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)

KIM KEUMHWA'S EVERYDAY SHAMANISM

Photographs and Text © Lauren W. Deutsch 2013

Originally Published in Kyoto Journal (Fall, 2000 Special Issue: “Just Deeds”) by Contributing Editor Lauren W. Deutsch Reporting from Seoul, Korea 

IT'S FIVE A.M. o crisp spring morning in the densely populated hillside community of Immun-dong in Seoul. The sun is just sparking on the dew settling on lids of the huge brown onggi ceramic jars that nest all over patios androoftops like odd eggs awaiting their mother's warmth. Like most of their makers, even the kimch’i vegetables and bean paste sauces curing and pickling inside are still snoozing. The air is uncharacteristically quiet and blessedly clean for this otherwise manic metropolis.

Kim Keumhwa, Korea's renowned charismatic naramansin, “national” shaman, is already awake, dressed casually in slacks and a polo shirt, quietly moves about her small granite faced home’s second floor preparing to greet the spirits lodged in her small sindang (spirits’ shrine room) next to her bedroom. Next door, in a small room shared with beautiful laquered wardrobes decorated with abalone shells, I am already awake anticipating another very exciting day as a guest in her home. The great challenge for me is to observe silently. We do not speak the same language, and I, one who uses words extensively, must resort to relying on almost nonexistent performative patterns of communications. Lucky for me, she has a sense of humor!

With a few silent gestures she invites me to help her remove the half dozen brass and ceramic bowls resting on the three-tiered altar that runs on three sides of the room and to replace the water therein. We rinse and refill them with water from a nearby sink and replace them on the shelves. She offers me a box of matches by which to light two large candles in the center, by which to light and offer incense in the large brass urn filled with clean ash. As my eyes adjust to the candlelight, sword-brandishing, mounted mustachioed warriors, flanked by esteemed high administrative officials and Judges of Heaven, Hell and Earth, venerable philosophers, scholars and kings, dragons, turtles, constellations of stars and tigers portrayed in colorful paintings and statues leer at us from the walls and shelves. They are nonetheless wide awake from their night's watch. I smile back sleepily. In a dozen full prostrations, we entreat her spiritual intimates to continue to uphold peace among themselves and us mortals.

Downstairs, this tall, athletic-looking woman of almost 70 years tiptoes past rooms full of sleeping extended family members and her housekeeper. Sliding open the glass door to the front patio, she slips on sneakers picked from a dozen or more pairs of shoes. I follow her down the steep lane to the main street of a Seoul neighborhood that long ago lost its rambling rooflines of hanok, traditional Korean architecture, that were raised (or fallen due to the test of time). Now the area is filled with a sprawling modern apartment complex of huge, look-alike concrete structures that line up like a set of encyclopedia volumes, each sporting a number and name on its side. We walk along for one block past metal streetside roller doors that cover shop windows and doorways like closed eyelids and then begin to ascend back up another hill to the small forested woodland behind her home. Stopping by a small residence, we are joined by "Ajumoni", a friend of hers and together we continue to our first destination, a small community center playground, for a three-quarter hour set of aerobic, gymnastic and tai-chi exercises. 

Keeping up with this extraordinary woman, recognized by the government as the lineage carrier of Korea's Important Intangible Cultural Asset #82 -- the Beyonshingut and Daedonggut, West Sea Fishing Ritual --  is not easy for me, almost two decades her junior! The heart-pounding routine is only the beginning. We bid good morning to her friend and proceed at a spirited clip up paved and dirt paths past Kyung Hee University’s Neogothic-style buildings and finally arrive at a small clearing deep the woods. We take a brief rest at the reputed site of a venerable philosopher's tomb. As the sky becomes lighter we see other early-morning fitness enthusiasts who are undergoing their own regimens of energetic twists and stretches, happily chatting and encouraging each other. She greets some friends and explains that I am a guest from the USA. Finally at the top of the mountain, we sit on granite boulders shaded by pines and maples to take in the vista of one of the world’s most burgeoning metropolises.

By now the sun is fully up, clearly illuminating brick bathhouse steam spouts and metal church steeples with their names in square white block Hangul, Korean letters, Huge cranes loom over the ever-present construction sites. We can hear Seoul waking up. With no time to waste, we head back home.

