Siskkim Kut for Baruch Goldstein: Thoughts on Current Events and Cross Cultural Values

 Thoughts on Current Events, Cross Cultural Values and the Dealing With Anger 

 

             In 1994, on the Jewish festival of Purim and during the Moslem Ramadan, American born Israeli citizen Baruch Goldstein, M.D. slaughtered Arabs at prayer in a mosque in the cave of the Machpelah in Hebron, Israel -- the traditional burial place of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, a place sacred to Jews, Arabs and Christians. In the course of events, he soon was killed by the survivors on the spot. Rioting, exchanges between then Prime Minister Rabin and Chairman Arafat and the action was condemned. 

 

The circumstances of his unpardonable act were numerous, complex and still debated. He claimed a moral imperative, one whose premise at its root I also share in principle, but I have acted upon quite differently. In the course of the investigation, there arose a general consensus that this situation was more of act of a single man gone mad with the burden of limited mental capacity – like a neighbor who has a "short fuse". 

 

The fact that he paid for his action with his own death did not produce closure for me, and the fact that the incident is no longer in the headlines for communal discourse is no indication that the matter was then or is now closed. At the time I was looking for some way that the community could acknowledge that what is felt as a moral imperative needs to have a less drastic way to be resolved.

 

It was, and remains, unfathomable to me that any Jew, especially a religious Jew, would enter that holy space with the intention to kill another human, much less people praying in a sanctuary. Since that time, the events of the wars in the region have made me no less hopeful that humans are, by nature, peace loving, but of course, I am less naive about incidental realities. 

 

Baruch Goldstein’s action, nonetheless, is part of the lineage of my people’s struggle to survive and flourish, but I found it extremely difficult to just chalk it up to one person’s internal imbalance because at some level, I share his premise, and I carry the burden of his conclusion. Needless to say, I do not condone his means.

 

I have worked for the “organized” Jewish community as a propagandist, promoting education, awareness and action to support Jewish life in its myriad forms – fragile and powerful -- throughout the world. We had no way to address this type of extra-ordinary behavior, save to wish that it would not have happened.

 

Within the month of this incident, I attended a staged “performance” at UCLA of Sikkim Gut, a centuries old funeral ritual” conducted by shamans from Chindo Island of the southern coast of Korea. Little did I realize that I would find in this communal ritual a way to recover the hope that it would not happen again. 

 

                  I have been informally studying the work of the Korean shaman, mudang, for several years and have a keen interest in the evolution of spiritual awareness. So, my expectations ran from expanding my knowledge to being entertained. contribute to my knowledge. It went further than that. 

 

                  As we know, one of the major differences between performance and ritual is intention. In Hebrew the word is kavanah. During a workshop earlier in the day, the head shaman explained that such ritual was used to cleanse the community as well as the deceased . He also explained the pantheon of spirits they usually invoke in the course of that ritual, but he said that because they weren't actually conducting a funeral, that he would invoke and be appreciative of the presence of any spirits willing to be present in Los Angeles. In addition, the mudang would be seeking good fortune for all present. 

 

                  Well, if the difference between ritual and performance is intention, and all that they were lacking was the subject of a cleansing funeral, then perhaps I could implicate Baruch Goldstein into that role and coax the performance back into ritual mode, if only for myself. Baruch Goldstein was clearly in need of spiritual cleansing wherever he was, and that the Jewish community had to look itself squarely in the face and take responsibility for the actions of one of its members. He was just a human, like all of us, and something went crazier inside him than in you or me at that time. So, I followed this intention throughout the performance. Perhaps this was the first time a Korean gut was held for an orthodox Jew. 

 

                  Now, if Baruch Goldstein were alive, he'd probably not be too happy to be associated with this event. But that's the rational mind at work. Nevertheless, whether he or I "believe" in the spirit which needed this ritual was immaterial, if "spirit" really exists. So, I decided to make the "stretch" and address Baruch Goldstein in my imagination and project it through the medium of the Chindo mudang. When I thought it was appropriate, I inserted his name to fill in the blanks. 

                  

                  In the Ch'ong Hon the mudang danced with the chijon (fist-full of white paper streamers), and I settled into the wonderful sound of the musical instrumentalists of the band. Then she eventually placed them down together in front of her at the edge of the stage and sat with them, sort of caressing them. I decided that this was the "body" which was missing from the ritual. I imagined her lyrics to be a recitation of Baruch Goldstein's life, his successes, failures, loves and hates, a lyrical biography which included how he related to the community into which he was born, which nurtured him and of which he was a staunch supporter as an adult. Eventually, the mudang grabbed the chijon and whipped them up, one in each hand and began her energetic dance once again, waving them in Ss and Xs. 

 

                  If the chijon were his disintegrating mortal remains, she now had captured his soul / spirit in them. I remember reading about a Tibetan Buddhist ritual called chod in which the practitioner envisioned him/herself being devoured, until nothing was left but the blood that was drunk from the skull. Certainly it was not Baruch's body that committed the crime. The body, like the mind, has no "opinions" of its own. When the mudang danced with the chijon, she had indeed invoked Baruch Goldstein's spirit and it was now in her "possession." (Or perhaps she was possessed by it? This distinction I'm still not clear about, not having had the experience of "possession" or sensed that I "possessed" a spirit distinct from myself -- not to mention my own). I may be entirely "wrong" about this, but it doesn't matter because it worked.

 

                  The second part was the Chesok Kut. While the reference is clearly Korean and Buddhist, nonetheless, it at least asks for good fortune for all of us. Thus, we needed no other explanation, happy to be granted good fortune in any form. We certainly need it.

