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Korean shamanism, also known as
musok is a religion from Korea. Scholars of religion classify it as a folk
religion and sometimes regard it as one facet of a broader Korean vernacular
religion distinct from Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism. There is no central
authority in control of musok, with much diversity of belief and practice
evident among practitioners.
A polytheistic religion, musok revolves around deities and ancestral
spirits. Central to the tradition are ritual specialists, the majority of them
female, called mudang. In English they have sometimes been called
"shamans", although the accuracy of this term is debated among anthropologists.
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.
Elements of the musok tradition may derive from prehistory. During the
Joseon period, Confucian elites suppressed the mudang with taxation and legal
restrictions, deeming their rites to be improper. During the Japanese occupation
of the early 20th century, nationalistically oriented folklorists began
promoting the idea that musok 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 under the Marxist
government of 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..
My Icon: I got this little Dol hareubang from a friend. |