CHAPTER XXX
RELIGION AND SUPERSTITION
Buddhism was introduced into Korea in the early centuries of our era, and Confucianism followed soon after. The former was too mystical to appeal to the people in its more philosophic aspects, and, as it came in as a fashionable state religion, its spectacular character was its chief recommendation. Confucianism, on the other hand, was too cold and materialistic to appeal to the emotional side of his nature, and so became simply a political system, the moral elements of which never found any considerable following among the masses. But both these systems eventually blended with the original spirit-worship in such a way as to form a composite religion. Strange to say, the purest religious notion which the Korean to-day possesses is the belief in Hananim, a being entirely unconnected with either of the imported cults and as far removed from the crude natureworship. This word Hananim is compounded of the words "heaven"(sky) and "master," and is the pure Korean counterpart of the Chinese word "Lord of Heaven." The Koreans all consider this being to be the Supreme Ruler of the universe. He is entirely separated from and outside the circle of the various spirits and demons that infest all nature. Considered from this standpoint, the Koreans are strictly monotheists, and the attributes and powers ascribed to this being are in such consonance with those of Jehovah that the foreign missionaries (Protestant) have almost universally accepted the term for use in teaching Christianity. The Roman Catholics have adopted the term Chun-ju, a pure Chinese word of the same significance, but open to the same objection, namely, that it was used long before Christianity came, and may therefore be called the name of a heathen god. But while in China it has been found that idols exist bearing the name Chun-ju, the Koreans have never attempted to make any physical representation of Hananim. He has never been worshipped by the use of any idolatrous rites, and the concept of him in the Korean mind is, so far as it goes, in no way derogatory to the revealed character of God himself. It is a moot point whether the Koreans consider the physical heavens to be the person of this god. Some of the more ignorant ones will deny that he is invisible, and point to the heavens in proof of their statement ; but they attribute to him a fatherly care of mankind in sending sunlight and shower, and a retributive power in striking the wicked with lightning or other disaster. The Temple of Heaven to which the Emperor repairs to pray in times of famine, pestilence or other great calamity is a purely Chinese innovation, and can be said to have only such connection with the Korean Hananim as grows out of a common but independent concept of Divinity in the two countries. As a rule, the people do not worship Hananim. He is appealed to by the Emperor only, as we have just said, and this in itself would seem to indicate that the Koreans received the idea of this being from China. One would be rash to dogmatise here, but it is our conviction that it was indigenous to Korea as well as to China.
The foregoing coincides with the Confucian element in Korean religion, so far as Confucianism postulates a personal Supreme Being, but on the Buddhist side there are countless gods, the one commonest to the Korean being Ok-wang Sang-je, or Jade King Supreme Ruler. The various " uses " of the Buddhist deities will appear in connection with our remarks on fortune-telling.
We must turn now to what we may call the practical religion of the Koreans, the belief in a countless number of spirits which definitely affect the every-day life of the individual. The higher deities are reserved for special festivals, but these others are daily in evidence and the ordinary Korean has them ever in mind. Here it is easy to exaggerate, for there are thousands, of Koreans who pay no attention whatever to any kind of a deity or power. They are morally averse to any restriction upon their own passions, and they are too intelligent to believe that their welfare is dependent upon the propitiation of any spirits, whether such exist or not. They may acknowledge the fact, but will not abide by the logical inference. There are very manyKoreans, however, who not only believe in the existence of such spirits, but are anxious to propitiate them. It is safe to say that an overwhelming majority of these are women, whose comparative lack of education makes them highly susceptible to superstition. There are also many men who in ordinary life would laugh the imps to scorn, and yet when laid upon a bed of sickness or subjected to some other painful casualty are willing enough to compound for their previous scepticism by the payment of large bribes to these same imps. It comes out, as we have said, in times of trouble. Korean folk-tales frequently have to deal with a situation where a gentleman is ill, but will have nothing to do with the spirits. His wife, however, holds the opposite opinion, and, unknown to her lord, smuggles in a mundang, or pansu, to exorcise the demon of disease.
We have already pointed out the fact that, as a rule, women are the best supporters of Buddhism, owing to the very inferior position which Confucianism accords them. The latter cult is the avowed enemy of the belief in goblins and imps, but Buddhism has become so mixed up with them that the Korean woman cannot hold to the one without embracing the other. Most Korean gentlemen will scoff at the idea that the spirits have any control over human destiny, but they put nothing in the way of their wives' adhesion to the lower cult.
There are two orders of spirits, - those which have an unknown but extra-human origin and those which represent the souls of the deceased. The various elves that haunt the spring, the rock, the tree, the cave or the river are nature-gods, pure and simple, and have little to do with human destiny, except as they are sacrificed to and asked to give good luck. They represent the good fairies and are not propitiated, but simply asked to give blessing or help. The spirits of disease and disaster are commonly considered nature-gods as well, and not of human origin. They require to be propitiated or else exorcised, which ceremony it is the office of the tnudang or pansu to perform. These spirits all go under the name kiL'isin or kwcesin. But there is another class, called tokgabi, which correspond to the malignant imps of our own folk-lore. They are always up to pranks, and in mischief they find their greatest delight. They fly about the kitchen and knock over the kettles and pans; they seize the goodman by the top-knot and cut it off and fly away; they make the kettle cover fall into the kettle. All these and a long list of other tricks they play about the house. They like company, and will not go away and live in a desert place by themselves. If a miser has buried some money, they may watch the place and haunt it, so that no one else will dare to live there, though the imps themselves can get no good from the money. But the most malignant spirits of all are the disembodied souls of those men who have met a violent death or who have been grievously wronged and have died without obtaining revenge. Ordinarily these are supposed to have been good people while they were living, and their present deplorable state is not a punishment for past misdeeds, but they are in somewhat the same condition that the ancient Greek thought the soul of the unburied was in. There is something that must be done before the spirit can get rest; it must be "laid." The spirit seems to think that it must vex and trouble people until they effect this. There are thousands of spirits who are just waiting for someone to do them an injury, so that they may have an opportunity to play their pranks upon him. The person who succeeds in steering clear of all these traps and pitfalls cannot become the object of their persecution.