This rigorous nearly three hour daily work-out keeps Kim Keumhwa's constitution in shape for the strenuous hopping and whirling, chanting and praying that is characteristic of multi-day Korean shaman rituals. Many women (and a few men) in her troupe of more than 15 senior and apprentice shamans and master musicians (including two other nationally-renown ritual specialists) were war refugees like herself from the former northern Hwanghae-do province. The group "performs" its rituals frequently throughout the country and abroad, whether commissioned to present pageantry of Korea’s indigenous religion at international arts festivals or to  gather in private service to help deeply troubled individuals plagued by malevolent spirits. On many occasions they attend to the spirits' needs at Keumhwa-dang, Kim Keumhwa's cultural center on Kanghwa-do, an island in the West Sea near Incheon.

She is also forever being taken by car or subway to meetings with government culture czars, businessmen, scholars and fellow artists to discuss upcoming festivals, the status of the traditional arts, the pressing issues of reunification and the preservation of the natural environment.  The author of several autobiographical books and the 2013 documentary biogpic Manshin: 10,000 Spirits, Kim Keumhwa is the first Korean shaman to discuss the rituals from the perspective of a practitioner. Her huge memorized repertoire of liturgical chants, instrumental music and ritual stagings not only enables her to perform rituals with unparalleled precision, but also to teach the long operatic libretto and scenarios to her apprentices with the benefit of written notes. And she participates in all pre-ritual preparations with her apprentices and assistants, from preparing the food for the offerings to creating and cleaning the ritual implements. She is a demanding teacher ... actually, the spirits are demanding! 

On an average day when she's at home, a steady stream of clients consult with her on all matters of life begin to arrive about 8:30 am. They arrive by appointment, made with the assistance of one of her initiates, and await in her living room as the family goes about its’ daily routine: grandsons getting ready for school, daughter-in-law preparing to go to Incheon to deal with the business matters of the Society for the Preservation of West Sea Baeyonsin-gut and Daedong-gut, the name of Kim Keumhwa's group, one of the coastal city’s signature unique cultural art forms. In turn, one by one, or in family or collegial groups, they are welcomed upstairs to enter the sindang where she will perform a variety of rituals, whether at her small divination table, lighting candles for their deceased loved ones, seeking special favors of the spirits to repair a distressed marriage or find a new one, to ask for the restoration of health of the body or business.

But today will be different; we cut our exercise routine short and hurried back to her home. The a large troupe of 22 members, including several retired fishermen who support her as roadies and as a choral/instrumental ensemble, were arriving at her home at 6am. Together they busily pack up cases of food offerings for the spirits, a small arsenal of swords and other traditional weapons, suitcases full of brightly colored costumes, musical instruments and other essential ritual paraphernalia and loaded them into the society’s two vans and a few private cars. The troupe has been commissioned to join two other nationally renowned shaman groups at a two-day Sea Festival in Gyeongju on the eastern seacoast. Mansinnim’s group will perform their unique daedong-gut ritual, a village ritual for harmony and reconciliation.

After bouncing around for six hours crammed into the vans (with requisite breaks for smokes, snacks and toilet at auto plazas on the highway) we arrive at our accommodations at Taebon Beach. Our accommodations were a ramshackle hanok with several rooms (empty of furniture but full of bedding) connected to a common open wooden porch and courtyard. The resort town appreciated for both its historic site --  the offshore underwater tomb of Shilla King Mumu -- and its sandy beaches, boat rides and fresh fish restaurants. Dinner is a seafood feast in one of them, and we retire early from our ordeal on the road. The festival will begin tomorrow and there is a lot of preparation needed for the ritual.

In the morning, Kim Keumhwa substitutes our sunrise city workout with a quiet walk to the surf to greet Yongwang, the Dragon King of the sea, for whom she has a deep fondness. At the water’s edge she utters her prayers facing the rising sun, her palms together at her heart, and she bows. Our physical energy is invested in picking up candles, candy wrappers, cigarette buts, empty soju bottles and other trash carelessly discarded on the beach by late night revelers. I am very moved by her focused attention to this menial task, certainly one which would not be expected of a person of her status, but which reflects her deep reverence for nature. She points to places where the remnants of melted candlewax attached to ribbon of five colors stuck in the sand. “Shamanism”, she utters.