 

                  Hon Siskkim Kut, cleansing of the spirit, was a ritual that I knew that Baruch Goldstein needed desperately -- as did I and the community as a whole. He probably needed it before he went into that mosque: the newspapers reported he was thoroughly frustrated over the deaths of a friend and the friend's son by Arab "terrorists," pushing his already well-demonstrated fundamentalist fanaticism to the complete end. It is this part that awoke in me something very unexpected: how in each of us - individually and collectively -- there lies a seed of that same nature which in Baruch Goldstein was pushed to its limit. It is the capacity to be so angry that hate shrouds everything and holds the rational mind a prisoner. In fact, we didn't need a real "dead" body on that stage; we had our own sitting in the seat. In every way, each time the mudang addressed (in my mind) the spirit of Baruch Goldstein; she was speaking to and about us. He was the classic "scapegoat." 

 

                  One of the most important things I experienced was the notion of asking our now deceased community member to go now. Leave us. Resist attachment to the living and life, as we must not only resist hanging on to you. It also gives us the opportunity to support each other in saying to one of us to lighten up on our own attachment within and to life. It seems a greater comfort to me than ever before. It is the kavanah,the intention. 'I've never addressed a spirit before so directly. This must be one of the facilities of a kut -- to create an environment where this communication can occur free of the burden of fear of the inevitable.

 

                  How difficult this feels to me. In my few deeply personal losses of loved ones, the connection, conversation seemed more like a lament and an expression of grief. During the performance I again felt how difficult it is for me to detach from my ego, from my habits, from the preconceived notions I have about life and death, from my desires and passions. The ritual was working. I was connecting, not with something Korean or Baruch Goldstein, but something very intimate. 

 

                  The next part, Kil Takkum, involved using a long stretch of fabric to create the myongdari" along which the spirit of the deceased must travel to the "other world." At this point, with all I had experienced, it was very clear that only with true awareness of who's really getting cleansed from what could anyone's spirit travel -- whether to an "afterlife" or the life each of us faces right here. What must the cleansing be like? What is it like to be so free from attachment? 

 

                  The "performance" ended with an energetic drum dance, appropriately returning us back to our daily activities with joyous outlook. 

 

                  I left the auditorium realizing the importance of gut in human life, whether it is here or in Korea, whether conducted in Hebrew or Korean -- but essentially the language "intention." How sad it has been that such rituals have been socially suppressed and our minds poisoned to reject them. I told a friend of mine that to go further toward my deep appreciation of shamanism, I had to "step aside" from my disbelief, not actually turn it into belief. It hasn't been easy. There's four decades of skepticism in there. But an equal amount of passion to go on We are fortunate enough to be able to have access to those people who, for whatever reason, do "believe" and are accept the responsibility on behalf of others. What is left for the rest of us is to honor the tradition on its face value. 

 

Hop Skip Jump: Ups and Downs of Korean Shamans in New York City

(First published 2003)

Ground Zero and Niagara Falls were a hop, skip and jump away from each other when Kim Keumhwa  Korea's National Shaman, came in 2003 to New York to present Daedong Gut, a grand community ritual to promote harmony and reconciliation, during the Lincoln Center Festival.

Like typical tourists, the site of the World Trade Center was the first stop for her troupe of 18 master ritual artists, most of whom were making their first trip to the USA. Standing along the perimeter, a cyclone fence protecting one world from the other, Ms. Kim's attention was at once fixed across the broad plateau and drawn inevitably upward along the phantom limbs. A tall, elegant woman, she stood extremely still and seemed preoccupied with this experience even during the festival's fanfare.

Two days later, and two hours into the 3.5 hour ritual before an SRO crowd at John Jay College Theatre, the cacophony of hand drums, gongs and screeching woodwinds made mince-meat out of linear thought. Ms. Kim, whose vitality defied her 72 years of age, lost not one beat as she hop, skipped and jumped barefooted up a 10 foot ladder, landing upon the twin rails of the razor sharp chakdu (Korean rice straw cleavers).

Demonstrated earlier to easily slice fabric but make no impression when pressed to her arms, legs or tongue, the chakdu were braced tightly, edges up, atop a "tower" composed of two oil drums seated end-on-end, upon which a large water-filled crock and wood box filled with 30 pounds of uncooked rice were stacked. 

A slight breeze came across the stage, rustling USA and Korean flags fixed -- like a skyscraper topping off ceremony -- atop twin 25 foot bamboo poles flanking the chakdu "tower". Five, colored streamers attached below the flags picked up on the breeze as the music reached a frenzy. Ms. Kim took hold of the vertical poles to steady herself and began to slowly turn around atop the cutting edges.

The other shamans rubbed their palms together in traditional circular motion, their attention completely supporting their senior colleague who, now facing the audience, indicated to the musicians to stop playing. From here, she began to speak the oracle of the spirit of the "Knife Riding General" whose brilliantly colored striped costume she wore:

"So many souls remain wandering among the remnants of Ground Zero who are still suffering … Pray with your heart to whatever god you will … Get on with your lives with renewed integrity and compassion … Be happy and respect each other." 

It is from this vantage, for over half a century, that Kim Mansin has been called upon to reconcile relationships and promote harmony among ancestors, spirits and those of us still kicking and screaming and trying to make sense of life. She gets the Big Picture. She said she felt a lot of compassion for those souls at Ground Zero and would be happy to do a ritual to release them. It's her job.

Receiving life-saving spiritual initiation at the age of 19 from her grandmother, also a renown shaman, the charismatic woman has been an acclaimed master ritualist of the northern provinces style for over half her life. Her title, Mansin, reflects her command of 10,000 spirits, and they, her. Designated by the Korean government as primary presenter of Important Intangible Cultural Property #82, Seohean Pongeoje, West Sea Rite for a Bountiful Fishing Catch, she also convenes public rituals, including one to promote reunification of the peninsula. She has many private clients, including women and men who, due to their own possession by malevolent spirits and unsettled ancestors, require initiation and would then follow in her footsteps, literally.

"I get on the chakdu to assume the bad fortune, the pain, of others, she explained. "I poke myself here and there, arms and legs, to assume and block the pain on behalf others. The chakdu blocks petty spirits and misfortune. Therefore they must be kept exceptionally sharp."

She acknowledges that she has been hurt by the chakdu, "The spirit sometimes leaves a mark to show the presence of insincere people."

