Korean Shamanism Research Articles

Exhuma: a Korean cultural paradox

ABSTRACT The Korean blockbuster film Exhuma (original title Pamyo) (2024) features several selling points that appeal to both audience and film reviewers. From these selling points, this review will focus on a dark side in Korean modern history: colonial remnants that should have been cleared away since the Liberation, but have still remained pretty much intact. Jae-hyun Jang, the director of Exhuma, approached the unresolved issue from the perspective of Korean shamanism, historically oppressed and marginalized, having lost its special function to help beings communicate, including human beings and higher beings. Chong-ho Kim (2003) calls the dominant ambivalence and complexity toward shamanism found in Korean society a ‘cultural paradox.’ The film Exhuma is an example of cultural paradox. It shows that clearing away the remnants of Japanese colonialism in Korea still has a long way to go, even 80 years after the Liberation.

Threads of Connection: Souls and Garments in South Korean Shaman Practice

Different from the physical sites of historical hauntings, or the offerings and paraphernalia that are part of family ritual, the garments that are the subject of this paper make a connection to dead souls in ways that are intimate, visual, and tactile. They bridge life and death as the accoutrements of a quotidian social presence that is, in this context, an uncanny non-presence rendering the garments in question as far from neutral matter. Korean shamans engage the known dead with gifts of new garments, with garments once inhabited by the dead, and those desired by the dead. Other garments, with other intentions, might inadvertently lure the dead, requiring exorcistic attention, while conversely, a scrap of clothing infused with human scent might be used to lure ghosts and other unwelcome entities away from living and imperiled flesh. This paper explores the evocative use of clothing in dealings with the dead. I consider how clothing once worn by the dead, desired by the dead, or used to draw the dead away, “works” as a vehicle of presence in different ritual settings. The paper is based on observations of shamans (mansin), a full range of the rituals they perform, and related observations from fieldwork beginning in the 1970s.

«Шаманская болезнь» пророка Иезекииля: критика концепции

This article is devoted to refuting the concept of Yong-Chi Rhie, who proposes to read the narrative of the calling of the prophet Ezekiel as a shamanic illness (in Korean shamanism). Since the author investigates the story in question as such, without textual criticism, the refutation of the researcher's concept is constructed from within the biblical corpus. To analyze the problem, all key elements of both the shamanic illness and the calling of the biblical prophets are parsed in detail. It is noted that the comparison of the two phenomena – shamanic illness and the calling of a prophet – omits a number of important elements (spirit possession, physical and psychological suffering of the shamanic candidate, and the ritual of initiation into mudang). The paper emphasizes the biblical context of the calling of the prophets. A detailed examination of the account of the calling of the prophet Ezekiel reveals that this narrative is typical of such narratives in the Old Testament.

한국 무속에서 읽어낸 그로토프스키의 세속적 신성

This study explores the convergence of Jergy Grotowski's ‘Secular sacrum in the theatre’ and Korean Muism(Korean Shamanism)’s shamanic rituals in the context of secular spirituality. Grotowski advocates for the theatrical stage as a sacred space, breaking barriers for genuine inner exploration, with the ‘holy actor’ crucial for manifesting secular spirituality. Drawing parallels, Muism’s shamans(mudang) embody the ‘holy actor’ through acts like ‘self-sacrifice’ and ‘emptying oneself’, seen in rituals such as the initiation ceremony(Naerim Gut). The shaman, bridging the divine and human realms, seeks to heal through spiritual power in a sacred space. Embedded in Korean culture, Gut rituals serve as a pillar of secular spirituality, transforming the worldly into the sacred. The shaman(mudang), a key practitioner, orchestrates these spiritual rituals, playing a central role in communal life.

The Role and Implications of Shamanism in Korean Disaster Management

The number of shamans, as a category of disaster management stakeholders, has significantly increased in Korea. However, the role of shamans in mitigating the psychological impact of disasters has not been adequately studied. This research explores how to improve the role of shamanism in the field of Korean disaster management toward the ultimate goal of mitigating the psychological impact of disasters. Descriptive content analysis is used to systematically compare the secularism approach with the psychological impact mitigation approach by considering professional shamans, community leaders, educators and researchers, and disaster victims. The most significant finding is that Korea needs to supplement its current secularism approach with the psychological impact mitigation approach. Asian nations could benefit from insights on the significance of behavioral change, cultural competency, neo-shamanism, and multiple networks. The value of this study lies in its more rigorous investigation of Korean shamanism in relation to disaster management compared with previous works.