The plan for the festival was that each of the three shaman groups would begin their rituals on the first day and finish them on the second day. At the lodging, the assistant and apprentice shamans began to prepare rice cakes by steaming the ssal, raw rice, and dried red beans in aluminum pots on portable table top butane stoves; other stoves were used to fry tofu and vegetables. At the festival site, a hastily constructed stage with a long altar along the back wall, others  were busy by carefully piling brilliantly colored sugar “candies” into towers of compelling patterns. (Ancestor spirits love sweets!) Cases of apples, bananas, melons, Asian pears, clusters of huge concord grapes and other fruit were opened and their contents wiped and also piled high into towers with plastic plates in between rows to stabilize them. The brass bowls and candlesticks, gongs and swords that had been polished in Seoul were set out and dozens of colorful hanbok, traditional Korean clothing, were unpacked from suitcases. The back board was festooned with a large array of brightly painted taenghwa, spirit icons brightly rendered in paint on cardboard, placed tightly next to each other. Many of these icons have been used in Kim Keumhwa's rituals for decades. Everyone knew his or her task and undertook it with quiet joy, intention and cooperation. As a gesture of respect for the situation and as a guest, I did not impose my desire to be of use.

The audience crowd was very sparse when the ritual began in the afternoon, making it seem that the shamans were  entertaining more the underwater sea life than humans, but all was undertaken with professionalism that befits groups of these master ritual artists. The day was beautiful, with blue sky and a light summer breeze. During breaks the members of the group were upbeat; we laughed, they would sing what seemed to be folk songs, smoke cigarettes and enjoy the fresh air. Each group presented the first half of their respective rituals in turn. At the end of the program, we packed up everything except the stage. While beachgoers were rolling up their mats for the day, we ate dinner and retired early.

On the morning of the second day of the festival, the troupe learned after breakfast that the promoter who arranged the festival would not honor his contract; they will be paid only a third of the promised fee. I was told he makes an excuse that the sponsorships were short of what was budgeted. Furthermore, the restaurant owner where we ate our meals came asking for payment from the group, but the costs were to have been born by the promoter. The situation is falling apart. The heads of the other shaman groups arrived at our lodging, and a meeting among three of the top shamans in Korea-- all recognized as master ritual artists of Important Intangible Cultural Treasures -- to discuss the difficult matter at hand. They all have had the same problem with the promoter. Meanwhile, members of her troupe prepare food offerings and entertain themselves with jokes, hearty joyful singing and abiding patience. Occasionally snacks are brought in, and through the crack in the doorway, one can see and hear the meeting conversation continue with alternating periods of intense audible conversation and deep silence for over three hours.

Finally, Kim Keumhwa decides they all must uphold their commitments to complete the remainder of the program as scheduled and will perform the final rituals in the afternoon as planned. After extensive negotiations, the other two agree. Mansinnim then decides to take a nap and invites me to do the same. Knowing what lies ahead for her personally in the ritual, I wonder how rested she can become after such reversal of fortune and   what her dreams will be.

The second “half” of the ritual proceeds as planned in the afternoon, one scene scripted to follow another according to the integrity of the program and the spirits' will. At the beginning of the ritual, as would the officials of a town or business that has commissioned such a ritual, the promoter is invited to come up to the stage to make the formal offering before the altar. His hubris is showing through gleaming eyes, and he enjoys his moment under the bright sunlight. As he makes a much too theatrical bow, officiant of this part of the ritual, clearly “inspired” by the spirit of the ancestor of all maligned shamans, deftly trips the promoter to his knees, forcing him into a more humble position! Yes, the spirits have many ways to teach humans how to get along.