It is important to note that while these shadowy beings have some powers that are distinctly superhuman, in other points they are less than human. Almost invariably, in the Korean story, the fiend is thwarted by the word of a just man. Him they not only fear, but must obey. But we must pause and give a few special names and characteristics of the Korean gods, beginning with those of the highest grade.
Besides Hananim, who is quite separate and remote from all others, even as Allah was distinct from the gnomes and naiads of the Arabian Nights, the Koreans believe in the Five Point Generals. These are supposed to rule the five divisions of the visible firmament, - North, East, South, West and Centre. It is to these that the pansus, or blind exorcists, pray and offer sacrifice in order to gain the upper hand of evil spirits. Each of these five great gods has a host of lieutenants, nearly one hundred thousand in all, and it is to these that the pansu looks for active help. These five generals are frequently taken as village gods, and the curiously carved posts which are so often found at the entrance of a Korean country town, and which have erroneously been called guide-posts, are representations of these gods, which stand as guardians against the entrance of wicked spirits.
Then come the earth spirits, the ones which make the Koreans so reluctant to dig in the earth for minerals. They think the spirits will consider themselves robbed and so exact a penalty. It may be that it is for this reason that miners are looked down upon as practical outcasts by the people. These spirits must be consulted every time a grave is to be dug, for if a mistake should be made the dead man's descendants might wake up some morning to find that the grave is empty and the body has been spirited away, to their everlasting disgrace. Houses must be built only on spots where the spirits allow, and more than one house has had to be pulled down and erected on some other site because of the terrible misfortunes the imps have inflicted and are ready to inflict because their toes have been trodden upon.
Often the traveller will come across a heap of small stones beside the road and a stunted tree on which are hung rags, locks of hair, strips of coloured cloth, pieces of money and a great variety of useless articles. Such a place may be found in the plains, but it is much more likely to be near the top of a pass between two valleys. These sacred places are not dedicated to any particular spirit, but to any or all the local deities. The traveller picks up a stone and throws it on the pile. This is his prayer for success in his journey. If he has reason to fear that the " good-fortune snake " is not propitious, he will spit on the stone pile. A man who is going to the neighbouring market with his bundle of wares to sell may stop and tie a one-cash piece to the branch of the tree " just for luck." It is an offering to the spirit, and is a request for financial success. A woman from the village below may come up the hill with a bowl of rice and a little honey and set the food down on a stone and shuffle her hands together, bending low the while. She is asking that her son come home betimes from his fishing trip, or that her child may recover speedily from the disease which has seized upon it. A bride may cut off a shred of her skirt and tie it to the tree to prevent the good spirits of her father's house following her to her new abode and deserting the dwelling of her parent.
As the name of these spirits is legion, so the names of the different shrines where they are worshipped would make a long catalogue. There is the "Boulder Hall," erected to the spirit of some particular rock ; the "Buddha's Hall," a sort of cross between Buddhism and fetichism ; "Ursa Major Hall," to the spirit of that constellation; the "Kyung Hall," referring to the Buddhist sutras ; the "Wall and Moat Hall," a common name for the place where there is a pile of stones or a tree to tie fetiches to; the "Old Man Hall," in honour of the Old Man Star, which Koreans believe can be seen in the south only by the people who live on the island of Quelpart ; the "Grandmother Hall," " Kingdom Teacher Hall," " Dragon Spirit Hall " and many others. There are also what the Koreans call the mountain spirits. They are most like our angels of any of the Korean supernatural beings, but they are almost always represented as venerable men with long white beards. They live among the inaccessible peaks of the mountains and always in a state of bliss. Happy is the man who chances to catch sight of one of them. If a man lives an exemplary life, he may become a sin-sun and join this happy band among the hills, and many are the tales Koreans tell of the wonderful adventures of good boys among the haunts of these immortals. One of these is so like the story of Rip Van Winkle that we must give it space.
Paksuni was a wood-gatherer by profession, and his wife was a termagant. So long as he earned a day's wages he did not worry, but the woman was always scolding because he did not earn more, and raising a great disturbance whenever he happened to miss a day. One morning he took his jiggy on his back and started up the mountain-side to gather fagots as usual. It was very warm, and he sat down in the shade of a tree to cool off. What more natural than that he should doze off, and presently see through sleepy lids two venerable men approach, one carrying a chess-board and the other the bag of chess-pieces . They sat down beneath the shade and began the game, never deigning a glance in his direction. He watched the game as it proceeded with absorbing interest. It was the very best game of chess he had ever seen played. Finally one of the old men made a move and exclaimed, "Chang" (check). It was the first word that had been spoken, and it brought him to his feet. The old gentlemen disappeared like a flash, and left him looking about in vain for his axe and jiggy. The latter was gone, and nothing of the former remained but a rusty shred of iron. His clothes were in rags, and his beard had grown to his waist. He tottered down the mountain-side and entered the village. It all seemed changed. The faces looked unfamiliar. He stopped a man and asked if he could tell where a fellow named Paksuni lived. The man stared and answered that Paksuni had been lost for thirty years. He had wandered among the hills and had been eaten up by tigers. Just then an old woman came along to get some water from the well and stopped to listen. The bewildered fellow announced that he himself was Paksuni; whereupon the old woman dropped her water-jar, seized the tattered remnant of humanity by the top-knot and haled him down the street, calling upon heaven to witness that the lazy rascal had left her for thirty years to shift for herself, and now had the face to come back and show himself. This was so much like old times that Paksuni was happy, knowing that after all he had not gone mad. Those who think that chess is a slow game will find confirmation of their opinion in this tale.
