42 KOREAN HISTORIES 2.

2 2011
Boudewijn Walraven
Divine Territory
SHAMAN SONGS, ELITE CULTURE AND THE NATION
The Kunung [deities] all assemble:
Spurning the examinations in horsemanship
they go to take the literary examinations!
Clutching their books against their chests,
They hasten to Hanyang, the capital.
(From a shaman song
1
)
How deeply rooted is the contemporary sense of nation-
hood in Korea? Is it an entirely modern phenomenon,
or have more recent articulations and imaginings of the
nation been grafted onto older visions of a community
that could potentially unite the people of states such as
Kory or Chosn? If such visions existed (which, as John
Duncan has suggested, is quite likely
2
), to what extent did
they permeate society? Were they exclusively elitist, or
shared by other layers of the population, and if so, which
layers? This article aims to demonstrate that the songs
sung by Chosn-period shamans deserve to be consid-
ered as sources that suggest answers to these questions.
At rst glance this enterprise may seem unlikely to
succeed. What role could the oral songs of supposedly
illiterate shamans play in the process of nation forma-
tion in which, in the formulation of Benedict Anderson,
print-capitalism is deemed to be essential? Doubts
will be reinforced if we take into consideration Ander-
sons list of the fundamental conceptions that should lose
their axiomatic grip on mens minds to enable them to
imagine the nation: 1. the idea that there is a particular
script-language that offers privileged access to ontologi-
cal truth; 2. the belief that society is naturally organized
under monarchs who rule by some form of cosmological
or divine dispensation; and 3. a conception of temporal-
ity in which cosmology and history are indistinguisha-
1 Pak Kyngsin , Tonghaean Pylsin kut muga (Seoul: Kukhak charyown, 1993) vol. 1, pp. 292-293.
2 John Duncan, Proto-nationalism in Premodern Korea, in Perspectives on Korea, ed. by Sang-Oak Lee and Duk-soo Park (Sydney: Wild Peony, 1998), pp.
198-221.
Shaman painting of Zhu Geliang (181-234)
BOUDEWIJN WALRAVEN DIVINE TERRITORY
43 KOREAN HISTORIES 2.2 2011
ble.
3
Arguably, Chosn Korea was still under the sway of
concepts of this kind. Yet, it will be more illuminating to
consider the case of Korea on its own merits, rather than
to take such a checklist as our point of departure.
ORAL LITERATURE IN A LITERATE SOCIETY
Considering the importance of print capitalism in Ander-
sons model of nation formation and the oral nature of
the shaman songs, the rst step to be taken is to reect
on the relationship between written and oral literature in
Chosn Korea. The supposedly cosmopolitan culture of
the Confucian literati, with its almost total dependence
on knowledge of the Chinese written language, and the
traditional oral culture of the shamans, most of whom
were illiterate, are commonly represented as two radically
opposed aspects of Chosn society. Yet, even if they con-
stituted different discourses, these two cultures were, in
numerous and subtle ways, connected.
4
This connection
was also true at the level of language, however unlikely
it may seem at rst glance that shamans would in some
way gain access to the contents of a culture that appears
to be almost impenetrable because of the difcult for-
eign language and complicated script it was couched in.
It is easy to imagine that members of the elite, when they
wanted to, would be able to comprehend the vernacular
linguistic productions of the shamans, even though the
ritual language of the shaman is not without its obscuri-
ties.
5
That, however, the bearers of the oral culture of sha-
manism, whose social status was extremely low and who
were excluded from the educational system of Chosn,
would be capable of absorbing elements of the language
of the high culture of the elite (together with the concepts
conveyed in it) seems much less likely. Nevertheless, that
is exactly what happened. The wall between the written
and the oral, and between literary Chinese and the ver-
nacular, turns out to have been quite porous. Through a
kind of osmotic process literate culture penetrated the
muga , the orally produced and transmitted songs
of the shamans, who represented popular culture. This
is not merely a matter of literary history; because muga
had the potential to reach all echelons of society, even the
very lowest where no degree of literacy can be assumed,
the songs have implications which are relevant to con-
temporary debates about national conscious ness and the
formation of a nation-state.
Shaman songs have been characterized above as an
oral genre, but one might question this assumption. Does
it not reect a bias inuenced by the tendency to identify
shamanism with the primitive and archaic, denying its
dynamic character? Actually, the possibility cannot be
entirely excluded that before 1900 some muga were writ-
ten down by shamans literate in hangl in order to facili-
tate the learning of the songs. There undoubtedly were a
number of such muga written down in the early twentieth
century.
6
However, because early muga manuscripts pre-
dating 1900 are no longer extant or cannot be dated with
certainty to the Chosn period, and because it is highly
unlikely that such manuscripts were used by a majority
of shamans (who even in the early twentieth century were
mostly illiterate), it is reasonable to regard shaman songs
up to the second half of the twentieth century as a pre-
dominantly oral genre.
