J. Barkley Rosser, Jr.
Delivered at Harrisonburg Unitarian Universalists, August 17, 2014
In each of the major northeastern Asian nations one finds three religions practices among others. One of these is the international religion of Buddhism, which originated in South Asia and entered China from Central Asia to the northwest, then to move on into Korea and then to Japan. Another is Confucianism, which originated in China and then also moved through Korea to Japan. Finally, each of them has a much older traditional religion that is shamanistic in practice, animist and polytheist, emphasizing divinities in mountains, rocks, trees, rivers, and other local sites, and rituals to stimulate fertility in people as well as agriculture, and also protection from evils and bad health, and so on, with critics sometimes arguing that these older shamanistic religions are “superstitious.†In China there were many local ones, with most of them becoming subsumed into Taoism, which also has a more esoteric aspect as shown in the book, Tao-De-Ching, by Lao-Tse. In Japan this ancient local religion is Shinto, and in Korea it is Sinkyo (pronounced “Shinkyoâ€), with it likely these last two names come from a common root in Central Asian or Siberian shamanism, Japanese and Korean being related languages.
In these nations and with respect to these three religions there tends to be a very different attitude than one finds in western monotheistic societies, and even among monotheists in those societies, such as the substantial Christian population in Korea, now 29% of the population, with Pope Francis visiting South Korea during this talk, and the current president, Park Geun-ye, nominally a Roman Catholic, as was her late father, Park Chung-hee, who was president and military dictator from 1960-1979. In the West, one can only belong to one religion at a time, and even only to one sub-sect of that religion, such as Wenger Old Order Mennonite Anabaptist Protestant Christian. Someone raised in that tradition may find family members upset if they even go to another branch of Old Order Mennonites (not to pick on the Old Order Mennonites particularly). However, it is fine to belong to all three religions in these northeastern nations. It is said that a Chinese person, “wears Taoist sandals, a Buddhist robe, and wears a Confucian crown.†In Japan, the typical person will get married in a Shinto temple and take newborn children there to be blessed while having a Buddhist funeral. Not a problem.
Despite their likely ultimate common origin, Shinto in Japan and Sinkyo in Korea have had very different histories and treatment. Shinto became part of the organized state religion, with emperor worship coming from it. The Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo that nationalist Japanese premiers anger people in China and Korea by attending memorials for war dead, among them World War II war criminals such as Tojo, is Shinto. Shinto lost some of its prominence at the end of World War II, but retains a link to deeply nationalist elements in Japan, and one finds temples and shrines all over the country, well decorated and served by a well-organized hierarchy of priests.
The situation regarding Sinkyo in Korea is completely different. It has experienced long suppression through much of Korean history, starting with the establishment of the Choson dynasty, which ruled 1395-1910, at which time the Japanese took over the nation. This dynasty was strongly Confucianist and tended to suppress both Buddhism and Sinkyo, although the latter more strongly. When the Japanese took over, Sinkyo was even more vigorously suppressed as it was viewed as a rival to the state Shinto the Japanese were attempting to impose on Korea. The Guksanda shrine that honored three generals who helped found the Choson dynasty in 1395 on Mount Namsen was destroyed by the Japanese in 1925, only to be secretly rebuilt on Mount Ingwasam in Seoul later in an area I visited, hidden on the mountaintop behind many Buddhist temples, deep in the woods. Even after the war, Park Chung-hee suppressed it also, if not as vigorously as the Japanese did, during his rule, 196-1979. It is only since the 1990s that it has been fully allowed to be practiced, experiencing a revival of sorts.
Ironically, Sinkyo may have been treated better in North Korea than in South Korea since World War II, although the North Koreans officially forbid all religions other than the cult of the ruling Kim family. However, the founder of North Korea, the late Kim Il Sung (died in 1994), claimed to have found the tomb of a Sinkyo deity, Tangun, a half bear-half god who was supposedly the father of all the Korean people. In all likelihood Kim Il Sung made a big deal about this to assert his Korean nationalist credentials as part of his claim to be unify Korea under his role and also emphasizing his supposed role as a liberator of (at least North) Korea from Japanese rule. As it is, supposedly only 8% of South Koreans follow Sinkyo, whereas 16% of North Koreans do, although it has been reported that many Protestant churches in the South have adopted a number of Sinkyo practices and beliefs.
I shall not go into details about the rather complicated Sinkyo theology, which involves 12 major gods, including a leading triune sun god, and with many local divine spirits as noted above. An important fact differentiating Sinkyo from all other major Asian religions is that its leading practitioners are women, supposedly tending to be mostly from lower class origins. A female Sinkyo shaman is known as a mudang, while a male one is a Betku. These shamans, of whichever gender, carry out rites know as gut, and followers deposit food at sacred sites.