Besides all these there are the village gods, who watch over special localities and to whom the people erect shrines and offer an annual sacrifice. In this every member of the village is interested, and the cost of the ceremony is borne by all.
One is fairly safe in conjecturing that the worship of the dragon is a Chinese innovation. The Koreans are imaginative enough to evolve the idea of a long chain of mountains being the body of an immense dragon, but this idea existed in China long before the Koreans could have evolved it. In fact, among these spirit gods there are some that are identical with those which the Chinese recognise and there are others which are purely native to Korea. There has been such a mixture of all sorts and conditions of ideas in the peninsula that one must speak with many reservations and without the least dogmatism. We know where Confucianism and Buddhism came from, but as for the rest the only thing that we know is that it is here. This dragon plays an important part in the Korean's life, and his influence is always and only good. We could not begin to describe the countless points where this fabled beast comes in contact with the fortunes of the Korean.
The question of fetiches is closely connected with the foregoing. The belief in these many spirits leads people to attempt to localise them by means of some physical emblem. They do not think that the fetich is the spirit itself, but that it fastens upon the fetich and can always be found there when necessity demands. Dr. George Heber Jones is an authority on Korean fetiches, and he has given the following as some of the most important. "When a Korean moves, he does not take his 'gods' with him, but passes to the dominion of the gods of the house to which he goes." For this reason he is very careful to get an exact list of the latter, so that if sickness or misfortune comes he may know just whom he must pray to in order to get out of trouble. Each house has its Holy Master. "His fetich consists of blank sheets of paper and a small bag of rice, which are hung upon the ridge-beam of the principal room." When a new house is erected, an elaborate ceremony often takes place, especially if the owner be a little superstitious. A mudang is called in, and by her occult arts she invites a Holy Master to come and abide under that roof and take charge of the entire destiny of the inmates, ward off disease and protect them generally. From that time on no one must ever step upon the threshold of that house, but always over it, for this is the neck of the household god, and to step upon it would anger him and make him bring misfortune at once. "Ranking next to the Holy Master is the Lord of the Site. His fetich consists of a bundle of straw set up like a booth, on three sticks." He has control, not of the house, but of the site on which it is built, and he must be kept in good temper, or trouble will be brewing.
The Koreans are wonderful people for depending upon luck. They have consequently apotheosised the idea, and every house must have its fetich to Good Luck, and it must be worshipped with great punctuality twice a year. Dr. Jones says very appositely: "The kindly favour of the Deity, bestowed out of pure love and kindness upon his children, is not known in Korea. Her religion remains down on the lower level of luck and illluck. When all things are going well, then the spirits are bestowing luck on the family; when things go badly, luck has been withdrawn." In this connection the Koreans have various sorts of luck-bringers, just as our American negroes carry rabbits' feet. In Korea there are the Luck-snake, the Luck-pig, the Luck-toad, the Luck-weasel and the Luck-man. There are places in the country where people worship the Luck-snake, and the presence of a large snake near a house is welcomed as a good sign.
Each year, about New- Year's time, the Koreans make little straw manikins, stuff a few cash into their bodies and then throw them into the streets, where small boys seize upon them and tear them to pieces for the sake of the money. In this way the spirit of ill-luck is supposed to be dismembered and rendered innocuous. Some people hang a hat and a coat at the entrance of the house as a fetich of the Door-spirit. Others hang up old shoes, bunches of grass and fishes' heads as fetiches of their various household divinities.
Among all the spirits of disease, that which represents the smallpox is the most dangerous, and elaborate ceremonies are gone through to keep him out or, if he has already entered, to get him out again.
Such is a list of some of the many spirits which swarm about the Korean, keep him under constant espionage, and are ready at any moment to fall upon him in wrath. If he goes among the mountains, they are there; if he goes into his inner room, they are there; if he travels to the remotest corner of the earth, they will follow him. It remains, therefore, to examine the ways in which he can keep on good terms with these figments of his imagination, which are still very real to him.
Korean society is blessed, or cursed, with two handicrafts whose aim and end it is to deal with these occult powers with which the Oriental imagination peoples all space. The people who follow these vocations are called mudang and pansu, the nearest approach to which in English is "sorceress" and "exorcist," but they might be broadly termed witches and wizards. The word mudang means "deceiving crowd," and pansu means "decider of destiny." The former name is specially appropriate. The mudang is always a woman, and is considered at the very lowest point in the social system. She is always an abandoned character, though generally married. She pretends to be a sort of spiritual medium, and by her friendship with the spirits to be able to influence them as she may wish. Kija is said to have brought with him from China the art of necromancy. It is sure that a character closely allied to that of the mudang has existed in China for thousands of years, and if Kija was an actual character, it is more than likely that he brought this form of incantation. We cannot conclude that he brought the spirit worship, but only the peculiar method by which the spirits might be governed. The ceremony performed by the mudang, and without which her services are of no avail, is called a kut. There are ten different forms of service that she may perform by means of this kut.