As premodern oral literature was generally not written
down, most of it is forever lost to us, but from the moment
writing became available it could survive in some form,
being recorded in Chinese characters used for both their
meaning and their pronunciation to render the vernacu-
lar, or after 1444 in hangl. Some of the content of
early oral literature, moreover, is still available to us in
the form of translations or paraphrases in Chinese. How-
ever, all this applies to a mere fraction of the total pro-
duction of oral literature. One example of the rare speci-
mens that have survived is Pungyo , a hyangga
(vernacular song), from the Samguk yusa
. The hyangga are very diverse in character, and some
are quite literate, but Pungyo is a work song that was
originally sung by workers building a temple and later by
women pounding rice. Much later, the poet Im Che
(1549-1587) reworked popular songs in his own poetry in
Chinese.
7
Oral genres might also nd their way into liter-
3 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism (revised ed.; London: Verso, 1991), p. 36.
4 Cf. Boudewijn Walraven, Confucians and Shamans, Cahiers dExtrme Asie 6 (1991-1992): pp. 21-44, and Popular Religion in a Confucianized Society
in Jahyun Kim Haboush and Martina Deuchler (eds.), Culture and the State in Late Chosn Korea (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 1999),
pp. 160-198.
5 Part of the shamanic vocabulary diverges so much from ordinary speech that it is difcult for outsiders to understand. Cf. Antonetta L. Bruno, The Gate of Words:
Language in the Rituals of Korean Shamans (Leiden: CNWS, 2002). Also see Choe Kilsng , Hanguk musok i yngu (Seoul: Asea
munhwasa, 1978), Chapter 3.
6 Boudewijn Walraven, Songs of the Shaman: The Ritual Chants of the Korean Mudang (London: Kegan Paul Int., 1994), p. 31.
7 Cho Dong-il & Daniel Bouchez, Histoire de la Littrature Corenne des Origines 1919 (Paris: Fayard, 2002), p. 192.
BOUDEWIJN WALRAVEN DIVINE TERRITORY
44 KOREAN HISTORIES 2.2 2011
ature written in the ver-
nacular. A shijo by
the eighteenth-century
singer Yi Chngjin
incorporated
a childrens song of
which an oral version
was recorded in south-
west Korea in the twen-
tieth century.
8
Almost
none of the muga, how-
ever, were recorded.
The only source that
contains a number of
complete songs, all of
them quite brief, is Shi-
yong hyangakpo
(Scores for local
music to be performed
periodically), which
is of uncertain date
but most likely goes back to the early sixteenth century.
Interestingly, the songs contained in it share some sty-
listic characteristics with more recently recorded muga,
in contrast to the four-line hyangga Chyongga
(Song of Chyong), which is regarded by some
scholars as a shaman song.
9
In the nineteenth century,
Shin Chaehyo (1812-1884), the patron and libret-
tist of pansori, recorded a song for the god of the house
the shamans worshipped, Syngjyoga , and a
song describing the auspicious geomantic location of
Seoul and the Kyngbok Palace, entitled Kos
(the name of a kind of small ritual, in many cases per-
formed by shamans).
10
Presumably these texts are neither
exact recordings of ritual songs actually sung by religious
specialists, nor completely original creations, but adap-
tations, like most of Sin Chaehyos other writings. The
relationship between Syngjyoga and Kos and the
muga sung by shamans will be discussed below. There
are also a few snippets of muga in the pansori libretti of
Sin Chaehyo.
The poet and ofcial Yi Knchang (1852-98)
was also inspired by the shamans in the nineteenth cen-
tury, and wrote two poems in Chinese that are in some
way related to shamanic rituals. In Ynpyng haeng
he incorporates the oral legend of a historical g-
ure, General Im Kyngp (1594-1646), whom the
shermen and shamans of the West Coast worshipped as
a tutelary deity (as they still do today).
11
The other poem,
Words of a god during a boat ritual at Kwangsngjin
, written in 1890, incorporates part of the ver-
bal exchange of a shamanic ritual, including the ora-
cle (kongsu ) presented by the deity.
12
Describing a
scene from the life of ordinary people the performance of
a ritual held aboard a shing boat in order to obtain the
blessing of a good catch, Yi Knchangs poem obliquely
comments on the abuse of power by local government
clerks. A god gratefully accepts the ritual and through the
mouth of the shaman promises the shermen an abun-
dant catch. This will allow them not only to recoup their
investments, but also to become rich enough to each
8 Chng Pynguk (comp.), Shijo munhak sajn (Seoul: Singu munhwasa, 1972), nr. 857.
9 When Chyong, the son of a Dragon King who, following the orders of his father, serves the king of Shilla, comes home and nds his beautiful wife in bed with
a pest demon, he sings a song that moves the demon to retreat.
10 Ksa bears the alternative title Myngdang chugwn . For the text of these two songs, which date from the 1870s, see Kang Hanyng
(ed.), Shin Chaehyo pansori sasl chip (Seoul: Minjung sgwan, 1971), pp. 665-667 and 670.