Art-Kut! The Counter-Cultural and Feminist Spirituality of Shamanism in Postwar South Korean Art

Abstract On 17 January 1981, during a cold Winter Day at the height of an authoritarian military regime, a group of South Korean artists named “Baggat Misul [Outdoor Art]” gathered around a riverbank outside Seoul to interact with nature and called it “jayeon misul [nature art].” A young woman artist Yong-sin Suh performed an act the group called “a lark,” during which Suh alternated with two male artists in reading aloud sections of newspaper articles. These unhinged, free-spirited acts were inspired by the Korean folk theater tradition of pansori (traditional Korean musical opera), and kut (traditional Korean shamanistic exorcism). Korean shamanism by way of the mudang kut rituals has historically been a Korean indigenous belief intertwined with Buddhism and Taoism and stood as a counterforce to the mainstream nationalist neo-Confucian and imperial Christian conservative legacy that oppressed women and the nonconforming gender-neutral community in South Korea. The paper analyzes the Korean shamanistic elements that were utilized in performative, conceptual, and nature art practices by South Korean artists in the post-WWII period to the present, within the framework of the intersection of Korean feminism, art activism, and shamanistic spirituality.

Contemporary Korean Shamanism: From Ritual to Digital

Contemporary Korean Shamanism: From Ritual to Digital

The Cosmopolitan Vernacular: Korean Shamans (Mudang) in the Global Spirituality Market

Cosmopolitanism has often been used to discuss religions that had been institutionalized, canonized, and then transmitted globally through premodern cultural flows. In contrast, vernacular religions have maintained their local uniqueness in terms of pantheons, belief systems, practices, and ritual objects—even into the 21st century. This article discusses the cultural and societal conditions that have enabled the vernacular traditions of Korean shamanism (musok) to travel globally in real and virtual worlds. Not all Korean shamans (mudang) work with foreigners, but the four ethnographic case studies that this article examines are cosmopolitan practitioners. They assert that spirits can communicate beyond spoken languages, that mudang clients do not have to be Koreans, and that media depictions are a vehicle for making the practice available to more people in Korea and worldwide. Such international activity has become an easily achievable task in hypermodern conditions. The vernacular is flexible in meaning and usage because institutions do not supervise it and it is often an undocumented oral tradition. Mudang constantly recreate musok practices from their personal interpretation of the religious experience. Thus, when musok goes global, it is reinterpreted and transformed to fit the cultural understandings of the target audiences.

Visual Nationalism and Communal Rituals: Park Saengkwang’s Art and Korean Shamanism

Visual Nationalism and Communal Rituals: Park Saengkwang’s Art and Korean Shamanism

Women in Korean Shamanism: An Analysis of the Bari Gongju

Kore Şamanizm’inin en belirgin özelliklerinden biri, kadınların Şamanizm tarihinde ve ritüellerinde önemli bir yeri olmasıdır. Konfüçyüsçü düşüncenin kadınları ev içine hapsetmesi, onları dini ve sosyo-kültürel yaşamdan mahrum bırakması ve genel olarak ataerkil sistemi topluma dayatması, kadınların Şamanizm’e yönelmesine yol açmıştır. Böylelikle, kadınlar Şamanizm içerisinde kendilerini ifade edebilecek bir yer edinmişlerdir. Bu çalışmada, Kore yarımadasının birçok bölgesinde sözlü olarak aktarıla gelen ve Prenses Bari olarak isimlendirilen şaman şarkısı, içerdiği toplumsal değerler ve eleştiriler açısından incelenmiştir. Bu şarkı üstün özelliklerine ilişkin kehanetlere rağmen, cinsiyetinden dolayı terkedilen Bari ismindeki prensesin hikâyesini anlatmaktadır. Prenses Bari, şarkı boyunca zeki ve cesur bir kadın kahraman olarak karşımıza çıkmakta, onun ataerkil topluma başkaldırdığı görülmektedir. Şarkının sözleri, kadın ve erkek arasındaki ayrımın doğumdan itibaren başladığı, kadınların erkeğin sahip olduğu birçok haktan menedildiği toplumun yüzünü yansıtmaktadır. Son olarak, bu çalışma ile Kore Şamanizm’inde kadının sahip olduğu role dikkat çekildiği, ilgili alanda literatüre katkıda sağladığı söylenebilir.

김백봉 <광란의 제단>에 나타난 한국 샤머니즘의 특징 연구

The purpose of this study is to provide basic data for new creative dance research by comparing and analyzing the characteristics of Korean shamanism in shaman dance, focusing on Kim Baek-Bong''s < Altar of Frenzy >. In order to achieve the purpose of the study, the elements of shamanism consciousness and shamanism appearing in the gut were analyzed, and the conclusions obtained in this study compared to the analysis of Kim Baek-Bong''s < Altar of Frenzy > work are as follows. First, the characteristics and roles of shaman dance can be divided into the role of serving God and the role of chasing ghosts. Second, shamanistic dance movements are based on circular movements, and are generally characterized by fast rhythm and leap dance. Third, Kim Baek-bong''s < Altar of Frenzy > has a stronger dynamic than many of Kim Baek-bong''s works, and has a characteristic that can be reminiscent of a powerful leap forward. Fourth, bells, fans, and five-colored flags were used as props in Kim Baek-bong''s < Altar of Frenzy >.