The service most in demand is that of driving out the spirit of disease. But why should spirits torment people in this way. Well, there are the " hungry " spirits. They come around the door when you are eating, and if you do not throw them a morsel of food they have a grievance against you, and so have power to lay you on a bed of sickness. Of two intimate friends one dies, and his spirit tries to keep up the intimacy after death. This too will make trouble. If a man has wronged the spirits by denying their existence, it is sure to be visited on his head. The spirit that haunts rubbish of various kinds that had lain a long time in one place will follow and injure the man that disturbs them. If you go to the house of a person that has just died, his released spirit is very likely to follow you home and make trouble for you. Such are only a few of the countless ways in which a man may gain the ill-will of the spirits, and from them we can readily see that it will be often through no actual fault of the man but only by pure chance.
Let us then suppose that a man by some such mischance has contracted a disease. He may not be sure that it is caused by a spirit, but if he has reason to suspect that such is the case he will send to the home of a mudang, describing his symptoms and asking her what spirit it is that is causing it. She may reply by naming some spirit, or she may declare that she must see the patient first. After accepting a fee of two or three dollars, she will name a fortunate day on which to hold the kut, which will be either at her own house or at that of the patient, according as he has means to pay. The elaborateness of her preparations will also depend upon the fee. If the trouble is caused by the spirit of a dead relative, great care must be taken; but if by a common spirit, then a little ordinary food thrown into the street will generally suffice to cause its departure. The test is by throwing a common kitchen knife out into the road after the food. If it falls with the blade pointing away from the door the spirit has gone; but if the blade points back toward the door, then the spirit will require further argument before leaving. When the patient is a man of large means the ceremony may be performed at some neighbouring shrine.
Arriving at the patient's house, the mudang takes charge of the whole place, arranges the food and stations the friends of the sick man at particular points. She is accompanied by an assistant, and when all is ready the latter sits down and begins scraping on a kind of basket. This is supposed to attract the spirit. The mudang begins to dance about and to call upon the spirit to come. She works herself up to a perfect frenzy, and at this point the audience believes the spirit has taken possession of her body. Every word now is that of the spirit, not of the woman. She screams out the name of the spirit that has come, and tells what they must do to cure the patient, which directions generally include the payment of an extra sum of money. At last the spirit promises to take away the disease, and then the mudang, after a few more frantic leaps and screams which betoken the leaving of the spirit, suddenly becomes quiet and shows no signs of her previous excitement. She does not try to make the deception more complete by pretended exhaustion nor by falling down like a dead person. The grossness of her employer's superstition renders such finesse quite unnecessary. It is perhaps needless to add that the food that has been provided for the spirit is eaten with great gusto by the mudang and the friends of the sick man. The result of all this commotion and fuss upon the patient is seldom very edifying.
A second kind of kut is performed after death. A person's spirit will stay about the house for three days after his demise, and often much longer than this. If the relatives have reason to think that the dead man had something that he wished to communicate but did not have the opportunity, they will call a mudang, for only through her can they establish intelligent communication with the spirit. The mudang comes, arranges the food, and becomes possessed by the spirit, but without any dancing and screaming. She is used by the spirit to make the desired communication, after which the friends weep and say good-bye, and the spirit leaves. Then they all fall to and clear the tables.
Sometimes another kut is celebrated after the man is buried. If the dead man was supposed to have been summoned away from life by an angel or messenger sent from one of the great gods, the mudang will be called in to raise this spirit messenger and ask it to lead the dead man directly to the realm of the blessed and not through any purgatorial stage. At this time they have the power to call the dead man's spirit back for a positively last appearance, and the final adieus are said.
But even this does not finish the matter. A month after burial the friends of the deceased, if they have money, may hold a monster kut at some well-known shrine in the vicinity. The mudang is dressed in all her finery, and everything is done to make the ceremony impressive. The object is to help the dead man to secure influence or to get a "pull" with the Judge of Hades. The dead man has no money to do it with, so his friends do it for him.
The food is spread, and the mudang, all in white, goes into a trance after the usual gyrations, and the spirit of the departed takes possession. He is asked whether he has met the parents or other relatives who have been long dead, and all sorts of questions are propounded. These the mudang answers glibly, fearing no contradiction. Not infrequently the spirit will promise to do something that will help those who are still in the land of the living, so it appears that the benefits are mutual. This spirit is then dismissed, and the Judge of Hades is called up. There are ten judges on the bench of this supreme court, but this is the Supreme Judge. Food is placed before him, and he is implored to make it easy for their friend in the beyond. He invariably promises to do so and praises the food. After this the mudang calls up the special judge who has charge of their friend's case, and he too is properly "fixed." The petitioners have no difficulty in securing his promise to make the man's post-mortem condition as bearable as possible. Then they call up the spirit who guards the household of the man who has died. He is easily entreated, and promises to look after the interests of the family. He may warn the household of some impending trouble, and give them advice as to the best way to avoid it. When these special spirits have all been consulted, any relative who has helped pay for the ceremony may call up any of his friends or relatives and have a chat with them. It is like an afternoon tea with the dead, except that it is generally prolonged far into the night.
One of the chief duties of the mudang is to deal with the Great Spirit of Smallpox. This is the only disease that enjoys the special oversight of a spirit all by itself, and it shows that the Koreans put this ailment in the fore-front of the ills that flesh is heir to. It is more to be feared even than cholera, for, like the poor, it is ever with us. From the fifth day after the appearance of the disease no member of the household may comb his hair, wear new clothes, sweep the house, bring any new goods within the doors, cut wood, drive nails, roast beans or allow a drain to become blocked up. Any of these things would leave the patient blind or severely marked. If anyone does sewing in the house, it will cause intolerable itching in the patient. Neither the ancestors nor the guardian spirit of the house must be sacrificed to, for it would displease the smallpox spirit. The inmates of the house must eat clear rice without beans in it, for this would leave the patient with a black face. No animal must be killed, for this would cause the sick man to scratch his face and aggravate the disease. No washing nor papering must be done, for this would cause the nose of the patient to be permanently stopped up.