The ritual continued for about two hour; different shamans donned appropriate costumes to enact the scenes for the appearance of unique spirits. Some were very comical and others deadly serious, each ritual artist dancing and chanting as the spirit literally moves her in a clearly improvisational manner of the charismatic, northern  Korea shamanic tradition. Members of the public were welcomed to come up to the altar and make personal offerings of money; about $10 was the norm. Most were older women who have made up the bulk of adherents to Korea’s indigenous traditions for generations. Their eyes were sparkling as they interacted with the shamans.

Next, a huge, slaughtered but unbutchered boiled pig, was brought up to the stage; its’ legs spread fore and aft, eyes wide open, ears perked upwards as if it were taking a huge leap into the beyond. Eventually one of the shamans thrust a heavy handled trident into its slit belly and raised it up on the handle's end to balance atop a bag of uncooked rice. Makkoli, unfiltered rice wine was poured onto it from a ladle with bold gestures, and 10,000 won bills were stuck to the liquid on the still cold pink skin; others bills stuck into its ears, mouth and snout. When the pig finally balanced like a merry-go-round animal from a pole, it was declared that the spirits were appeased, and this part of the ritual was considered accomplished successfully.

At once the instrumental music (cymbals, changgo, hourglass drum, reeded horns and various gongs) came to a frenzied crescendo and overtaking the sound of the swelling surf off-shore. The chaktu-kori will begin. Dressed in the five colored streamer-decorated costume of the Knife-Riding General, Kim Keumhwa whirls in the traditional circular pattern of her shaman ancestors and points dagger-like short brass swords at her breast, arching into a deep back-bend. She then picks up the pair of chaktu, two-foot long, razor-sharp iron rice straw cleavers, each weighing over five pounds, and begins to swing each one at her bare arms and legs. They are so sharp that they almost attract skin to their edge! She presses the edges into her cheeks and tongue. No blood is shed. Giving her assistants the blades, she dances with the spirit to the edge of the stage and accepts tribute from the by now over 100 people assembled on the sand. She is renown for this unique ritual element.

Turning with explosive physicality, she takes a running barefoot leap up a small ladder next to toward a seven foot tower assembled by standing two oil drums atop each other, and then adding a large crock filled with water, upon which sits a wooden box filled with uncooked rice and, finally, the upturned chaktu, now bolted together in parallel about six inches apart like railroad track. Holding onto fifteen-foot bamboo poles festooned with five-color streamers placed on either side for balance, she mounts the blades, turns first to bow to the altar and then to the audience. Her strong, clear voice is at once singing, praying and offering the spirit's oracles for hope and good fortune of the assembled. Staring off into the distance, she is ecstatic and invincible - and I'm exhausted just from watching.

There is no question in my mind that I don’t need to believe in what I am seeing, any more than I believe that King Mumu is under that rock out there beyond the surf. I saw the assistant sharpening the blades that morning. I saw her spend three hours discussing the sad state of affairs for shamanism and greedy promoters. They all had spent a lot of time and energy to prepare a ritual full of integrity for a very small number of people. What more can one do?

POSTSCRIPT:  Two days later, on Veterans Day, Kim Keumhwa again performed the chaktu-kori at a major rally she herself had convened on the banks of Seoul's Han River, in support of reunification and to promote environmental sustainability. One week later, the "other" two Kims, presidents of this divided land, pledged to work toward just that. She continues to keep trying to this day. 

What is Ancient?

A brief, somewhat historical record of Kim Keumhwa's various shaman ritual roles can be seen here in a series of educational videos about world music and dance. The footage has obviously come from a variety of rituals staged prior to 1990s (when I first met her), from those in her Seoul residence shindang (sanctuary) to a village in the countryside. The annotation says "Shamanism is the ancient religion of Korea", but how can it be "ancient" if it's very much alive and well today. Why not use the word "timeless"?

In his essay Mu: A Reflection on Shamanism and Synthesis, Professor Heinz Insu Fenkl notes, "Shamanism is really about synthesis, about the brining together of things that might otherwise appear to be disparate: the world of the living and the world of the dead; the past, present, and future; the individual and the community; humans and animals; men and women; the person and the cosmos--and in every case, the synthesis creates a form of healing."

Why must it be "ancient" to have gravitas, not to mention value today?  Miguel Rivera, a great teacher-practitioner of Native American traditions, always reminds us that our ancestors are our future.