Hanyang Kut

Korean Shaman Ritual Music from Seoul

Maria K. Seo

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781000012255
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sciences sociales
• Subtopic: Études asiatico-américaines

This volume, first published in 2002, presents a sophisticated analysis of the musical instruments, repertoires, musicians and ensembles, and symbolism of the ritual music of Shamans of Seoul, Korea. Placed firmly in a social and historical context, it shows that Shamanism, considered superstition by many today, is alive and well in Seoul in a rich tradition reaching back to the Chosôn Dynasty (1392-1910), the capital of which was Hanyang (now Seoul). The instruments, dress and other accoutrements of courtly life from the Chosôn Dynasty have been taken up, although transformed, in contemporary rituals among spirit-possessed Shamans. Through a comparison of Hanyang kut - the rituals of the Hanyang Shamans - and the ritual practice of Inner Asian Shamans, and through an analysis of the relations of spirit-possession music rituals to musok, the indigenous religion of Korea, Seo sheds light on the role of music, spiritual practice and culture in present-day Korea.

CHAPTER 1

The Path of a Native Fieldworker

1. From the Beginning

The deafening sounds of cymbals and drums, the mudang’s fierce looking face, colorful banners, twirling knives and swords in the air—these are my recollections of a kut (ritual) that I attended in North Korea when I was six years old. I still remember the kut and the mudang (ritual specialist) with considerable fear.

My family warned me not to stir while the mudang was in trance because absolute silence was necessary for the mudang’s soul to return to his body. Otherwise, the mudang’s soul might wander or capture an audience member, forcing them to become a mudang. I did not know what it meant to be a mudang, but I knew intuitively that I did not want to become one.

Much Later

My husband and I were both born in Korea. We were married in May 1961 in Seoul, the capital of South Korea, and moved to Canada that September because my husband, a nuclear physicist, had been offered a position as a research scientist. We made our home in Canada and raised three sons. Living in North America for thirty-nine years, I often wished to return to my native country.

My husband became a naturalized Canadian citizen within a few years, but I hesitated because I missed my family, my friends, and my country. I simply missed being a Korean living in Korea. Although I appeared to adjust rather well to the North American way of life, my longing for “home” grew deeper as the years passed.

My ambivalence about my identity and ethnicity began to challenge me. I had lived in Korea for twenty-three years, but I have been living in North America for more than thirty-nine years. My physical appearance is that of a Korean, but my worldview is that of a “transnational” due to my life as an immigrant in a foreign land, an issue discussed by Slote (1993:69).

In order to learn more about my Korean heritage, I often read books about Korea. Most of the books and articles I read seemed to suggest that Korean cultural identity was formed by Confucian ideals and/or the worldview of musok, the Korean indigenous religion. About a decade ago, the literature concerning Korean shamanism was not readily available to me and too limited to satisfy my intense curiosity.

A Letter from Seoul

In the spring of 1991 in Seattle, my parents were visiting me from Seoul. One day in March my parents received a letter from their neighbor in Seoul. They were stunned by the news contained in that letter. The neighbor, a young man, expressed his anger and despair because his wife had to become a kangshinmu, a spirit-possessed mudang. My parents were so distressed and saddened by this tragic news that they seemed unable to recover from the shock for a long time.

My parents, then in their seventies, had known several mudang (ritual specialists) during their lives, but this was their first experience of personally knowing someone who was transformed from an ordinary housewife to a spirit-possessed mudang. Disasters in life are thought to happen to others whom we read about in the papers or hear about on the news. My parents could not articulate the reasons why becoming a spirit-possessed mudang was so upsetting. They simply knew it was “the end” of the young couple’s life, and they were deeply saddened. My heart sank instantly, too. We felt deep sympathy for the couple. What a tragedy to have someone in the family become a kangshinmu, a spirit-possessed mudang ! We felt sorry for the wife, but we also worried about the husband and the family. What would become of the couple, their children, their relatives, and friends? How would they cope with this tragic situation? We perceived the difficulty of this family, but none of us had any logical explanation for our feeling this way. I wanted to know what really caused my parents and me such grief for the couple and their family. I hoped to find answers to the many puzzling questions—What is a mudang? Why does our friend have to face such a tragic fate against her will? What is really happening and why?

A Visit to Seoul

In September 1991, I visited Seoul with my sons and a friend for the first time since 1981. Enormous changes had taken place in Seoul in those ten years. New highways from the airport to downtown were multi-laned like those in Europe and North America. Seoul had expanded across the Han River toward the south, creating a gigantic metropolis. The city skyline had risen with tall skyscrapers as if it wanted to boast the surging energy of its people. Streets and highways were filled with cars. There were many times when no cars moved, as if they were in a huge parking lot where an attendant had piled up the cars to the maximum capacity with no room to spare. There were too many vehicles on the road, causing traffic jams and parking problems everywhere. I felt that too much Western influence was choking the flow of Korean life.

It was only after we crossed the Han River, northbound toward downtown Seoul, that some of the old buildings and streets began to look familiar. Amid the high-rise buildings and modern structures along the main roads, I noticed numerous signs advertising musok practices. The wording of the signs was not straightforward, but if one read between the lines, it was clear that musok practices were being offered. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that musok is a living tradition, readily accessible, contrary to what I had assumed from the readings. I was glad that I had decided to come home—to observe, to experience, and to learn firsthand.