After the ninth day all these restrictions are removed excepting the driving of nails, papering of walls and killing of animals.
The thirteenth day is the one on which the spirit is supposed to depart. A feast is set for him ; a piece of sari wood is made to personate a horse, and a straw bag is put on its back with rice and money inside. A red umbrella and a multi-coloured flag are attached, and the whole is set on the roof of the house. This horse is provided for the departing spirit to ride, and must be forthcoming whether the case has ended fatally or not. On that day the mudang comes and goes through an elaborate ceremony, in which she petitions the spirit to deal kindly with the patient and not to leave him pock-marked.
The "dragon spirit séance" demands a brief mention. Every river or stream, as well as the ocean, is the abode of a dragon spirit, and every village on the banks of a stream has its periodical sacrifice to this benignant power. Not only so, but the freight-boats have their ceremony, and the ferry-boats, fishing-boats and war-boats and boats that carried the annual envoys to China, - all have their special forms of worship toward the great dragon. The great importance of this sacrifice lies in the fact that the dragon has control of the rainfall, and he must be propitiated in order that agricultural pursuits may not be endangered. The ceremony is usually performed by a mudang in a boat, accompanied by as many of the leading people of the village as can crowd in. Her fee is about forty dollars. The most interesting part of the ceremony is the mudang's dance, which is performed on the edge of a knife blade laid across the mouth of a jar that is filled to the brim with water. We cannot affirm anything as to the sharpness of the knife, but we presume that the fee is well earned even if the dragon part of it is purely imaginary.
In the case of coastwise vessels, the mttdang calls up the dragon spirit and the spirits of the men who have drowned, and implores them to make the sea calm and the voyage successful. For fishing craft a single ceremony suffices for the whole fleet. The mudang confesses to the dragon that it is rank trespass for men to go and catch his subjects to eat, but men must live; she begs him to overlook the wrong and give the fishermen a good catch. The ferry is an important institution in Korea, owing to the lack of bridges. The boats are often so crowded that they sink, and the annual loss of life from this cause is considerable.
At important ferries the ceremony is a very animated one. A boat is dressed in gala attire, with a spar like a roof-tree extending its whole length. The mudang and her accompanying crowd enter and push off from the shore. Food is thrown into the water for the spirit, and as the mudang begins to grow excited and "possessed" she imitates the motions of a person dying by drowning. She then leaps to the roof-tree and dances thereon, screaming at the top of her lungs. After an hour of such antics they come ashore, and the mudang runs to a willow tree and climbs to its very top, wailing and "taking on" shockingly. She says she is a spirit imprisoned in the dark water, and she must have one chance to take a good look around. From the top of the tree she has a "look see" and then comes down. All the time she has been gnashing her teeth, and howling as loudly as her lungs will permit.
Until the year 1894 the government sent an annual embassy to Peking, and before it started the attendants and underlings held a great kut. It would have been beneath the dignity of the envoy to have anything to do with such a superstition, but there is every reason to believe that a good part of the cost was defrayed by him. Four or five mudangs were employed, and they besought the dragon spirit to treat the company well and bring them back in safety. The ceremony was in the shape of a pantomime, in which one of the mudangs personated the envoy and another the Minister of State.
Such are only a few of the occasions upon which a mudangs services are required. Korean folk-lore teems with stories in which the mudang plays a leading part. We have space for only one. A mudang dreamed that the Great Spirit of Smallpox appeared to her and said that he was about to enter a certain house in the neighbourhood, and that he had selected a certain closet in the house as his favourite place. When the woman awoke, she hastened to the house indicated, and found that it was true. The young son was stricken with the disease, and continually asked to be placed in that closet". By this the mudang knew that her dream was a true one. As the disease developed, the child kept scratching his neck, which caused a dangerous swelling. The mudang said, " Someone in this house has witnessed the killing of a hen." Upon inquiry this was found to be true. Still the father refused to allow the mudang to hold a kut over the child. At last the boy began to turn a livid green in the face, the sure sign of approaching death. The mudang said, " Search and you will find that someone has brought a piece of green cloth into the house." This too was found to be true. The father could no longer refuse to let the mudang try her hand, and in the story of course the child recovered.
It is said that not until some time after the beginning of the present dynasty was the horrible custom of throwing a young virgin into the sea at Po-ryung discontinued. At that place the mudang held an annual seance in order to propitiate the sea dragon and secure plenteous rains for the rice-crop and successful voyages for the mariners. A new prefect was appointed to that district, and as he had no faith in mudangs he determined to go and witness the ceremony and put a stop to the custom, if possible. Three mudangs were on hand and had secured the maiden for sacrifice. As they led her down to the water's edge to cast her in, she wept and screamed and struggled. The prefect stopped them.
"Is it necessary for you to sacrifice a human being? "
"Yes, it will please the dragon and he will give good crops."
" How do you know ? "
" Oh, we are great friends with him and know his mind."
" Then I think it would please him much more if one of you were sacrificed"; and with that he signalled to one of his attendants, and had one of the mudangs bound and thrown into the water. The dragon showed no signs of revealing himself, so the second mudang followed the first. Still the spirit gave no sign, and the third mudang went to prove the theory. That was the end of the matter. The prefect memorialised the throne against the whole tribe of mudangs, and from that time to this they have been considered the lowest of the low.