A visit to Niagara Falls seemed an excellent way to "come down" from the rigors of the "performance", and the troupe did just that. Standing safely behind the guard rail on the Canadian side, Kim Mansin took it all in, as if viewing it from some distant place. The seamless, mighty flow of water was relentless in its pull on the imagination: horizontal then downward. Attraction to the edge was palpable. Those who dared the devil and took the plunge would learn. Perhaps acting for personal fame rather than the redemption of others is a recipe for disaster.  Shamanism isn't for everyone.

"You have to work at it and give it your all to be of help to people," she reflected. Think of it like this: A candle gives light, but it burns itself away in doing so. You aren't helping others if it isn't difficult."

GOD: THE OFFICIAL PORTRAITS

Portraying a likeness of "God" in any form, much more so anthropomorphic renderings, has long been prohibited -- and that vastly debated --  in Jewish tradition, based upon an interpretation of the "graven image" commandment. Islam picked it up; other traditions, who fear idolatry or that such a likeness might steal the soul from the person have related mandates. Not so when it comes to Korean Shamanism.

Unlike most books about Korean shamanism in English language primarily focused on the lives of shamans (mudangs) and their ritual performances, God in Pictures in Korean Contexts: The Ownership and Meaning of Shaman Paintings by Laurel Kendall, Jongsung Yang and Yul Soon Yoon, discusses the creation and utility of the physical materiality of ritual artworks (taenghwa), and the rising number of institutions (a few museums and their curators and conservators) and individuals (dealers and collector of ethnographic materials) who have opened up the market for these objects.

This relatively small, illustrated and well-considered text is described as “both a study of material religion that takes seriously the use of paintings inside Korean shaman practice and a study of the circulation of shaman paintings from sacred to secular space, exploring the motivations and activities of dealers and collectors, a subject of interest in museum and material culture studies.”

Koreans for the most part have yet to romanticize their past, given the century of cultural and political devastation during the majority of the 20^th century. Kendall[1], an American anthropologist who has many books about Korean shamanic culture to her credit, is chair of the Division of Anthropology and curator in charge of Asian Ethnographic Collections at the American Museum of Natural History and president (2016-17) of the Association for Asian Studies. Yoon established the Gahoe Museum[2]  for his folk art collection in the Gahoe neighborhood north of Insadong in Seoul, and previously self-published the predominantly bilingual (Korean – English)  Searching for Origin of Folk Religion – Painting of Shamanism[3], full of colored imagery of a multitude of spirits and brief explanations of their identities. The former curator of the National Folk Museum of Korea, Yang now operates a Museum of Shamanism, also in Seoul, as a place where shamanism may be observed in practice. The most frequent visitors to these establishments, Yang notes, are shamans themselves who express pride and wonder at what they see there.

As we learn from these scholars’ thoughtful reflections, taenghwa, painted portraits of iconic images of  the pantheon of spirits that populate the back walls of gutdang / shindang (ritual or spirit rooms), are not simply reflections of ubiquitous characters from cultural history (judges, saints, military and civil officials, venerable ancestors, spirits of the mountains and sea, etc. embellished with other auspicious symbols including the elixir of life, mushrooms, turtles, dragons, the seven-star constellation, pine trees, bamboo, a body of water in forest, tigers, etc.), but are potent catalytic partners with the officiants in the ritual outcome. The authors postulate there is a “triangulation among shaman, god and painting.” These painted, seemingly folk art-like 2-dimensional works on paper were created by artists (not usually the shamans themselves) for the express purpose of the shaman’s engagement with the painting’s “gaze,” thereby to enable the spirit to be present in the ritual space/time. In short, they reference taenghwa as “divine prosthesis”.

Strung together from their tops into a multi-paneled montage behind an altar, often overlapping each other until only the faces are visible, in the ritual they form the wall behind the altar table festooned with offerings. The shamans’ costumes (changed often during the long rituals) and props are echoed in the uniforms and other paraphernalia used by officiants who seek communion and their mystical intercession in the course of multiscene productions. At the end of the ritual, unless affixed to the back wall, the taenghwa will be removed and stored until the next opportunity.

While some taenghwa looked brand new (and may have been newly commissioned by the shaman through a patron’s generous donation for the ritual service) they can also be “antiques” weathered through use (unfolding, hanging, refolding for storage etc.). In some rare cases, I have seen full murals affixed to walls where various highly stylized portraits, including women in traditional “male” roles, share a common landscape in the background. Interestingly, I have seen several images created by Jean Michel Basquiat, an extraordinarily talented American artist who died young, that are remarkably similar in character to the taenghwa of the Hwanghae-do tradition! Please refer to another article in this blog:  Basquiat's Spiritual Portraits. 

GOD’S PICTURE : PICTURE OF GOD

To twist a Zen metaphor, these are not necessarily the moon’s reflection in a pond on a dark night, but the very presence of the moon itself. Here is an example:

In 2000 I had the opportunity to be the guest of Kim Keumhwa, Korea’s naramansin, in her home and to travel with her group, Seohean Pungeoje, the Society for the Preservation of West Sea Rituals, from Hwanghae-do. Toward the end of the second of four weeks, Songsaengnim took me to Gangwha-do, the island near the DMZ off the West Sea where she now has a culture center. We stayed for two days at a small retreat center at the base of Manisan mountain that was operated by some kind of institute dedicated to Dangun, the mythical founder of Korea and a Sanshin / mountain spirit of the highest order. I was baffled by her effort to pay homage to a large, framed (glass, metal) painted image of the mountain spirit (a wizened old man with a tiger and young attendant) that was up a pathway on the north side of Manisan Mountain peak, when we could actually at minimum address the spirits of the peak in front of us. It was not an original painting, nor did it seem to be an old artifact, yet she carried offerings (fruit, candles, incense and water) and adorned the ledge in front of the image. She began to chant and invited me to share her homage through bowing and offering incense. Later we hiked up to where the Chamseongdan (altar) is sited, where Dangun is said to have offered sacrifices to the heavens.