11 Im Hyngtaek (comp. and transl.), Yijo shidae ssashi (Seoul: Changjak-kwa pipyngsa) 2 vols, vol. 1, pp. 311-314. Such oracles
are often chanted and follow xed patterns, and therefore are often considered to belong to the category of muga.
12 Im Hyngtaek, Yijo shidae ssashi, vol. 1, pp. 307-310.
Shaman paintings of historical generals
BOUDEWIJN WALRAVEN DIVINE TERRITORY
45 KOREAN HISTORIES 2.2 2011
buy a house and rice paddies with the remaining money,
so that they never again need to touch an oar in their
life. For the most part, this sounds like the kind of ora-
cle the shamans present their clients with nowadays. In
the poem, however, the shermen are not satised by the
deitys promises. Even if they acquire wealth, they coun-
ter, in the end the extortions of the government clerks
will leave them empty-handed. The god then replies that
this is a matter beyond his power. He advises the sher-
men to direct their complaint to the poet on the shore (Yi
Knchang, of course), who could write a poem about it
that might reach the ears of the monarch. Although at rst
glance Yi Knchangs poem seems to illustrate interac-
tion between the oral vernacular and written Chinese, at
the same time it emphasizes the inequality of the two dis-
courses. To inuence the elite who actually rule the land,
a poem in Chinese is more effective than even the actions
of a god of the shamans (who depends on oral dialogue).
Chinese and, to a lesser degree, Sino-Korean embedded
in a vernacular context embody the discourse of power.
This fact is crucial to an understanding of the reason why
so many Sinitic elements were introduced in the muga.

MUGA COLLECTIONS AND COLLECTORS
The writing down of muga began in earnest only after the
Chosn period, when Korea was under the colonial yoke
of Japan; the bulk of the muga available in writing today
has been collected since Liberation in 1945. Because
issues of ethnic and national identity have always been
closely linked to the collecting of muga, it is necessary to
reect briey on the motivations of the collectors and the
particular aspects of the muga that researchers focused
on.
Son Chintae (1900-?), who in 1930 was the rst
to publish a muga collection, was primarily interested in
history, the subject he studied at Waseda University in
Tokyo. His interest, however, was not so much the politi-
cal and economic aspects of history, but the lives of the
general populace, for the study of which, he felt, the muga
contained valuable material (an assumption I share).
13

The rapid changes the twentieth century brought threat-
ened to obliterate this intangible record of the Korean
people. Thus Son was motivated by a desire to record old
traditions that, as part of the historical heritage of the peo-
ple, were crucial to Korean ethnic or national identity.
The second collection was compiled under the direc-
tion of the Japanese researchers Akamatsu Chij
(1886-1960) and Akiba Takashi (1888-
1954), although much of the actual work was done by
their Korean assistants, one of whom, Im Skchae
(1903-98), became an important collector himself
after 1945. Son Chintae also helped in the compilation
process. The two-volume book produced by Akamatsu
and Akiba (of which the muga collection is volume 1) was
part of the systematic and comprehensive attempt by the
Japanese to generate knowledge that might in some way
serve colonial domination.
14
Akiba was of the opinion
that the songs, with their many repetitions, reected the
slow pace of the agricultural society of Korea and he also
saw a connection between the peaceful coexistence of
numerous Buddhist, Daoist and Confucian elements in
the songs and the pacic and conciliatory nature of rural
village society.
15
To him the muga represented an antith-
esis of the modern.
In the decades following national liberation in 1945, the
muga were increasingly presented as examples of Koreas
indigenous culture, and of the culture of the common
people (minjung ), who of course had always made
use of the vernacular. In the process, the antiquity of sha-
man songs was often emphasized, for instance by con-
necting the muga collected in modern times with the ori-
gin myths of the old states on the peninsula. The literary
scholar Kim Tong uk (1922-90) argued that almost
all genres of traditional vernacular poetry had their roots
in shamanic songs.
16
This is not to say that he assumed
the present form of the muga to be identical to that of
ancient muga, but the general effect of his approach and
that of the scholars who looked for Koreanness in the
songs was to deect attention from their historicity. When
historical changes in the muga are discussed at all, it is
usually in terms of authenticity; are particular songs true
to the tradition or not? What the changes in the muga
meant and mean to the shamans and their audiences and
what implications such modications have for the study
13 Son Chintae, Chsen shinka ihen (Tokyo: Kydo kenkysha, 1930), p. 1.
14 Choe Kilsng, War and Ethnology/Folklore in Colonial Korea, in Akitoshi Shimizu and Jan van Bremen (eds.), Wartime Japanese Anthropology in Asia and
the Pacic (Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology, 2003), pp. 169-187; Boudewijn Walraven, The Natives Next-Door: Ethnology in Colonial Korea, in Jan
van Bremen and Akitoshi Shimizu (eds.), Anthropology and Colonialism in Asia and Oceania (London: Curzon, 1999), pp. 219-244.