The mudangs are not the only people who have influence with the spirits. The pansu is even more conversant with their tricks and better able to overcome their evil propensities. We have noted that the mudang is a sort of medium, and moves the spirits through her friendship with them, but the pansu is an exorcist rather than a medium. He is the enemy of the spirits, and is able to drive them rather than coax them. The profession of the mudang is much older than that of pansu, the latter being the product of the past few centuries, while the former have existed from the remotest antiquity.
As we have said, the word pansu means "decider of destiny," and we judge truly from this name that the chief office of this blind fakir is to tell fortunes. He is frequently called upon, however, to exorcise evil spirits. He is looked upon as little superior to the mudang, though his sex protects him from many aspersions that are cast upon the character of the mudang. There are a few female pansus, but they have nothing to do with the spirits, and they are as low in the scale as the mudang. The office of pansu in Korea, like that of masseur in Japan, is confined to the ranks of the blind, and the prevalence of scrofulous diseases insures a plentiful source from which to recruit the ranks of the profession.
Koreans use the services of a pansu to find out whether a man will escape the punishment of a crime; whether he will receive a reward for good conduct; whether a certain piece of work will be successful; what will happen during the day; what will happen during the month; what will happen during the year; what will happen up to the point of death; what was the condition in a former state of existence; whether he carries in his body the seeds of a great misfortune; how to find a lost article or person; whether a journey will be prosperous; what is the condition of a distant friend or relative; what will be the day of his death; whether he will become wealthy; what is the cause of sickness; in what direction he should move when he changes his residence; whether he can repair his house without suffering calamity; whether he will draw a prize in a lottery; whether he had better purchase a certain slave; when a son will be born; when he will obtain official position; when he will get out of jail; whether a son or daughter will have a happy life; how a spirit may be propitiated; when one must marry in order to be happy; where to find a good husband for one's daughter; whether a dream is good or bad; whether it will be safe to cut down a certain tree; whether he may move a grave with safety; whether it will be well for a woman to be delivered of a child at her own house or whether she had better go to some other.
Divination is accomplished in any one of three ways, - with dice-boxes, pieces of money or Chinese characters. The first of these is the lowest, the second is a little more respectable, and the third, being performed with Chinese characters, may be adopted by a gentleman without incurring criticism. Many gentlemen learn to do their own divining in a crude sort of way.
The dice-box divination consists in shaking and throwing out from a dice-box eight little metal rods about the size of friction matches. Each rod has a different number of notches cut in it, and as each rod is put back after the throw, it will be seen that in three throws, which forms a trial, there are many possible combinations. The pansu has learned a set formula for each combination, and so it is apparent that this formula must be in the form of an enigma, for it must answer any question that the client may ask. Let us suppose that the man has asked when his friend will get out of jail, and the answer comes: "If the net is old, the carp will break through." This he will forthwith explain to mean that as carp are always caught in winter the friend will languish in durance vile till winter comes. The skill of the pansu is exhibited in fitting the formula to the question in hand. They are a little more accommodating than the priests of the Delphic Oracle in Greece, where the client had to do the guessing himself.
The second form, called "money divination," is accomplished by the use of four, six or eight ancient Korean coins. Those with the seal character on them are the best, but any will do, provided they are old. The diviner shakes the coins in his hand and lets a certain number of them drop. The combination which appears tells him what formula to apply. There are hundreds of ways to manipulate the coins, and each pansu has his own favourite way, just as different cooks have their favourite recipes for preparing food.
The method of practising "book divination" is to ask the questioner in what year, what month, what day and what hour he was born. These four dates, taken two and two, in every combination give four characters, and from these the diviner makes up a verse of poetry. Then he determines which character best fits the case of his client. Using this as an index, he looks up the corresponding passage in his diviner's book, which he carries as faithfully as the surveyor does his table of logarithms, and the passage which he finds will be the enigma from which his client must extract an answer to his question.
Another form of book divination is carried on by the use of the volume called "Record of Previous Existence." This is based upon the fact that many Koreans believe the ills of the present life are the punishments of sins committed in a previous life, and that present happiness is a reward for past goodness. Only when in trouble will one consult this kind of oracle. If a woman is cursed with a drunken husband and is driven to desperation, she consults the pansu, and he, after looking up the formula, tells her that in a previous existence she was a bullock-driver and her husband was the bullock, that she beat and abused him so cruelly that she was now doomed to be ill-treated by him in turn. But he tells her that if she will take a bundle of flax-stalks and tie them at seven places, as a corpse is tied for burial, and place it in the room and hide, her husband, coming home drunk, will mistake the bundle for his wife and beat it to pieces. This will take away his propensity to maltreating his wife. Another woman, who asked what she should do to insure the continued loyalty of her son to herself, was told that in a past life she had been very kind to a starving dog, and that providence had decreed that she should come into the world again and that the dog should become her son. If she continued to treat him well, she would have no trouble. A man's bullock was struck by lightning, and he consulted a pansu to find why this calamity overtook him. The seer told him to go back home and look carefully at the hide of the animal and he would find what an evil past it had had. The mystified farmer went and looked, and on one of the horns was written in fine Chinese characters the legend " In the days of the Tang Dynasty lived a Prime Minister, Yi Rim-po. After his death he was transformed nine times into a dancing-girl and three times into a bullock, but even so he could not expiate the crimes that he had committed; so at last Heaven smote him with a thunderbolt and thus cancelled the debt of vengeance." It is only necessary to add that this Yi Rim-po was one of the most corrupt officials China ever saw, which is saying a good deal.