ARTISTS AS LIVING TREASURES

Shamans come by their taenghwa in several possible ways. Of course, Hwahghae-do shamans have to have been endowed through initiation, vision, dream, etc. to make the connection with particular spirits. Then it is the matter of securing the artwork. Since the earliest days (before printing presses!) paintings have been produced by dedicated artists (usually not the shamans themselves) from a shaman’s description of a vision. Unlike many painters who also may paint images for Buddhist temples, traditional Hwanghae taenghwa painters maintain a singular clientele among initiates of that charismatic lineage; they do not sign their work. 

I was very happy to learn more from the authors about the lineage of artist An Sung-sam (pictured, I'd be happy to ask for permission from the source of this image, but it won't reply.), whose late son An Chong-mo, and now granson (don't know the name) have carried on his vocation. Their great/grandmother was a Hwanghaedo shaman, like the elder An’s colleague Kim Keumhwa. An Sung-sam was one of three (with Mansinnim and Choi Eum Jon, the late ritual jango drummer) deemed to be important intangible cultural assets of Korea. However, the authors state that, unlike venerable brush paintings and calligraphy of the Japanese Zen tradition, “No shaman painting has yet to be designated as a national treasure.” Facing the decline of the marketplace, the artists who are personally regarded and have the reputation of being endowed with a spiritual connection, may likely disappear.

Judging from the styles of Songsaengnim’s taenghwa, several artists were responsible for creating them.The oldest ones seemed to be painted with tempera on cardboard or brown kraft paper (a material that was produced industrially in Korea after the war and was as much rendered into paper bags as it was as a surface for Dansaekhwa artists of the Minimalist movement); the ones permanently mounted on the walls in her shrine rooms in Seoul and Gangwha-do were more likely acrylic and enlivened with the addition of gold leaf in some areas. The now deceased elder An was also responsible for many of the hand-painted tissue paper elements that adorned Kim Keumhwa’s altars for rituals and in her permanent altars in her private shrines. Some seem quite old, but it is hard to know their age, etc.

Other shamans, especially younger ones with less notoriety, may resort to patronizing shops specializing in ritual paraphernalia where they may acquire mass produced taenghwa with images “typical” of the geographically-specific ritual styles. I once visited such a shop in the neighborhood of KimKeumhwa’s home. I was very careful not to be too interested in the goods in as much as my obvious presence in the  otherwise no-tourist environs might be cause for embarrassing gossip that I might be shopping for shaman “power” tools; this would cast negatively on my host.

DECOMMISSIONING PAINTING

Perhaps some of the most interesting narrative in the book relates to what happens when a shaman ceases to use/need/want a taenghwa or when the taenghwa no longer wants to be part of that shaman’s pantheistic community:

“The god takes up a seat in the painting, but not always; the god inhabits the painting in the shrine but sometimes departs; the god agrees to cohabit with other gods in a shrine but sometimes refuses.”

The shaman is left with no other choice than to remove the taenghwa. Given their materiality, what is the appropriate way for a shaman to decommission / dispose of them. If the images have / are spirit, what becomes of it? “For most of the 20^th Century, shamans generally followed the traditional practice of burning old and tattered paintings after ritually reanimating them,” the authors note. When the paintings of the first Korean shaman I met – Los Angeles 1990 about who I wrote an article for Kyoto Journal – had been destroyed in a flood (they were packed up, not used), the remnants were burned. The ashes were carried by us into the local mountains where we discarded them in a wooded auspicious spot, “Think of your mother,” she admonished me, with no explanation given. Unlike calligraphy scrolls used in Japanese tea ceremony which may be centuries old and are valued accordingly to their longevity, Korean shaman artworks are extremely fragile and were not meant to necessarily be employed forever, much less collected.

Again, the authors recount fascinating stories about certain mischief (or worse) caused by improperly discarded or abandoned taenghwa. “The god operates miraculously or problematically, through a de-animated and hidden painting.” Do they have a “half-life” of empowerment?

NEW LAMPS FOR OLD?

The authors address the more recent attempt to commodify taenghwa works and explain the complexities of another triangulation of dealers, collectors, shamans, less often the artists who created the works.   

There is well-considered discussion about the ways that a “collector’s lens” might distinguish what is desirable as an image, what Korean cultural qualities can be conveyed through this art form, etc. 
Of course, there is great interest on the part of scholars to study ethnography and to have material works with documented provenance can be of great value, as the authors’ own professional affiliations attest. One doesn’t see many shaman paintings displayed in Korean museums, and certainly not in the National Museum of Korea!


Very few museums outside Korea collect or display works of “art” created for and used by shamans. In addition to AMNH, USC’s Pacific Asia museum is a notable exception as a result of the efforts of Yeonsoo Choi, then assistant curator, and has welcomed Kim Keumhwa to demonstrate a sample of her rituals in conjunction with the donation of some objects to the museum’s permanent collection. No doubt the provenance of Kim Songsaengnim’s objects will vault them into a higher “value,” nonetheless, will they command the same level as Basquiat’s works? 

 This brings us to the notion of the independent, private collector of material cultural artifacts who may have to resort to working with dealers with connections to shamans and never actually meeting the artist, who may be alive. The primary collectors of Korean shaman painting are themselves Korean with a “bent toward nostalgia for a not-to-distant rural past.” Much like the romancing of provenance that a collector of Japanese ceremony utensils might show in the course of the ritual or in a display case, the shaman paintings have an “object biography”. Yet again, the history of Korea would not be very kind to the paintings, much less the shamans themselves who were persecuted. Ritual spaces were usually erected in situ and quickly dismantled, with the various paraphernalia, including elaborate wall-sized arrangements of icons, packed up and sometimes even abandoned.