15 Akamatsu Chij & Akiba Takashi, Chsen fuzoku no kenky ( Keij: saka yag shoten, 1937-1938), vol. 2, p. 240.
16 Kim Tonguk, Hanguk kayo i yngu (Seoul: ryu munhwasa, 1961).
BOUDEWIJN WALRAVEN DIVINE TERRITORY
46 KOREAN HISTORIES 2.2 2011
of Korean culture is, in many cases,
not considered at all. In particular,
the presence of the elements of liter-
ate culture that are the focal point of
this article did not suit the national
identity framework in which most
muga collection took place. Akiba
had duly noted these elements, but
only linked them to what was, in his
view, the somewhat retarded devel-
opment of Korean society, which was
still a predominantly agricultural
society. Some researchers carefully
annotated Sino-Korean phrases that
were difcult to understand, but the
wider implications of their insertion
into the muga for the study of Korean
society were not problematized.
MUGA AS A SOURCE FOR CHOSN SOCIAL AND
CULTURAL HISTORY
As the collecting of muga only really started in the third
decade of the twentieth century, it must be asked whether
they should be regarded as a reliable source for the study
of the Chosn period. The answer has to be afrmative,
due to a combination of two factors, the rst concerning
the accuracy of the recordings and the second, the extent
to which the songs may have changed.
When the literati recorded forms of oral literature in
the Chosn period or even earlier, they did so for their
own purposes. They did not merely reproduce what
they heard, but modied it, sometimes to make it carry
a different message. The second poem by Yi Knchang
is a case in point. Considerable adaptation could not be
avoided in any case when translation from the vernacular
into Chinese was involved, because of the very different
nature of the two languages. Even when the muga were
recorded systematically in the twentieth century, they
were not immune to certain distortions that are inevitable
when oral literature is decontextualized from its original
setting and recontextualized in the pages of a book or an
article. To a much greater degree than most of the oral
literature recorded in some form in the Chosn period,
however, they retained their original form. When the ear-
liest collectors of muga, such as Son
Chintae and Akiba and Akamatsu set
to work they certainly had, as I have
hinted, their own agendas, but at
the same time their academic train-
ing had taught them to respect the
authenticity and integrity of the text.
Contrary to gures like Im Che and
Yi Knchang, the modern collectors
tried to record texts accurately when
they wrote down the songs; they did
not create works of their own.
17
Con-
sequently, the muga, which were
recorded in considerable quantity,
offer a much more faithful picture
of oral literature than the inciden-
tal recordings and incorporations of
oral material into written literature
during the Chosn period.
This still leaves the question unanswered of whether
the texts recorded in the 1920s and 1930s may be used as a
source for the study of Chosn society and culture which
had ended several decades earlier. I would be the last
to assert that the muga the sacred songs of an ancient
creed have hardly changed over the ages. In fact, I have
tried to demonstrate at length that they did change, and
moreover that they did so to a signicant extent.
18
That,
however, is exactly why they are of interest in the present
context, because by the same token they show the dynamic
absorption of vast quantities of material derived from
the elite written culture while Confucian culture ltered
down in Chosn society. So the muga changed over time,
but the nature of the songs as part of the specialized lore
of the shaman, the mastery of which renders a shaman
authoritative and powerful, guaranteed that their content
would not be subject to rapid change. A review of muga
collected over about eighty years in the twentieth century
reveals that there were some changes during this period,
but also that much was retained. Therefore, the conclu-
sion is warranted that the muga recorded in the 1920s
and 1930s and to a lesser degree, those of successive
decades to a large extent reect ideas and world-views
of the late nineteenth century or earlier and in this sense
belong to the Chosn period. Specic passages provide
17 This does not mean, of course, that nothing was changed in the complicated process from the rst recording of a song to the preparation of the nal text to be
published; the basic aim, however, was to record the songs as they were sung.
18 Walraven, Songs of the Shaman.
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47 KOREAN HISTORIES 2.2 2011
evidence for this supposition. Therefore the muga are a
legitimate source from which to study the penetration of
Chosn-literati culture into layers of society that were
totally or largely illiterate.
SINITIC CULTURE IN THE MUGA
The extent to which elements derived from Sinitic culture
permeated the muga can most easily be demonstrated at
the micro level of formulaic metrical phrases and the
slightly more general level of conventional themes. I
have tried, in an earlier publication, to show the degree
to which shamanic songs absorbed such elements and
will not for reasons of brevity present full evidence for
this again here.
19
Instead, I will focus on a few instances
of muga that contain concepts that are of particular rel-
evance to the larger issues which I will discuss below.
One of the most striking texts to illustrate the extent to
which literate elements found their way into shamanic
texts is Sngjo puri , a song explaining the
origin of the god of the house (Sngjo or Sngju), col-
lected by Son Chintae.