Still another form of divination depends upon the "Thoughts on the Works of the Jade Emperor of Heaven." If a demon of disease is so malignant that nothing but the direct command of the deity can exorcise it, recourse will be had to this book. Insanity is considered the worst of diseases and is caused by a most "poisonous" imp. The pansu comes to the house, invites all the household gods to a feast and asks them to secure the presence of the evil spirit. This accomplished, he feeds the ugly fellow and tells him to depart for ever. If this does not prove successful, he reads a magic formula from the book, which gives him power over the imp. The latter is seized and corked up in a bottle and is whipped. He may escape, and if so, he must be feasted again ; but this time a peachwood cork is used and the beating is done with peach sticks, which reduces the spirit to helplessness. The bottle is then given to a mudang to go and bury, the direction in which she is to go being minutely specified. The cure is now complete. "Spirit sending divination" is used to cure men at a long distance. "Ten-thousand spirit divination" is a sort of congress of all the spirits, at which the pansu presides. The "spirit imprisoning divination" gives a man a sort of amulet that will protect him from evil. "Spirit liberating divination" is used in case one of the spirits is in prison and the rest want to get him out. One of them goes to earth and afflicts a man with disease. The pansu intervenes, and the spirit tells him that he will leave if the pansu will secure the release of the imprisoned one, and he promises to go security for the spirit's future good behaviour.
In every Korean book-stall will be found a little volume called "The Six Marks of Divination," or sometimes "The Five Rules for Obtaining the Ten-thousand Blessings." It represents some of the grossest superstitions of the Korean people. It is the common people who make great use of this book, but the woman of the upper class is almost sure to have a volume hidden about the house, from which to cast the horoscope of her infant sons and daughters. It is a curious mixture of Buddhism, spiritism and fetichism. One can see at a glance how Buddhism has joined forces with the original elements in Korean religion to form a conglomerate that will suit all tastes. We find, first, the "procession of the years." It tells what star rules each year of a person's life from the tenth to the sixtyfourth. It tells what he must do to insure comfort and success, and it tells, by means of an obscure simile, what the condition of the body will be. It begins at the tenth year, because before that time no one marries, nor does a boy shave his head and become a monk. In order to show the way it is done, we will quote two or three of the formulae. For the eleventh year, for instance, we find that a boy will be under the influence of the "earth star" (Saturn), that his patron will be Yuraposal (a Buddhist saint), that he must pay particular attention to his body, which will resemble a hawk in the ashes. A girl in her eleventh year will be under the influence of the "man image star," her patron will be Kwaneumposal and it is her duty to show deference to the spirits. She is like a deer in a deep gorge.
And so it goes through the whole sixty-four years. The different stars are the Metal Star (Venus), Water Star (Mercury), Star Sun (Sun), Fire Star (Mars) and so on through the list. The patrons are a long list of Buddhist worthies. The duties are nominal, and the things that the body are like to are as follows: pig in hot water, deer in a blossom, hawk in the mountain, rat in the garden, wolf in the bag, pheasant in the ashes and lion in the river. In all there are eight animals, and the situations they find themselves in are twelve in number; river, garden, ravine, bag, field, ashes, grass, mountain, hot water, blossom, mill and hill. Among the animals there is no distinction between the good and the bad, but it is the combination that is unpropitious. The hawk in the ashes or the rat in the river, the pig in a bag and a hawk in a mill (rice-grinding mill) are evidently bad predicaments, while deer in the mountain, wolf in the field, rat in the garden and pig in the ashes are presumably happy combinations.
Then come the different star influences and their power over the destiny of a man or woman. For instance, in the Sun Star year, one will have many blessings, a good salary, a chance to travel and good words from everybody, but in the first, fifth and ninth moons he will be censured or will lose money. In order to ward off these evils, one must cut out a disc of red paper on the fifteenth of the first moon, fasten it to a piece of wild cherry wood, stick it up on the roof and bow to the four points of the compass. This will save him from all anxiety. On the contrary, in the Fire Star year all will go wrong. One will be ill or will be censured. The house may burn down. In the third and ninth moons one is almost sure to be ill. In the fifth and tenth moons one of his sons or grandsons will lose money and must be on the lookout for robbers. He must not travel far nor must he engage a new servant. And yet there is safety for him if on the fifteenth of the first moon he will tear off the collar of his coat and burn it toward the south.
Another division of the book deals with the five elements, metal, wood, water, fire and earth. This form of divination is practised on the fifteenth of the first moon in order to find out whether luck will be good or bad during the year. The man takes in his hand five little discs of wood, each bearing one of the names of the elements on one side but blank on the other. Shaking them in his hand, he says : "Beneath the bright heavens I stand and pray, I who live in Whang-ha Province, town of Ha-ju, ward of Pu-yong, by name Kim Mun-suk. To the bright heavens I pray that I may truly be shown what will befall the present year, or good or ill." He then throws the discs upon the ground. The different combinations that result indicate, by reference to the book, what the fortune will be. If they are all blank but one, the fortune will be medium, unless that one be "water," in which case it means good luck. If all the characters turn up, it is an excellent omen. Water and wood make a good combination, because water floats wood. Fire and water are, rather unexpectedly, good, for they are so different that they do not interfere with each other. Metal and wood make a bad combination, because metal cuts wood. So on throughout the list, each combination telling the thrower what he may expect of good and what he must avoid or put up with of evil.