Imagine my surprise a decade ago when I entered a Korean “antique” shop in Los Angeles’ Koreatown[4] when I spotted a colorful tempera painting on cardboard of an old man with a tiger and young boy; it was hanging by fabric strings from the back of an abandoned dining room chair amidst other disparate furniture. “Buddha!” said the proprietor, an oldish man in a worn golf jacket and a baseball cap, noticing my interest and figuring that I was an uninformed Caucasian woman. “Ah, Buddha! Nice Buddha. Umm,” I replied, knowing full well, however, that it was not Buddha, but a taenghwa  of Sanshin, a Korean mountain spirit, rendered for a shaman’s shrine. I retreated back into the shop as nonchalantly as I could, knowing that any interest that would inflate prices. I eventually found 10 other abandoned portraits of other traditional Korean shaman spirits rolled into a bundle with their strings hanging out jammed on a shelf next to empty picture frames. I made a mental commitment to this Sanshin that I would liberate him (and a trio of fortune-telling mudangs) from this soul-less place, if only to make it possible for their true identities to be reinstated.

POST SCRIPT

As noted above, in some cases the taenghwa are formally affixed to the walls. David Mason’s extensive research into the mountain spirit images enshrined in Korea’s temples, shrines, rock faces and even real and artificial caves, grottoes is unsurpassed. Both his book Spirit of the Mountains: Korea’s SAN-SHIN and Traditions of Mountain-Worship (1999, Elizabeth New Jersey and Seoul Korea, Hollym. Editions in English and Korean languages) and ever-evolving website www.san-shin.org provide great insight into the artistic techniques and imagery as well as significance of this particular spirit’s presence throughout Korea. The artists, for the most part, remain anonymous, but the images are beloved by Buddhists, Taoists, NeoConfucianists and Shamanists alike. He notes, in addition to the mountain spirit, major Buddhist temples’ have a shrine buildings that often includes Samshin, three spirit shrine, that includes images of Chilseong and  Doksong, the Seven Stars / Big Dipper and Lonely Saint, respectively. His book explains the symbolism and relationships within spiritual hierarchy.

Other sources of information on the topic:

Yoon Yeosul's book Searching for Origin of Folk Religion -- Painting of Shamanism. [원형을 찾아서 토속신앙의 巫俗畵|, 2004, Seoul: ICOM] has excellent images and is mostly in Korean language. His Gahoe Museum is well worth a visit, as is Jong-sung Yang’s Museum of Shamanism which functions more as a living laboratory of Korean native spirituality. An extensive article may be found at the first issue of the Korean Art Society Newsletter, as well as an earlier article that I wrote on this subject.

My article about the late Dr. Zo Zayong for Kyoto Journal #36, 1997, (reprinted ) explores the work of this artist / collector / scholar / author and architect whose life was filled with the profound beauty of Korean spirit imagery. His Emile Museum in Seoul and later moved to become the basis of Samshin Hoegwan Songnisan near Po’un was a huge collection of works on paper, in stone, wood and other materials. Most of the collection was sold to the Samsung Leeum, I’ve been told. Dr. Zo was also a patron of the local villages who still worshiped their resident spirits and often helped them create new iconic works to this end.

---

[1] This link goes to Professor Kendall’s lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXbvj4tg7TM

[2] www.gahoemuseum.org

[3] https://books.google.com/books/about/Searching_for_origin_of_folk_religion.html?id=xolLQwAACAAJ

[4] -- Korean Art Society Journal. “Don’t Buy the Buddha!”. Vol. 1 (2009)

Chakdu = Liberation

Sometimes a word comes along that just sums up everything in a simple, compact way.

 This week the notion of chakdu came to me booming as "Liberation".

There are many thing that can be said for the Korean shaman tradition of standing high overhead of the crowd barefooted atop the twin rails of two razor sharp chakdu, rice straw cutting blades.

It defied belief that a person wouldn't severely slice through skin when I first heard of it and even saw photographs.

It defied belief the first time I saw a shaman whip one across her bare-skinned arm and inserted along the lip line into the mouth. It defied belief the first and only time I saw and heard them being sharpened. It defied belief when my finger was close enough to feel the sharpness attract my own skin.

Liberation from one's comfort zone while still being a resident of that bunker is exhilarating!

The moment of liberation for me came when I realized that it happened then and on subsequent occasions, both watching in the "audience" and then even as a confidant of the people who "performed" it in ritual. It happened without needing me to "believe" that it happened, for I did and continue to believe that it can't be done without severe injury, much less, death.

I mentioned what I had seen to an intelligent, sophisticated Korean man once and he just shook his head. "I don't believe," he remarked about the act. "That's just it," I replied. "It does not require you to believe it.

The shaman climbs the tower atop which her assistants have place the twin rails of the assembly of two chakdu with the sharp edges facing upwards like two hands in prayer. She carefully steps one foot after another, steadies herself with tall bamboo poles festooned with ribbons of five colors that echo the colors and fringes of her spirit costume, and then begins to pronounce the gifts from the god she embodies.

She, too, is liberated from the mundane plane and need only to receive  the blessings to deliver forth.

Then she gets down, returning to the every-day, and to the blessings needed to get through the every-day.

칠석고사 Chilseok-gosa -- ritual for 7th day of 7th lunar month

The auspicious day (August 2, 2014) is observed by shaman rituals in the home.

(Text from Encyclopedia of Korean Folk Culture; LWDeutsch photos)

칠석고사(Chilseokgosa)  is a ritual held in homes to mark Chilseok Day, the seventh day of the seventh lunar month. Also called chilseokje (Seventh Evening ritual) or chilseongje (ritual for Seven Stars), this ritual is an annual seasonal ceremony held to pray for the health and longevity of the family’s offspring. It is observed either on the morning or evening of Chilseok Day, or the evening before, with a simple hand-rubbing (bison) rite to worship Chilseong (Seven Stars) or Okwangsangje (Pure August Jade Emperor).

Patron offering "kit" with bag of rice,
bottle of soju and dried fish.