20
In a note appended to this song,
Son complains that it was very hard to translate because
some parts were pure Chinese, without even the added
verbal endings and particles (to ) that were sometimes
used to make a kind of hybrid Korean from a Chinese
original. His informant, Choe Sundo , was a blind
male shaman from Tongnae in South Kyngsang
Province. On the whole, male shamans are somewhat
more likely to sing songs that are heavily inuenced by
elite culture, although there is certainly no scarcity of
such inuences in the songs of female shamans either.
This suggests, of course, that men functioned as a chan-
nel in the transmission of such inuences, a point that
will be discussed later. At the same time, however, the
example of Sngjo puri demonstrates that these men
were not necessarily literate, as Choe Sundo was blind.
The song begins, like so many muga, with the topos of
the origin of the world and human culture. The content is
entirely derived from Sinitic culture. After the opening
of Heaven and Earth, the appearance of the Three Sover-
eigns and Five Emperors (samhwang and oje ) is
described at length, complete with all the acts of creation
and invention with which they are credited:
After in a ash Heaven and Earth had opened up
in the time of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors,
the Heavenly Sovereign appeared rst
and became ruler thanks to the virtue of [the element]
Wood
and when sun and moon and the constellations illumi-
nated [the world]
the light of sun and moon was bright.
When next the Earthly Sovereign appeared
he became ruler thanks to the virtue of [the element]
Earth
and so grasses and leaves came forth.
Then again the Human Sovereign appeared
and the nine brothers divided the nine regions.
21
The song then moves to surer historical ground with the
appearance of Confucius, who, it says, taught the basic
virtues and the distinction between good and evil, as well
as that between the yangban, the former ruling class in
Korea, and commoners (the latter distinction actually
being a Korean characteristic!). Only then does the story
of Sngjo himself begin, who, according to the song,
was originally neither from China nor from Chosn, but
from India (Schnguk ). The names given for his
grandfather and grandmother are identical to those of the
parents of the historical Buddha. Many of the details of
Sngjs birth and youth are of no importance in this con-
text, but the language in which his birth and early days
are described merits attention. When he is born, he is as
handsome as the Tang poet Du Mu , and at the age
of two he is as eloquent as the orators Su Qin and
Zhang Yi of the period of the Warring States. As a
child he studies the Book of Documents and the Book of
Odes as well as the Hundred Schools of Thought. Finally
he comes of age and marries, but in spite of his early
promise his behaviour is far from exemplary:
At that time Sngjo lost himself in wine and women,
he immersed himself in the houses of pleasure,
and was oblivious to affairs of state.
When four, ve months had passed,
the censors at court reported this to His Majesty,
19 Walraven, Songs of the Shaman, Chapter 5.
20 Son Chintae, Chsen shinka ihen, pp. 79-176.
21 Similar passages are recurrent in muga; see for instance AA, p. 271, in a song from Osan , and pp. 375-376, in a Cheju Island song called
Chogamje .
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48 KOREAN HISTORIES 2.2 2011
and the King, because there was no other way,
opened the Great Legal Compendium
and considered the [relevant] laws.
There it said:
To rascals who are oblivious
to the Three Bonds and the Five Relationships,
who are not lial to their parents,
who ill-treat their good wives,
who do not live in harmony with their neighbours,
who do not maintain good relations with their relatives,
the law of the land will be applied
after [their cases] have been examined in every detail:
three years of exile to the Island of Yellow Earth
which is without mountains and without people
has been set as punishment for them.
To atone for his transgressions against Confucian moral-
ity Sngjo is sent into exile. This is a crucial episode in the
story, as exile is the ordeal which transforms Sngjo into
a deity. It is common in shamanic narratives of origin,
ponpuri , for the protagonist to undergo separa-
tion at some point from his or her parents and the world
of ordinary mortals. This is a kind of initiatory experience,
from which he or she will return as a supernatural being.
In one Cheju muga, for instance, a young girl gets lost in
the hills while she is picking strawberries; over time she
becomes so much at one with nature that her body starts
to resemble a tree and moss starts growing on her back.
Eventually she is discovered by a hunter and taken back
to the world of man, where she becomes the goddess of a
local shrine.
22
In the case of this Sngjo muga, however,
this basic plot is narrated in the language of the bureau-
cratic state. Sngjo commits several offences and accord-
ing to the law is condemned to the punishment stipulated
for such crimes. Only when he has spent three years on
the island and no one has come to his rescue, does the
original shamanic pattern emerge. When his food supply
is exhausted and he has to feed himself with whatever he
can nd, fur starts to grow on his body and it becomes
impossible to distinguish whether he is a human being or
an animal. Yet, in the wording of the subsequent scenes,
the inuence of Chinese culture once again asserts itself,
in phrases that consist entirely of Sino-Korean,
23
with ref-
erences to the cuckoo of Shu and the parrots of Long-
shan . In the remainder of the song, too, references
to Sinitic culture are frequent. The poets Li Bai , Bai
Letian and Su Dongpo all make an appear-
ance, with mention of their names and references to the
most famous of their poems. There also is a paraphrase
of several lines from a very well-known poem by Zhang
Ji anthologized in the Three Hundred Tang Poems.
