The ritual sculpture of Panyan, or Panyo, was the seat of the soul of the deceased. The craftsman cut down the doll presented in the exhibition from a wooden monolith. This anthropomorphic figure is dressed in a kind of robe made of brown Chinese silk, embroidered with blue, brown and golden threads. It has a peculiar tucker made of brown cotton fabric tied under its neck with an embroidered solar sign.

The doll’s face is flat, it was made with an even cut, the forehead is protruding; the master used the technique of incised carving to create a narrow mouth. Two deep cracks run along the left side of the nose and to the corner of the mouth. Two black beads of eyes are located under the forehead. The forehead and face were framed by strips of long-haired fur, which is preserved only around the cheeks. The master sewed a wide strip of leather to the occipital part, on which there are tears.

The craftsman sewed all the strips with threads; he or she attached the fabric to the doll’s face with small wooden nails. The lower part of the shoe is made of smooth buckskin — specifically, of chamois deer leather, and the upper part is made of cotton fabric, rewound with leather straps. The master covered the head with a two-tiered Manchurian type hat.

It is known that the Nanai people used several methods of burial: on-the-ground burials, burials in the ground, and occasionally burning. There were a variety of types of on-the-ground burials: in trees, on daeshiun platforms, in log burial buildings called keren. Burials in the ground appeared only in the middle of the twentieth century under the influence of Russian settlers.

Before the body of the deceased was buried, a whole system of rituals was performed. The rituals differed depending on the social status of the deceased, his or her age and the causes of the death. The Nanai people called the human soul “panyan”, that is, “shadow”. According to Nanai’s beliefs, immediately after death, the soul of the deceased wandered nearby, and only on the third day the shaman could place the soul in a specially made panyan doll, which was supposed to stay in the dwelling of the deceased for a whole year.

A year later, during the big wake, the shaman took the doll to the other world called buni, which was located in the direction of sunset, underground. It was believed that the souls of the dead could return to earth after a certain time and walk along the same paths that a person walked during his or her lifetime. Souls traveled to the ancestral tree to be reborn in a new body.