Still another way to tell the fortune is to throw four little pieces of wood like half an inch of lead-pencil split in two. The combinations, that are made in three throws, of the flat or rounded sides that turn up, will tell what is to happen. Some of the formulae are as follows: The man will be like a rat in a granary (lean in spring and summer and fat in autumn and winter), like a candle at night, like flowers meeting the springtime, like a king without a realm, like a moth about a candle, like a stork that has lost his home, like a tortoise in a box, like a dragon in the sea, like a dead man come to life. Each of these tells its own story and needs no comment. A Buddhistic element is seen in the simile, like a monk who has returned to the world.
It will be seen that this book which we are describing is like a domestic medicine book in our own land. Those that cannot afford to hire a mudang to cure them will have recourse to its pages, and this accounts for the enormous sale which the volume enjoys. It affirms that the human body is subject to two kinds of diseases, - those which can be cured by medicine and those that require exorcism. Some people have foolishly tried to cure both kinds by drugs. The hermit Chang laid down the rules for exorcising the demons of disease, and he wisely said that if in any case exorcism does not succeed, it is certain that the disease is one that must be cured with medicine. Note the implication that exorcism should be tried first, which is a pretty piece of special pleading in behalf of the profession. The book tells on what days of the month special diseases are likely to break out, and the name of the spirit that causes them. Whichever one it is, the work must be begun by writing the name of the imp on a piece of white or yellow paper (according to the day on which it is done) together with the name of the point of the compass from which the spirit comes, wrap a five-cash piece in this paper and throw it out of the door at the imp. These imps are supposed to be the spirits of people that have died, and they are specified as spirits of men who have died by accident away from home, aged female relatives, yellow-headed men, perjurers, men who have died by drowning and so on to the end of the list. In each case the exorcist is told to go a certain number of paces in some particular direction and throw the cash. The hermit wisely confined himself to diseases that will pass away in a few days by themselves, but it is a pity he did not exorcise the whole troop of devils with a good dose of castor oil.
The book gives a description of various sorts of calamities and indicates the way to avoid them. One can tell from the " Cycle of Years " when a misfortune is due to arrive, and in order to avoid it he must, upon the morning of his birthday, spread a mat on the ground, place three bowls of white rice on a table on the mat, also three plates of gluten-rice bread and three cups of wine. He must then bow nine times, spread three sheets of white paper over another table, wrap in each sheet a measure of white rice and hang them up over the door. Three years later it must be taken down, cooked and thrown to the spirit. Also during the first moon of the year in which the calamity is scheduled to arrive he must draw the picture of three hawks upon paper and paste them up in his room with the bills of the birds all pointing toward the door.
The medical portion of the book deals almost exclusively with female and children's diseases, showing that it is the women who use the work and not the men. It will be impossible to do more than indicate a few of the remedies that are used. The most common are poultice of cow's dung; twenty-one ginko nuts; the split kernel of an apricot seed with the word "sun" written on one side and " moon " on the other and then stuck together with honey; water in which the wooden pin of a nether millstone has been boiled; three live frogs; four boiled dog's feet ; water in which burned hair has been boiled; the yellow clay in which a frog has been wrapped and burned to death; the saliva of a black cow; a boiled hen whose abdominal cavity has been filled with angle-worms. Such are a few of the remedies. In no case is the patient urged to call in a physician. The writer evidently knew that the reader would probably not be able to afford the care of a physician.
Only once, far back in the eighties, was it my privilege to witness the curious ceremony of frightening away the "Heavenly Dog" that was going to swallow the moon. From the earliest antiquity eclipses have been looked upon with fear by the Koreans, and even though they have known for many centuries the cause of the phenomenon and were formerly able to predict an eclipse, yet the still more ancient custom of frightening away the animal persists.
A brisk walk of ten minutes brought us to the limits of the suburbs, and there we found a company of a thousand Koreans or more gathered on a circular piece of ground, which was surrounded by an amphitheatre of hills. They were grouped in silent companies on the sloping hillsides, and in their white garments looked like a congregation of very orderly ghosts. The central plot was covered with mats to form a dancing floor, and on either side was a huge bonfire. Around the edge of the circle sat the Korean orchestra, whose strains alone ought to have sufficed to scare the Heavenly Dog. At ten o'clock the shadow of the earth began to pass across the face of the moon. A sudden darkness fell upon the scene, and the two fires, no longer suffering competition, gleamed with a new intensity upon the still faces which pressed eagerly forward to catch the subtle meaning of the weird notes that the musicians produced. Only one who is "to the manner born," and who has in his blood the dash of mysticism born of the East, can get from that weird music all that the Korean can. All the time the moon is adumbrated the crowd stands silent, awed, intent. They know that it is all a mere play, but the dramatic element in their nature carries them back to those far days when their savage forbears stood transfixed with genuine fear lest the light of the moon be for ever darkened.
The moment the limb of the moon appears beyond the shadow, and it becomes apparent that the Heavenly Dog has "bitten off more than he can chew," there is a sudden change in the music, a stir in the crowd. They press forward eagerly, and at that instant a man leaps into the centre of the ring, wearing a hideous mask and blood-red sleeves that hang down to the ground. The dance is not to be described in words. The impression that remains, after the years have mellowed the memory of the spectacle, is that there were two kinds of motion, one of the feet and one of the hands. Imagine a half-intoxicated man standing on one foot and trying to put a sock on the other. This was the principal figure that the feet cut. With both the long sleeves the man tries to defend himself against the attack of a very determined swarm of bees. This is the whole combination, first on one foot and then on the other, while the bees continue to get in their work. Before long other actors join the rout, and the performance becomes a mere exhibition of buffoonery, which soon becomes tiresome. But the whitecoated crowd, the wild whirl of the dance, the weird snarl of the pipes and over all the fitful gleam of the great fires, it all makes a picture not soon to be forgotten.