The ritual takes place in the backyard by the sauce jar terrace, a location considered the cleanest place in the home and thereby the most suitable place to offer devotion to Chilseong. Altars are sometimes set up in the form of a rock (chilseongdol), or a pile of red clay (chilseongdan). Many of the ritual’s procedures are performed in sets of seven, in association with Chilseok or Chilseong: seven spoons inserted in the bowl of steamed rice (me) on the ritual table; offering seven bows and seven cups of ritual wine; burning seven sheets of prayer text (soji); and steaming white rice cake in a steamer (siru) with seven holes.

Shaman's assistants preparing offerings (pancake),
polish brass altar utensils.

Sacrificial foods generally comprise steamed rice and sea mustard soup, which is related to the longevity of children. In South Chungcheong Province, the rice enshrined inside Samsin pouch, the sacred entity for the Goddess of Childbearing, is used to make steamed rice on Chilseok Day. Since rice is an important sacrificial food for this occasion, during the fall harvest each year, some rice is set aside for Chilseok. Other offerings include plain white rice cake (baekseolgi), made with clear water and rice powder, and cooked vegetables. Flour pancakes are also offered in some regions. In some cases fish and seafood are considered taboo.

Taboos are more strictly observed compared to other household rituals: The ritual is not held in the case of impurities, including a death in the village. If the family keeps a “life bridge (myeongdari),” or longevity prayer cloth, hung at their shaman’s shrine, they visit the shaman on Chilseok Day to pray for the longevity of the children, and offer prayers at the Chilseong shrine at Buddhist temples as well.

Searching for Sanshin: Interview with Hiah Park, Lover of the Mountain God

Originally published Kyoto Journal, No. 25, 1993, and subsequently in Mountain Spirits of AsIa  (Shambhala, (Bolder CO)

Hi-ah Park Manshin*, Korean shaman, specializes in ritual dance. Original artist, healer and teacher, she works at the level of the primordial state through ecstatic trance. Skilled in the healing arts, she communicates the needs of humans to the spirits and oracles of the spirits to humans.

I met Hi-ah Park during the 1990 Los Angeles Festival during which she participated in a multi-cultural program about spirit and art, along with several native Americans and a bevy of Buddhists. I had heard a report that the Native Americans earlier had tried to cancel their plan to do several sacred ceremonial rituals at this program if TV cameras or newspaper photographers were present. What is ritual for, she remarked, but to engage the spirits on behalf of people. “Sharing the experience of rapture I have nothing to hide.” She seemed a wise, old person, though she looked only 40. She told me she had “died many times.”

The night of the presentation, she “performed” several dances of a traditionally longer kut, ritual, going into a trance and deftly wielding a sword and a rainbow of flags before an altar resplendent with dogk, the many-layered Korean rice cake, fruit, sticks of incense and other offerings placed on the altar in front of a gilded statue of Buddha.

Out of whirlwind of colorful costumes, loud drums (native American and Korean), cymbals and gongs, and some 200 people dancing ecstatically, the “performance” stopped into complete stillness. It was the trailhead, the ken,  keeping still, of the I Ching , that great mountaineer’s bible. The buzz of mountain-top seeking mind dissolved into silence, then plunged through formless ecstatic trance, leaving no footprints, taking the memories, too! It was as if a weather front moved in and blew the clouds away.

At that point all I knew about Hi-ah Park was that she was born in Seoul and is considered the finest Korean traditional classical dancer of her generation. The first woman to be admitted to the National Classical Music Institute and into the esteemed ranks of Court Musician, she gave by any standards an exquisite “performance”, but this was not just a dance recital on the second floor of a downtown Buddhist temple. She literally went a giant step further.

I have since come to realize that her life mirrored that of an intimate of Sanshin. As Canda explains in Korea Journal, Sanshin is a “tangible, specific and personal entity,” evident to human senses through vitality, power and mystery of the physical landmass as well as in dreams and visions. This, I was to learn, this was Hi-ah Parkʼ s history. His observation of Sanshinʼs “having awesome natural power in service of sacredness and wisdom,” became her destiny.

* A mountaineering “sports” term usually refering to trying to get to the top of a mountain and back down on ego strength alone. Sort of “the tao be damned”. At best youʼ ll get callouses.

* Manshin is a title of respect identifying a mudang, Korean shaman  For centuries manshin had been openly persecuted, their practices disrupted and shrines destroyed, their artistry desecrated to entertainment. The prevailing religious and social order forced the practice of shamanism “underground”. It is still considered a curse to suggest that someone would grow up to be or to marry a mudang.  That one of Koreaʼs most acclaimed artists, an American citizen and university lecturer became a mudang has had impact in Korea as well as globally.

After a number of years of quiet reflection, Hi-ah Park decided to fulfill her destiny as Manshin, to put her art in service of the spirit and the people who seek her out. She currently works in Europe and the USA, teaching through performances, workshops and lectures, including many prestigious universities and mental health centers.

Whether clad in Manshinʼs colorful robes performing a formal kut to the accompaniment of changʼgo, hourglass drum, and cymbals and gongs, or in a simple flowing white tunic dancing to the sounds of steel cello, bow chime, Chapman Stick, Mongolian drum or a wall of gongs, HI-ah Park shows us how the shaman warrior climbs the mountain, and dances atop the peak in mu-a , ecstasy.

What was your earliest memory of Sanshin?  From very early childhood, I loved mountains. My memory of childhood is playing in the tiger cave near my neighborhood. Often there, I lost time and space while my family was looking for me. One day I climbed into the mountain deeper than usual, as if somebody invisible being was guiding me into the unknown world, and I found the big tree surrounded by piled with lots of stones. There unknowingly I bowed to the ground after respectfully gathered stones top of the piles. Definitely that was my first encounter with Sanshin .