24

References to Chinese historical and legendary gures
are also numerous. At the end of the song, after Sngjo
has been rescued from his place of exile and has resumed
human shape, he nally performs the act that makes him
a god with a specic task. Using the wood from trees he
planted in his youth, he builds a house. The house is not
complete without writing: the wooden pillars are adorned
with auspicious phrases in Chinese. The muga quotes
these with no mistakes.
25

The number of references in this muga to the literate
22 Hyn Yongjun , Cheju-do musok charyo sajn (Seoul: Shingu munhwasa, 1980), pp. 721-726.
23 E.g., p. 129: // //etc.
24 The poem has been translated in English as A Night-Mooring near Maple Bridge; Witter Bynner (transl.), Three Hundred Poems of the Tang Dynasty (Taipei:
Wen-hsing shu-tien, 1952), p. 4.
25 E.g., p. 169: , .
Shaman painting of Queen Min
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49 KOREAN HISTORIES 2.2 2011
Sinitic culture of the elite is remarkable, but within the
total corpus of muga it stands out more for the accuracy
of these references than for their sheer quantity. Other
muga from both male and female shamans also contain
an abundance of such allusions to high culture. In another
song for the god of the house called Hwangje puri
, sung by the female shaman Pae Kyngjae
, there is a description of the paintings adorning the
newly built house, which depict scenes from Chinese his-
tory and an episode from a Korean novel that circulated
in both Korean and Chinese versions, the Kuunmong
(A Nine Cloud Dream). The following lines describe
a painting of a famous episode from the historical novel
The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, in which the sage
Zhuge Liang tests the patience of Liu Bei ,
who comes to seek his help, by making him wait for days
and days before he receives him.
26


If one looks at the western wall, it is vividly depicted
how among the tribulations and turmoil of the Three
Kingdoms
Liu Xuande [= Liu Bei], scion of the Imperial
House of Han ,
astride his horse Red Rabbit
waits in snow and cold for Master Wolong [=
Zhuge Liang]
at the cottage in Nanyang .
The same mudang, or female shaman, begins a song used
as part of an introduction in rituals for the dead, Chidus
, with verses that incorporate the rst and third line
of the Thousand Character Text: Tyn chi hyn hwang saeng-
gin hu-e, il wl yng chaek [correctly: chk] toeyssyera
, .
27
The choice of the
day for the ritual is explained in lines that refer to methods
requiring a certain knowledge of Chinese and have been
described as part of popular Confucianism.
28
Further on
there are many more allusions to Sinitic culture, references
to the legendary creator of the Eight Trigrams, Fuxi ,
29

and the long-lived Dongfang Shuo ,
30
for example.
There are also numerous references to the literate world of
Buddhist culture, which include names of mantras (one of
which is quoted in full) and the nine categories of rebirth
in the Pure Land of Amitbha explained in the sutra Kwan-
muryangsubul kyng.
31
AWARENESS OF KOREA IN MUGA
Interlaced with the Sinitic elements in the muga there
are passages that betray an awareness of Korea, which is
described in terms that owe much to the perspective of
the elite. In the same Chidus that I mentioned above,
Pae Kyngjae elaborates on a theme that is very common
in muga: a description of Korea that serves as a general
introduction to the place where the ritual is held and is
couched in terms that are inspired by geomantic theories.
Here the Kunlun mountains in China are mentioned
rst as the supreme ancestor () of mountains, but
thereafter the focus is entirely on Korea, which is located
between Mt. Paektu in the north and Mt. Halla
in the south, and praised for the auspiciousness of
its terrain and the beauty of its landscapes. It is described
as the Little Middle Kingdom of the Civilization of Rites
and Righteousness ().
32
There are two
slight inaccuracies in the rendering of this phrase, but
these are of minor signicance and do not obscure the
meaning. Next is an enumeration of the mountains and
rivers of the Eight Provinces, which adheres to the admin-
istrative division of the peninsula current during the
Chosn period before the reforms of 1896. Then comes
another common theme found in shaman songs, a his-
torical overview of the peninsula, beginning with Tangun
, whose dates place him as a contemporary of the
Chinese Emperor Yao . His Chosn is succeeded by that
of Kija and that of Wiman , dated, respectively,
to the era of King Wen and the days of the struggle
between Chu and Han in China. From here on the
references to Chinese history disappear and the focus is
entirely on the Korean peninsula.
26 Akamatsu & Akiba, Chsen fuzoku no kenky, vol. 1, pp. 240-241. In the late Chosn period, Koreans were avid readers of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms
(Samgukchi ), both in the original Chinese and in Korean translations.
27 Akamatsu & Akiba, Chsen fuzoku no kenky, vol. 1, p. 257.
28 Grifn M. Dix, The East Asian Country of Propriety: Confucianism in a Korean Village, PhD dissertation, University of California at San Diego, 1977.
