits of the Sun, Moon, Mountains, Water and Trees, and believe that a great serpent once arose from the Earth and gouged out the great valleys of the land. The Nanai practice a lengthy and elaborate funerary ritual which assists the soul of the deceased in travelling safely to the underworld. After death, a persons soul is moved into a temporary shelter made out of cloth, before it is transferred into a small, wooden doll called a panyo. The panyo is taken care of as if it is a living person; for example, it is given a bed to sleep in each night, with a pillow and blanket to match its miniature size. Each night this family member puts the panyo to bed and then wakes it in the morning. The doll has a small hole carved in its mouth so that a pipe may be placed there, allowing the deceased to smoke. In the final part of the ritual, called the Kasa Tavori, the Nanai feast for three days as the soul is transferred from the panyo into a full-sized, human looking wooden figure. On the final day, this wooden statue, possessed with the soul of the dead, is strapped to a dogsled and transported by the shaman on a long and dangerous journey before the sun sets. This journey marks the start of the soul’s transition into the Buni, or underworld, where it will reside for eternity. 📸 Alexander Khimushin
Nanai/Dolagan fairytale and art
Healing amulet. Wood. Hezhen / Nanai. Late 19th century.