Of all the Sanshin in Korea, why do you think you are relating particularly toTangun?  During my illness before my initiation, I had several visions. In one, I saw Tangun, the Korean heroic founder of the nation who later became Mountain Spirit, sitting in a meditation posture within a yurt and wearing a red hat and robe. As I gazed at intensely at that figure, we became one; then I saw myself sitting as Tangun. This clear vision of Tangun convinced me to visit my homeland after an absence of 15 years. I didn't have any specific plan for my visit. However, from its start, everyone I met and everywhere I visited turned out to be connected somehow with shamanistic practices. I was introduced to Kim Keum-Hwa, a well known Hwang-haedo manshin  (a western province of Korea) viewing a video of one of her shamanic rituals. I couldnʼ t believe my eyes: I saw Kim Keum-Hwa wearing the same red robe and hat I had seen in my Tangun vision of week prior.

A week later I was introduced to her. When Kim came into the room in her house where I was waiting, we both shuddered. She told me she had the sensation that her spirits wanted to talk to me. She brought divination table and started to pronounce oracles: "Rainbows are surrounding in all directions. The fruit is fully ripe and can't wait anymore!" She told me I was lucky to have surrendered to the spirits’orders and to have come to her. Otherwise, she said, I would have died, like an overripe fruit that falls onto the ground and rots. Kim continued to explain that I had disobeyed two times previously and, consequently, had to go through unbearable pain and loneliness and near-death experiences. She warned that I should not resist anymore--the third time, there is no forgiveness. It was absolutely essential that I undergo the naerim kut without delay. On a more positive note, Kim told me she saw double rainbows stretched around my head, celestial gods surrounding on me. She said that warrior in me was so strong that I would want to stand on the chaktu, sharp blades. She predicted that, in the near future, I would be a famous shaman, and I'd travel all around the world. Then she set a date for the initiation--June 23, 1981. In less than two weeks, I was transformed into a new shaman.

Did you have personal desire to be a shaman? When I began studying shamanism in 1975, I had neither wish nor the intention to become a shaman. I initially considered the whole process solely as an artistic endeavor, yet everything I encountered along the shamanic path seemed to create a thirst in me for spiritual fulfillment. I became a manshin after I was called to the profession through sinbyong, or initiatory illness.

What is the symptom of shamanic illness? I began to suffer from tedium and loneliness, without knowing any meaning to my life. My interest in mundane affairs and domestic chores waned completely. I suffered unbearable loneliness and longed for the mountains.

I spent many nights weeping endlessly or dreaming of impending death. In my dreams, I was imprisoned in the under world and chased by wild animals. For about nine months, I endured sleepless and restless nights, until I had an incredible, lengthy dream of an ancient royal funeral procession. My insomnia stopped right after this mysterious dream. I was happy without any specific reason. I felt elevated into the air, as if somebody was lifting me. After this funeral dream, my dream scenes started to change into lighter, celestial ones.

 In one of unforgettable dream journey, a white unicorn with wings took me through the Milky Way to an incredible, infinite space of deep, jet-dark indigo. In that place, I heard a deep and resonant voice ask me, "How are the people down there?" I still remember clearly the conversation with that invisible voice and the ecstatic feeling I had. Then the voice told me I had to go back to teach the people love. I felt boundless joy and, at the same time, sadness that I had to go back. Without any sense of waking up from a dream, I found myself in my room. For a while, I was obsessed by this visionary dream and felt very connected with that other reality. Although I couldn't understand it, the other space was so clear that I now felt as if my waking state was the dream.

Why do shamans have to go through shamanic illness?  I believe that it happens because a persons spiritual body is starving from a lack of inspirational creativity. The initiatory sickness allows her to escape from the world and withdraw into the darkness, in order to experience her own rites of passage. In order to become a shaman, the person must go through years of introspection, personal torment, and progressive spiritual development. Without understanding the stillness, one will never understand the spirit world.

How do you come out from sinbyong?  By reaching the point of mu a , ecstasy, the death of ego. Ecstasy is a sensation which is encountered in our hearts. It is seeing and hearing with the heart, rather than just with eyes and ears. It is also a flame which springs up in the heart out of longing, to see and to become one with its truth (God). Atop this mountain there is such clarity that there is no duality.

What place did Sanshin have in your initiation ritual?  In the preparation for initiation ceremony, I had to climb up to the mountain to receive the Mountain Spirit early in the morning by a purifying bath in a cold mountain stream. My Godmother and I had ascended the mountain north of Seoul. She asked me to climb up a steep, rocky cliff to get a branch from a pine tree. This task was the first test of the day. I did as she requested, performing the task necessary to receive Sanshin. We spoke as little as possible.

At the mountain altar I offered rice, rice cake, three different kinds of cooked vegetables, fruits, lighted candles and incense and makghuli, home made rice wine.

As my Godmother chanted and beat a small gong, I held up the Sanshin dari , a long piece of cloth called minyong , white cotton bridge, through which the shaman receives the Mountain Spirit. My body started quiver uncontrollably, a sign that the Spirit was entering me. I completely surrendered to the Spirit, turning off my internal dialogue, and entered into inner silence. I sensed light coming from every direction, and I started to feel drunk with the Spirit in me. It was dramatic close encounter with the separated "Lover" at long last. I felt the ultimate completion of my primordial self before separation. I knew that the spirit loved me and forgave my long resistance to accepting it. Bathed by the light of Spirit, I felt clean and reborn. I practically flew down the mountain to the town in the valley below. I returned with my Godmother to her house which would become the site of all-day ritual that was to come.

Could you describe some more details about the initiation? Korean term for initiation is "naerim kut .” This aspect of the ritual is concerned with the descending spirits and identification and presentation of the deities which have already made their presence known through possession of my body.

At the initiation ceremony, the minyong was placed leading onto the upstage portion of the house as a bridge between the heaven and the earth. To test my psychic ability and to determine if I could identify the deities who had descended on me, my Godmother and her assistant shaman, who serves as a messenger, sat at the end of the minyong, in a sense ending in heaven. A straw mat was placed downstage. Each question asked by the head shaman was repeated by her assistant. Instead of answering the questions directly, I began dancing. Then, kneeling down on the straw mat, I answered the questions orally. The dance seemed to heighten the trance state so that my answer came without thinking as if I know everything already.

The first question was, "If you become a shaman, through which gate will you enter?

