Podʹa is the Nanai spirit-master of fire and, in the household, the indwelling spirit of the hearth, personified as an aged woman called Fadzya Mama (mama, 'grandmother'). Across the Amur peoples — Nanai, Udegei and Ulchi — fire is treated as a living and easily offended being: small offerings of food were placed in the flames, children were not allowed to run up to the fire for fear of startling the fire-grandmother, and men kept a courteous bearing in the presence of the hearth. The cult of the fire-spirit remains one of the most everyday and enduring observances of Nanai folk religion, recorded by ethnographers from A. V. Smolyak to Kira Van Deusen.