29 Akamatsu & Akiba, Chsen fuzoku no kenky, vol. 1, p. 264.
30 Akamatsu & Akiba, Chsen fuzoku no kenky, vol. 1, p. 265.
31 Taish Tripitaka, 365. Such borrowings from Buddhist written sources are common. E.g., Choe Chngy & S Taesk , Tonghaean muga
(Seoul: Hyngsl chulpansa, 1974), p. 244, in which the Shinmyo changgu taedarani is cited, slightly garbled (the title is given as
Shinmo changgun taedarani), but clearly recognizable.
32 Akamatsu & Akiba, Chsen fuzoku no kenky, vol. 1, p. 257.
BOUDEWIJN WALRAVEN DIVINE TERRITORY
50 KOREAN HISTORIES 2.2 2011
There is no trace left of the rise and fall
of the Samhan , of Pyn[han] , Ma[han]
and Chin[han] .
Of the fortresses of Kogury and Paekche
only the ruins remain.
Of the thousand years of the Kingdom of Shilla
the mountains and rivers are as of old,
but of the ve hundred years of the Kingdom of Kory

nothing but the castle walls are to be seen.

When Chosn is founded, it needs its own capital. We
can now introduce yet another common theme of muga,
the listing of the capitals of successive dynasties, in the
process of which the historical narrative returns again
to earlier periods. Once more Tangun and Kija make an
appearance, together with Wang Kn of Kory. When
it comes to the selection of a capital for Chosn, the monk
Muhak conducts a survey with his geomancers
compass and decides on Hanyang as the most suit-
able location. Subsequently, the muga provides a thumb-
nail sketch of the administrative system of Chosn Korea,
with the three state councillors (chngsng ) and the
six ministers (pans ) and vice-ministers (champan
) of the Six Boards and various military command-
ers in the capital, and in the countryside the magistracies
with the Six Ofces (Yukpang , corresponding to the
Six Boards, Yukcho , in Seoul). At this point, at last,
the song switches from the general to the specic, when
the city of Suwn is singled out as a place where of-
cials of the senior third rank are appointed as magistrates.
Suwn is mentioned because the ritual during which the
muga is sung is conducted for a family living outside the
Paltal Gate of this city. Thus in this song, as in many
other muga, a ritual for one specic family in one particu-
lar locality is placed within a much wider geographical,
historical and political-administrative context.
Chidus concentrates on the more immediate con-
cerns of the ritual in the lines that follow the introductory
part, but in the description of food offerings the wider
context of the nation intrudes once again, when aspects
of Koreas culinary geography make an appearance, with
certain foods for which particular localities in different
regions of the country were famous: sweet potatoes from
Pongsan , mixed noodles (pibim kuksu )
from Pyngyang , cold noodles from Hwangju ,
and abalone from Ulsan .
33
It is both the economic
and political framework and the imagined unity of the
larger entity of the nation that tie these regional special-
ties to the site of the ritual.
Attention to the political structure of Chosn can also
be seen in Antang malmi by the female sha-
man Kong Sngny , a song used to perform kosa (
a small-scale ritual) in the inner quarters of a house.
34
In
the introductory part, the ritual is situated in Chosnguk
, which is placed aside Taehanguk , the
Country of the Great Han (China), and said to be ruled
by the monarch of the Yi lineage, whose familys origin
is in Hamgyng Province. Note that in spite of the
fact that this muga was recorded in the colonial period
the situation described is that of Chosn. Zooming in on
the location, the shaman refers to the thirty-seven dis-
tricts of Kynggi Province
35
and more specically
to Yangju ,
36
before she lists the palaces of the capi-
tal and calls for respectful treatment of the spirit tablets
of the Royal Ancestral Temple (Chongmyo ) and the
altars for the deities of Land and Grain (Sajiktan ),
the two most sacred places of the Confucian state, which
was equated, metonymically, with these Sajik Altars. An
awareness of the country as a whole appears again in a
passage about local tutelary deities (snghwang
37
),
when the snghwang of the mountains and rivers of the
vast, vast Eight Provinces are invoked.
38

Of all the Korean regions it was Cheju Island that
remained marginal to the central state for longest, and
was regarded by mainlanders as uncivilized. Several
uprisings at the end of the Chosn period have raised
questions about the allegiance of the islanders to the
Korean nation at that time. It is telling, therefore, that
even in Cheju Island muga there is evidence of attempts
to link the island to the more comprehensive entity of
the country, in ways that are very similar to those in the
33 Akamatsu & Akiba, Chsen fuzoku no kenky, vol. 1, p. 264.
34 Akamatsu & Akiba, Chsen fuzoku no kenky, vol. 1, pp. 547-556.
35 References to the number of districts within a province are a typical feature of muga in general. Cf. for instance, Akiba Takashi, Fujin kotsury no uta
, Seiky gakus vol. 6 (1931), pp. 99-100 (a song from Seoul), with the same number for Kynggi Province, Akamatsu and Akiba, Chsen
fuzoku no kenky, vol. 1, pp. 275-276 (in a muga from Osan ) and Hyn Yongjun, Chejudo musok charyo sajn, p. 643, with a Cheju muga example.