I started singing in an occult nature, previously unknown to me. Again I danced until possessed and knelt down to wait for the next question.

"Which spirit is entering you?" she asked.

I answered, "Elwol Sung Shin and Okhwang Sangchae, spirits of the Sun, Moon and Stars and the Jade Emperor, are entering."

"Then reveal your true nature and find the symbolic paraphernalia of these deities," she ordered.

I stood, and walking upstage, grasped the Il wrol dae , sun and moon stick, a pine branch which I took from cliff at the mountain, bundled together with a bronze mirror and covered with a white long sleeved gown, the costume of the deities.

After I danced, she asked me another question, "Which spirit did you received this time?"

My reply was, "I received Sanshin , the spirits from the High Mountain and Sa Hae Yong Wang Nim, from the Four Direction Deep Ocean."

Why did you receive it?, she asked.

"I obeyed the order from Tangun, the founder of Korea. He has told me to help infertile couples, to counsel parents and their children to love each other. Through him I am guided to heal sickness and help those in poverty to find prosperity. Lastly, he advises me to engender love and respect among all people." Acknowledging my remarks, the head shaman invited any other spirits that might be present to enter me, and the Deity of the Seven Stars, Chil Sung, Big Dipper; Taegam Nim , the Spirit of High Nobility; Chosang Nim , Spirit of Ancestors; and Obang Shinchang Nim , Warrior of the Five Directions, came through.

What other occasions have you encountered Sanshin?  After I teaching summer school of 1977 at UCLA, I retired to an avocado ranch located deep in the mountains. I left all worldly affairs behind, obsessed like a lover longing for the mountains. In the mountains I could feel the presence of something indescribably different, an exotic apparition, the spirit of which one can not find in a human, a beautiful, bewitching spirit which embraced with boundless joy. I journeyed to Yosemite, Mt. Rainier, Death Valley, and other places like the Grand Canyon. In Canyon de Chelly I was led by endless double rainbows to the White House cliff dwelling with its ancient kiva, subterranean ritual chambers. As I emerged from a ruined kiva a sudden thunder and lightening storm attacked me mercilessly. I fainted onto the sand, and in total surrender I offered myself to the spirits present. I awoke with the most incredible orgasm I have ever known, basking in the most luxurious ecstasy. The sky was replete with rainbows and the reflections of rainbows reaching every horizon. The mountain breeze passing through the canyon seemed to be coming and going in the rhythm on an inaudible chant. As I flowed into that chant my soul ascended as flying unicorn, higher and higher into the sky. At last I was free and flying with such a feeling of exhilaration and joy that I wanted to cry, for I was experiencing the ecstasy, for which I had been yearning so long.

How has the initiation influenced your dance?  Since my initiation, my understanding of dance changed completely. The inseparability of art and spirit became essential for healing myself and eventually it has helped others. My teaching and performing is at the level of the primordial state, mainly achieved through ecstatic trance. By integrating breath, sound, movement and theatre, I set the stage for the transformation of the audience and society.

How has Sanshin influenced your decision to work globally?   Transformation is a fundamental concern of the shaman’s ritual. One important function of ritual is that it makes you a member of the tribe, of society, and hopefully a member of the global community. Today it is especially important to return to tribal integration in a global sense. I’ve been traveling a great deal since 1988 sharing Tangunʼ s doctrine of “Hong Ik In Kan”, to be of benefit to all sentient beings, to engender love and respect among all people. Sanshin cannot afford any longer to wait on a lonely mountain top.

What is Sanshinʼs message?  The nature and message of spirit is beyond mental condition; it is bliss of pure energy, pervading everything, mua / ecstasy. The Spirit, which is formless, speaks through me in ecstatic dance. Spirit is shy, but sword is sharp. It teaches us a powerful but direct process of purification. Through ecstatic dance, sound and breath meditation, it cuts through fear, conflict and confusion. Fear is transformed into plentiful, universal love, and suddenly, we understand that our lives are about much more than suffering; it is also about experiencing rapture. This only works for those who are willing to confront their dark side and surrender to the primal spirit.

(sidebar)

SITE-SPECIFIC SANSHIN  Over 70% of Korea is mountainous and many of the “most famous” sacred peaks are in the northern part of the peninsula. Perhaps most notable is Mt. Taepaek (Myohyang-san in Yongbyon, north Pyongan Province), the spot chosen by heavenly god Hawan-in for his sonʼ s, Hwan-woong, earthly abode.

Tangun, founder of the Ancient Chosun Empire and considered the first Korean, was born near a sandalwood tree to a patient, obedient bear-woman and Hwan-woong in 2333 BCE. He established his capital in Asadal (old name of Pyongyang) in Paegak-san where he eventually died, aged 1908 years, and became Sanshin of Mt. Kuwol. Other peaks sacred to Tangun are Mani-san (on an Island in the mouth of the Han River) where it is said he established a rock altar, and Paektu-san (Mt. Whitehead).

Centuries ago you could find a cozy wooden hut, with thatched straw or tiled roof situated deep in the mountain. Today, anthropomorphic images of Sanshin appear everywhere fine arts and tourist memento are found. Scrolls and screens depict Sanshin as a stately old man with a long beard leaning on a tiger, his messenger. The tiger, even the one playfully rendered as the mascot of the Seoul Olympiad, is also said to be Sanshin and Tangun. Sanshin icons were once prepared only for religious worship exclusively. To this end they were found only in the mountain spirit shrines in the samsinggak, three spirit hall, behind the golden hall in the Buddhist temple compounds, shamansʼ houses or at the ceremonial grounds of shamanic ritual.

CAVEAT If youʼ re really looking for Sanshin in Korea, particularly Tangun, choose carefully whom you tell. The three “Cs” which have been dominating the political and social order north and south -- Confucianism, Christianity and Communism -- donʼ t want anyone to find him, his being the national ancestor with all implications that this powerful identity implies. And given the state of the world, you shouldn’t be to surprised to know that Tangun has been spotted outside Korea.