This brings me to my personal encounter with this religion, which I had been aware of due to writing about Korean economy and society professionally (Rosser and Rosser, 2004, p. 546, fn 7), with my original source of information being an old book by Cornelius Osgood (1951). Indeed, it is hard to find much in English about the religion, which has some alternative names, and I would suggest that anybody interested in checking it out further by googling do so by putting in “Korean shamanism.†In any case, some years ago I finally made it to Korea for a conference in Seoul, and decided to use some of the free time I had to investigate the Sinkyo. I had a Lonely Planet guide book that told of a “Korean Shamanist trail†on Mount Ingwasam, describing the rebuilding there of the Guksanda shrine and some other details and listing a metro stop near this mountain, which rises 1,000 feet above a heavily built up urban area with high rises.
After getting out of the metro station I saw the mountain and headed towards it, only to lose sight of it as I got nearer and found myself on narrow streets among high rises, but continued to try to move in the same direction and going up while asking people “Ingwasam?†Finally I reached a particularly confusing point where I asked a man, and he pointed to a woman and told me to follow her. I asked her, and she indicated I could follow her. She was rather short, maybe around 40 years old, somewhat stocky, and wearing tennis shoes with a grey sweatshirt that had the name of a US naval base in English on it. She led me on up the mountain.
We reached a gate I had read about that led into the general area, with many beautiful and heavily painted Buddhist temples just past it. I took a photo of this gate, but with the woman in front of me also in the photo, unfortunately having failed to ask her permission to do so. She turned around and scowled at me and shook her finger at me disapprovingly. I bowed my head ashamed. She went on, and I checked out the Buddhist temples after passing through the gate. After passing beyond them I reached a higher point where there was a beautiful Buddhist bell, also described in the guidebook. Across from it was a small shop.
I stuck my head in this shop only to find two people there, a young man who was clearly tending the store and the woman I had followed up the mountain. She was sitting at a table and finishing eating something while also having tea and smoking cigarettes fairly furiously. She and the clerk were having a lively conversation. When she saw me, she pointed to a chair at the table. I sat down and ordered some tea. I proceeded to apologize for having photographed her without her permission, which she seemed to accept. All three of us talked about the bell (they both spoke English), but I avoided any mention of Sinkyo, although I was aware that we were on the edge of the area that was Sinkyo rather than Buddhist. I also noticed that next to the woman on the floor was a very large clear orange plastic bag full of food, almost certainly purchased by her at the store. I did not ask about this, and after awhile I left them at the store and went on into the Sinkyo area.
This is a beautiful area mostly of nature and woods and rocks and streams. There are a number of famous rock formations that look like skulls, with the most famous looking like a Zen Buddhist monk meditating (supposedly) in front of which there is an open shrine area on a platform. I also saw the Guksunda shrine deep in woods, which is wooden and quite simple, although with paintings of the three generals. Two elderly and pleasant women in simple robes were tending the shrine and serving tea although they did not seem to know English. There was a sign there in both English and Korean that explained its history, including how it had been secretly rebuilt in this location after the Japanese destroyed it on Mount Namsen in 1925. There is also part of a ruined fort wall, and I think I saw a hermit camped by a stream. There are many beautiful views of the city from up there as well.
An especially curious fact about this area was that I saw several, maybe about a half dozen, bags of the sort that I had seen next to the woman in the store, large clear orange plastic ones full of food, placed carefully at propitious locations such as beautiful rocks or trees or at one vantage point with a dramatic view of the city. I realized that probably the woman was planning to do this as well, to place her bag at some site in the area. This confirmed what I had begun to suspect, that she was a follower of Sinkyo at least to some extent. However, I was about to find out more about this.
The full revelation on this matter came as I was leaving the area and going under the platform in front of the Zen Buddhist rocks, which is not too far into the area. As I passed by I looked up and saw the woman. However, now she was transformed. No longer in a grey US naval base sweatshirt, she was now in a spectacular multi-colored gown, of silk I think, also wearing multiple large necklaces and with some sort of headdress as well. She was chanting and moving about in a clearly stylized ritualistic way as well as making elaborate hand movements that were also clearly stylized and ritualistic. I finally realized that she was not just some random woman on the streets of Seoul, but a full-blown, full-bore, practicing mudang of the Sinkyo religion, and she was pretty clearly in the midst of performing a gut, although I could see nobody else up there. Almost certainly she had dropped off her bag of food somewhere prior to this performance in order to enhance its effectiveness (btw, I have no idea what happens to the food in these bags).
I was quite agog, I think with my mouth hanging open stupidly as I watched her perform her ritual. Finally, at a certain point, she became aware that I was standing down there below (carefully avoiding taking any photographs). She did not slow down or stop in any way what she was doing, but turned her head towards me. She smiled, and then she winked, I think fully aware and amused at my embarrassed discomfiture at having been so unaware of what and who she was. Needless to say, I smiled and winked back and waved. She turned back to focus on what she was doing and paid nor more attention to me. I watched awhile longer, finally bowing, and then turning and leaving the area and the entire mountain without stopping, bringing to an end my encounter with Korean Sinkyo religion.
References
Osgood, Cornelius. 1951. The Koreans and Their Culture. New York: Ronald Press.
Rosser, J. Barkley, Jr. and Marina V. Rosser. Comparative Economics in a Transforming World Economy, 2nd edition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.