Terms Used for Smallpox and Its Personification in Korean Shamanic Language

The history of the terms and expressions associated with smallpox offers evidence of semantic change and reflects both the internal and external worldviews of Korean people with regard to smallpox. In Korean shamanic language, smallpox is personified as gods known by various names with their own linguistic registers, personalities, and behaviors. The present paper first analyzes the semantic relationship between the terms used for smallpox and for smallpox gods, and argues that similarities in their meanings and in the characteristics of the disease were determining factors in the creation of the gods’ personalities. The second part of the paper discusses how possession is defined in relation to the personification of smallpox, the smallpox goddess, and the person afflicted.

КОСМОГОНІЧНІ УЯВЛЕННЯ У МІФОЛОГІЇ КОРЕЙСЬКОГО НАРОДУ

The traditional culture of the Korean people is not considerably studied in Ukrainian historiography, compared to Chinese or Japanese mythologies. While Korean traditional culture has much in common with the nations of the East Asia region, it also has many unique socio-cultural phenomena that are very perspective for research. The mythology of the Korean people has come down to our time thanks to traditional Korean shamanism, which was greatly influenced by Buddhism and Taoism. This unical confluence of religious systems deserves attention from researchers. Korean mythology does not have a strict hierarchy of gods, as is the case in Western mythologies. Despite this, it is full of original plots and characters, which can have many different versions. Cosmogonic legends in Korean mythology are represented in many variations of sacred shamanic stories, recorded from the mouths of Korean shamans Mu. After the partition of the Korean Peninsula in 1945, ethnographic science suffered greatly. While traditional Korean shamanism still exists legally in South Korea, it is outlawed in the North, and many shamans – important carriers of ethnographic material – have been subjected to political repression. Most of the stories studied in this article were written before the partition of Korea in the 1920–1930s. Some of the stories were also recorded in South Korea in the 1970–1980s. The article analyzes in detail the cosmogony narratives in Korean sacred shamanic stories; classifies, explores and compares various legends about the creation of the universe and highlights the main features of traditional Korean cosmogony. Also, the article reveals the chronological and geographical boundaries of ethnographic research in Korea, during which stories were recorded that contain traditional cosmogonic plots.

On the problem of studying shamanism in the Yakut and Korean culture

The article is devoted to one of the discussed problems in religious studies, related to the question of whether shamanism is considered a world religion. This problem is closely related to the issues of ethnogenesis of both the Yakut and Korean peoples, which have not yet been completely resolved. Meanwhile, the realities are such that in the context of many studies, the word "shamanism" is used precisely in the meaning of religion. The relevance of the article is seen in the fact that comparative material on shamanism among different peoples will only contribute to the solution of many questions of shamanism. It is a fact that shamanism is still a cult of religion and a common link between the Yakuts and Koreans, who are in the same Altai linguistic environment, which had a huge impact on their culture and mentality. This closeness manifests itself in many areas of life, especially in the rich ancient folklore. Along with similar customs and traditions of shamanism in Yakutia and Korea, there are, of course, many differences caused mainly by the level of development of the structure of shamanism in both countries. The absence of any holistic concept of the history of the birth and evolution of shamanism significantly hinders the unified interpretation of its terms, up to discrepancy. The author hopes that the article will to some extent make up for the topic of Korean shamanism presented in the domestic literature.

Shamanism in Korean Cinema and Popular Culture: The Korean shaman narrative, shaman films, and women

