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Korean shamanism

Korean religion

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A polytheistic religion, Muism revolves around gods and ancestral spirits. Central to the tradition are ritual specialists, the majority of them female, called mudang (무당; 巫堂). In English they have sometimes been called "shamans", although the accuracy of this term is debated among anthropologists. The mudang serve as mediators between humans and the supernatural world. They also perform gut rituals, during which they offer food and drink to the gods and spirits or entertain them with storytelling, song, and dance. Gut may take place in a private home or in a guttang shrine, often located on a mountain. The mudang divide into regional sub-types, the largest being the mansin or kangsin-mu, historically dominant in Korea's northern regions, whose rituals involve them being personally possessed by deities or ancestral spirits. Another type is the sesŭp-mu of eastern and southern regions, whose rituals entail spirit mediumship but not possession.

The origins of Muism are unclear but the earliest historical references to mudang date to the 12th century. During the Joseon period, Confucian elites suppressed the mudang with taxation and legal restrictions, deeming their rites to be improper. From the late 19th century, modernisers – many of them Christian – characterised Muism as misin (superstition) and supported its suppression. During the Japanese occupation of the early 20th century, nationalistically oriented folklorists began promoting the idea that Muism represented Korea's ancient religion and a manifestation of its national culture; an idea later heavily promoted by mudang themselves. In the mid-20th century, persecution of mudang continued in North Korea and through the New Community Movement in South Korea. More positive appraisal of the mudang occurred in South Korea from the late 1970s onward, especially as practitioners were associated with the minjung pro-democracy movement and came to be regarded as a source of Korean cultural identity.

Muism is primarily found in South Korea, where there are over 200,000 mudang, although practitioners are also found abroad. While Korean attitudes to religion have historically been fairly inclusive, allowing for syncretism between Muism and Buddhism, the mudang have nevertheless long been marginalised. Disapproval of mudang, often regarded as charlatans, remains widespread in South Korea, especially among Christians.

Definition

The anthropologist Chongho Kim noted that defining Korean shamanism was "really problematic". He characterised "Korean shamanism" as a largely "residual" category into which all Korean religious practices that were not Buddhist, Confucian, or Christian were placed. Scholars like Griffin Dix, Kil-sŏng Ch'oe and Don Baker have conversely presented Korean shamanism as just one facet of "Korean folk religion", the latter sometimes called minsok chonggyo in Korean.

Korean shamanism has varyingly been labelled a vernacular religion, a folk religion, a popular religion, and an indigenous religion. It is a non-institutionalized tradition, rather than being an organized religion akin to Buddhism or Christianity. It has no doctrine, nor any overarching hierarchy, and is orally transmitted. It displays considerable regional variation, as well as variation according to the choices of individual practitioners. Over time, the tradition has displayed both continuity and change.

One term commonly used for this tradition is musok ("mu folklore"), coined by the folklorist Yi Nŭnghwa. Although developed during the Japanese colonial period, when it was employed with derogatory connotations, the term has since become popular with the Korean population and with scholars; the Korean studies scholar Antonetta L. Bruno for instance capitalised it as Musok to serve as a name for the religion. Alternative terms include mugyo, muijŭm, and mu. In Korea, the term misin ("superstition") is sometimes used for this religion, but is also applied to other religious and cultural practices like pungsu geomancy. While misin carries negative connotations in Korean culture, some mudang use it to describe what they do.

Since the late 19th century, English language studies have referred to the mudang as "shamans" and their practices as "Korean shamanism", a label rendered into Korean as shyamŏnijŭm. Introduced to English from the Tungusic languages at the end of the 17th century, the term "shamanism" has never received a commonly agreed definition and has been used in at least four distinct ways. A common definition uses "shamanism" to describe traditions involving visionary flights to perform rituals in a spirit realm, a practice not found in Korean traditional religion. Many scholars avoid the term "shaman" as a cross-cultural category altogether. Its application to Korean religion is controversial, with Chongho Kim deeming it "often unhelpful", and Korean studies scholar Richard McBride labelling it "a legacy of the colonial period". The scholar Suk-Jay Yim proposed "Muism" as a more appropriate label than "Korean shamanism", while Dix thought "spirit mediumship" more suitable than "shamanism".

Prior to Christianity's arrival in the 17th and 18th centuries, Korean religion was rarely exclusivist, with many Koreans practising Daoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Musok simultaneously. Despite shared underlying beliefs, these traditions undertook what Dix called a "division of ritual and cosmological responsibility" between each other. Confucian rituals were for example primarily concerned with ancestor veneration and tended to be simpler and more regular, whereas the mudang were consulted for rarer and more complex ritual tasks. Korea has seen particular syncretism between Musok and Buddhism; mudang often identify as Buddhists, may use incantations from Buddhist sutras, and commonly worship Buddhist deities. Some Korean Buddhist temples, similarly, venerate deities traditionally associated with Musok. In contemporary South Korea, it remains possible for followers of most religions (barring Christianity) to involve themselves in Musok with little censure from their fellow religionists. Meanwhile, mudang based in Europe have merged the tradition with New Age elements.

Terms and types of practitioners

Central to Musok are those whom the anthropologist Kyoim Yun called "ritual specialists who mediate between their clients and the invisible" (forces of the supernatural). The most common Korean term for these specialists is mudang. Although regularly used, the term mudang carries derogatory connotations in Korean culture, and thus some practitioners avoid it.

An alternative term for these individuals is mu, the latter synonymous with the Chinese word wu, also used for ritual specialists. Several modern mudang advocacy groups have adopted the term musogin, meaning "people who do mu". While the term mudang can apply to a man or woman, specific terms for male Musok specialists include paksu, or, more commonly used in the past, kyŏksa. Modern advocacy groups have also described Musok's supporters as sindo (believers) or musindo (believers in the ways of mu).

Subtypes

Mudang are often divided into two broad types: the kangsin-mu, or "god-descended" mu, and the sesŭp-mu or "hereditary" mu. The former engage in rituals in which they describe being possessed by supernatural entities; the latter's rituals involve interaction with these entities but not possession. The former was historically more common in northern and central parts of the Korean peninsula, the latter in southern parts below the Han River. The kangsin-mu tradition later spread and by the late 20th century was dominant across South Korea, with its ritual costumes and paraphernalia being widely adopted.

Lines between the sesŭp-mu and kangsin-mu are nevertheless blurred. Although the sesŭp-mu are typically presented as inheriting the role in a hereditary fashion, not all sesŭp-mu do so, while some kangsin-mu continue the role of a family member as if maintaining a hereditary tradition. Yun commented that dividing the mudang into distinct typologies "cannot explain complex reality".

Certain regional terms are also used for the mudang. The sesŭp-mu are often called tanggol in Jeolla Province, and simbang on Jeju Island. The latter term was first recorded in the 15th century, used for mudang on the Korean mainland, but by the early 19th century was exclusively used for practitioners on Jeju. An alternative term for the kangsin-mu is mansin, a term meaning "ten thousand spirits/gods", and which has less derogatory connotations than the label mudang.

Other terms sometimes used for mudang may elsewhere be restricted to different types of Korean ritual specialist. The term yeongmae, describing a spirit medium, is sometimes used synonymously with mudang but at other times describes a distinct group of practitioners. Another term some mudang adopt for themselves is posal (bosal), originally a Korean term for a Buddhist bodhisattva, and which is favored more by female than male practitioners. Conversely, some mudang maintain that the term posal should be reserved for diviners who are possessed by child spirits but who do not perform the gut rituals that are central to mudang practice.

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