Mrs. A, the First Kangshinmu I Met

The first kangshinmu (spirit-possessed mudang) I met was Mrs. A, my parents’ friend and neighbor who first became spirit-possessed earlier that year (I have called her Mrs. A in accordance with her wish to remain anonymous). When my sons, a Canadian friend, and I visited Korea in September, Mr. and Mrs. A invited us to their home. We felt rather uneasy about meeting a kangshinmu. My parents convinced us that no harm would come to us, because the neighbors were a very nice couple. Mr. A greeted us at the door and guided us to a room where we waited for Mrs. A.

When she entered the room, I was so struck by her beauty that I needed a few moments to compose myself before I could greet her. I could not believe that this young woman, the mother of two daughters, was a kangshinmu. Her manner and attire were so elegant that she did not conform to the image of a kangshinmu that I had formed, based on my childhood memory. There was absolutely no evidence that would cause anyone to suspect her of being a spirit-possessed mudang.

Mrs. A was in her early thirties. She wore traditional Korean women’s clothing. Her long skirt flowed gently to the floor and her movements were graceful. Her hair was done up in the traditional married woman’s style—parted in the middle with the hair tied neatly in a knot at the nape of the neck and fastened with a pinyŏ, a hair ornament about six inches long.

The First Experience of Divination

Since it is commonly known among Koreans that a neophyte kangshinmu’s power of divination is particularly strong and accurate, my whole entourage decided to ask Mrs. A to tell our fortunes. No one knew quite what to expect. Mrs. A invited us one by one into her shindang (shrine room), to discuss the fortunes privately. She invited me to stay as an interpreter because my sons and our friend did not understand much Korean. She also kindly permitted me to tape record her fortune-telling and our conversations. Before the fortune-telling session began, my mother offered an envelope to Mrs. A and left the room. My mother later told me that there was 50,000 won (about $70.00 in US funds in 1991) in that envelope.

The shrine room was rectangular with windows on one side and a door opposite. Paintings of various spirits hung on one long wall. Some spirits looked fierce, some gentle. Below the paintings was an altar where several images of spirits were displayed. Rice, fruits, candies, cigarettes, and money were piled up before these images as offerings. Several tall candles were lit and incense burned in several small ornate vessels (see plate l).¹

Mrs. A sat near the doorway, placing a small table between herself and her client (see plate 2). She wanted to know where the client lived and the time, date, month, and year of birth. Remembering that divination is done according to lunar calendar dates, I apologized for knowing this vital information only by the Gregorian calendar. She smiled gently and proceeded immediately to consult a book in order to find the corresponding dates for the lunar calendar.

The information given, Mrs. A closed her eyes and began to summon her spirits, asking them to descend and help her. She held a bell in her right hand, shaking it intermittently whenever she seemed to need to take a breath. She announced her client to the spirits, mentioning the client’s name, residence, and the saju (the four columns of life—the time, date, month, and year of birth).

¹ Plates (i.e. photographs) are in appendix A.

Mrs. A had a dozen large yŏpchŏn (brass coins about two inches in diameter with a quarter-inch hole in the center). She rolled the yŏpchŏn on the table several times for each client. At each roll the yŏpchŏn created a different configuration. Some yŏpchŏn stayed in isolated piles, others rolled off the table. Mrs. A interpreted each client’s fortune according to the configuration. When she said someone was away, for example, she pointed to a coin fallen from the table. Gesturing toward two coins close together, she said that the couple was happy, and so on.

Mrs. A also confided in us that she could feel the physical pain of the client and pointed to one of my sons, saying that he was suffering from a stomach ache. My son later told me that it was true.

When my turn came, I asked Mrs. A if and when I would receive my Ph.D. degree and return to Korea. She told me that I would be returning to Korea without completing the degree. Since for many decades I had dreamed of returning home with the degree, I felt completely shattered.

We took several snapshots with Mrs. A in her shrine room and hurried home to discuss the experience among ourselves. Everyone thought it had been fun but most gave little weight to what Mrs. A had said. But I was so disturbed and hurt that I began to doubt her ability. I refused to believe her, because she did not tell me what I wanted to hear.

Mrs. A and Her Family

After that first visit to Mrs. A’s shrine, I began to get acquainted with Mr. and Mrs. A. I wanted to get to know the couple and their family members better so that I might learn more about the stages of development in Mrs. A’s career as a kangshinmu (spirit-possessed mudang), but she seemed to avoid me. Although I saw the husband often, I was allowed to visit Mrs. A only by infrequent invitation.

Mrs. A’s mother looked after the two granddaughters. One girl was a junior in high school, the other a first grader in a private school. Leaving the two daughters in the family home under the grandmother’s care, Mrs. A and her husband had moved to another area of Seoul where no one knew them in order to establish new identities. Mrs. A visited her children late at night two or three times a week, but the children were not permitted to visit their parents in their new home. Mr. A was seen in both neighborhoods, but the family was never seen together in public after Mrs. A became a kangshinmu. These measures were taken to protect the children from gossip. It was difficult for all parties concerned. I was amazed to observe how well the youngest member of the family, the seven-year-old girl, was adjusting to this drastic change of life.

When one becomes a kangshinmu, one’s family and even friends are often shunned by outsiders. Within the family, many kangshinmu lose their original family ties due to the conflicts arising from their status as kangshinmu. The kangshinmu’s spouse, parents, and relatives often terminate their relationships with the neophyte and go their separate ways, because they find the situation too difficult to handle. Some kangshinmu families move away together to a new place, attempting to keep the family unit intact. Few kangshinmu keep in touch with their relatives openly. Most of them prefer to maintain a low profile in order to protect their families and relatives from o...