샤머니즘은 한국의 대중문화에서 중요한 종교적 역할을 담당해왔다. 그 영향력은 불교와 기독교가 현대 한국의 주요 종교들이 되었음에도 불구하고 지속되고 있다. 샤머니즘과 무속인들은 다양한 방식으로 한국의 문학과 영화, 드라마는 물론 디지털 매체에도 등장하고 있다. 이 논문은 샤머니즘과 무속인들이 어떤 양상으로 한국 문학과 영화, 대중 문화에 재현되고 있는지를 살펴보고자 한다. 한국의 무당 영화들은 특히 1970년대에 많이 제작되었다. 김동리 작가의 단편소설 무녀도 (1936)를 각색한 두 영화 작품들 무녀도 (최하원감독, 1972)와 을화 (변 장호 감독, 1979), 또한 선별한 1980년대에 개봉된 무당 영화들에 중점을 두고 이 논문은 다음과 같은 문제들을 논의하고자 한다: 첫째, 1970년대와 그 이후 많은 영화 감독들과 스타 배우들은 어떤 점때문에 무당 영화 제작에 매료되고 적극적으로 관여하게 되었는가?; 둘째, 무속인들은 이들 영화 속에서 어떻게 묘사되고 있는가?; 셋째, 영화 속의 무당들의 대부분은 여성 무당들이다. 이러한 젠더 불균형은 어떤 맥락에서 설명될 수 있으며 여성성의 어떤 면들이 영화적 재현에서 부각되고 있는가?; 마지막으로, 굿은 샤머니즘의 핵심적 요소를 이루는 제의이자 퍼포먼스이다. 굿의 기능은 무엇이며, 어떤 면에서 샤머니즘을 트랜스 또는 멀티미디어적인 활동이라고 볼 수 있는가? 또 여성 무속인들의 굿에서 전시되는 그녀들의 몸, 육체는 그들의 문화적 위상과 역할과 관련하여 어떻게 표현되고 성찰되고 있는가? 이 논문은 젠더 - 특히 여성 -의 재현이 무당 영화들에서 문제가 된다는 관점 하에 무당 영화에서 표현되는 굿 퍼포먼스를 여성 무당의 해방과정과 기독교에서 억압된 에로티시즘의 다중적인 전복적 기능에 초점을두고 분석한다.

Korean Shamanism Pattern of Folding Screen as Visual Language of Self-culture

Korean Shamanism Pattern of Folding Screen as Visual Language of Self-culture

무당의 기도: 근대성과 저항

In this paper, I explain the meaning of shamans’ praying practices in public spaces such as public parks and historic sites in terms of modernity and resistance. Shamans’ praying practices for themselves as well as clients in such spaces inevitably face the power of modernity, because the sites on which they pray have in most cases been constructed as a modern project. Previous research has shown that encounters between modernity and Korean shamanism resulted in the formation of various images of Korean shamanism on the level of official discourse. However, scholars have paid much less attention to how shaman agents have reacted to those discourses which embody modernity. By reference to James C. Scott’s resistance theory, I would like to interpret shaman’s praying practices in modern parks and historic sites as a form of “resistance” acting on a “hidden transcript.”

Gods and Things: Is “Animism” an Operable Concept in Korea?

Shamanship is a thing-ish practice. Early missionary observers in Korea noted that features of the landscape, quotidian objects, and specialized paraphernalia figure in the work of shamans (mansin) and in popular religious practice more generally. Subsequent ethnographers observed similar engagements with numinous things, from mountains to painted images, things vested with the presence of soul stuff (yŏng). Should this be considered “animism” as the term is being rethought in anthropological discourse today? Should we consider shamanic materiality in Korea as one more ontological challenge to the nature/culture divide? Drawing on existing ethnography and her own fieldwork, the author examines the (far from uniform) premises that govern the deployment of material things in Korean shaman practice. She argues that while the question of “animism” opens a deeper inquiry into things that have been described but not well-analyzed, the term must be used with clarity, precision, and caution. Most of the material she describes becomes sacred through acts of human agency, revealing an ontology of mobile, mutable spirits who are inducted into or appropriate objects. Some of these things are quotidian, some produced for religious use, and even the presence of gods in landscapes can be affected by human agency. These qualities enable the adaptability of shaman practices in a much transformed and highly commercialized South Korea.

Why the Sponsorship of Korean Shamanic Healing Rituals is Best Explained by the Clients’ Ostensible Reasons

Various scholars have suggested that the main function of Korean shamanic rituals is the change of the participants’ feelings. I elaborate what these scholars potentially mean by “function”, challenge what I take to be their core claim, and argue that at least in the case of Korean shamanic healing rituals their sponsorship has rather to be explained based on the clients’ ostensible motivational and belief-states. Korean clients sponsor such rituals because they want their beloved ones to be healed and because they believe that the shamanic ritual can potentially accomplish such healing. I underpin this thesis by two representative actual Korean shamanic healing rituals.

Creating and applying a narrative-semiosis model

Abstract In this study, I explore a new model of narrative that contains interactions between three levels of story – narrative story, cognitive story, and social story. With this new model, narrative is no longer a static form but rather a whole signifying process among levels. I term this new model narrative-semiosis. The narrative-semiosis model in this study is closely related to the six elements of Jakobson’s communication model. In my new model, cognitive story exists in the minds of both the addresser and addressee, and social story exists in the context where human beings think and perform in the real world. Cognitive story is inferred from the message that is in a narrative story. In this paper, I describe the semiotic interactions among the three levels of stories, not unidirectional but bidirectional, in my narrative-semiosis model. I also validate my model by applying it to a traditional Korean shaman epic Danggumagi and a painting text, Sun and Moon, describing their semiotic narrative signification.