36 Yangju was the name of the general area in which the new capital of Chosn was founded.
37 In China these characters denote the City God, but in Korea they refer to local guardian deities similar to the mountain gods.
38 Akamatsu & Akiba, Chsen fuzoku no kenky, vol. 1, p. 552.
BOUDEWIJN WALRAVEN DIVINE TERRITORY
51 KOREAN HISTORIES 2.2 2011
muga discussed above. In the oldest
recorded version of the Chogamje
muga there are references to
famous mountains in various regions
of Chosn: Samgaksan in
Kynggi Province, Kmgangsan
in Kangwn Province and
Kyeryongsan in Chungchng
Province, and a more recent ver-
sion contrasts our country, Chosn,
the Country Under Heaven, East of
the Sea (
) with the country of the Tartars
(Manchus), the China of the Son of
Heaven, and Japan.
39
Altogether
Cheju muga have retained some
characteristics that set them some-
what apart from mainland muga,
but they, too, betray an awareness of
the larger community to which the
island belongs, even if the attitude of
the islanders towards central author-
ity remains somewhat ambiguous.
The story of the origin of the god of
the local shrine, Tosandang ,
refers in detail to the system of local
magistrates appointed by the court,
and part of it is set in the capital.
40

The song of the origin of the local
goddess Paekchutto traces
her origin back to Seoul
41
and when
another god-to-be leaves Cheju and comes to the palace
of the Dragon King he is addressed as the Generalissimo
from Chosn.
42
The same martial gure defeats the
northern robbers that threaten China, but refuses to
accept any reward and only wishes to return to his home
country, Chosn.
43

Back on the mainland, another muga that betrays an
awareness of state and country is Hogu nojnggi
(Itinerary of the Hogu) by Pae Kyngjae, a song
for the gods of smallpox, also known as the Guests (Son-
nim ) or Pylsang .
44
The Guests are depicted
as coming from China (the Big Country, Taeguk )
to Korea (the Small Country, Soguk ) attracted by
Koreas good food. Their progress once they have crossed
the border is that of government ofcials who wherever
they go announce their arrival beforehand by ofcial let-
ter and are entertained by local administrators. Going
from iju to Wiwn , Pyktong , Sunan
, Sukchn and Pyongyang , and then to
Chunghwa , Hwangju , Haeju , Songdo
(Kaesng ), Paju , Changdan , Koyang
and Kupabal , to arrive in the capital via the Muak
39 Akamatsu & Akiba, Chsen fuzoku no kenky, vol. 1, p. 371; Hyn, Cheju-do musok charyo sajn, p. 43.
40 Akamatsu & Akiba, Chsen fuzoku no kenky, vol. 1, pp. 357-369;
41 Hyn, Chejudo musok charyo sajn, p. 662.
42 Hyn, Chejudo musok charyo sajn, p. 641,
43 Hyn, Chejudo musok charyo sajn, pp. 642-643.
44 Akamatsu & Akiba, Chsen fuzoku no kenky, vol. 1, pp. 556-562.
Shaman painting of Tangun, the mythical progenitor of the Korean people
BOUDEWIJN WALRAVEN DIVINE TERRITORY
52 KOREAN HISTORIES 2.2 2011
Pass, they settle in the quarters built for the regular
envoys from China, the Mohwagwan , where the
local pylsang (Yi-ssi pylsang) of this land
comes to meet them. Then public announcements (pre-
sumably about the arrival of the Guests and the way they
should be treated) are attached to the gates of the city and
instructions sent to the Eight Provinces.
Pae Kyngjaes song for the Sonnim is unusually rich
in bureaucratic detail, but is certainly not atypical for this
kind of muga. Sonnim kut by the female shaman Pyn
Ynho is of a much later date (1972), but is, in many ways,
very similar.
45
In the introductory part there are refer-
ences to the origin of Heaven and Earth and the legendary
earliest rulers of China in a heavily Sino-Korean style,
very similar to those in Songjo puri. These are freely
mixed with Buddhist references: Maitreya is mentioned
as the creator of Confucianism! When the Sonnim are
introduced, the food of the country where they live is con-
trasted with its clothes. Although the Chinese wear robes
of silk, their food is strange and poor compared to that of
Korea. This induces the Sonnim to go to Korea which, so
they have heard, as well as good food has very beautiful
scenery. In the description of the route the Sonnim take,
there are details that are reminiscent of the passage in the
pansori piece Hngbu ka describing the journey
of the swallows who return from China to Korea in spring.
When they have to cross the Yalu River, a skipper tells
them that all boats but one have been lost in the 1592 Imjin
invasions of the Japanese. After they have managed
the crossing thanks to an invocation to the Buddha, they
do some sightseeing in Pyongyang and Kaesng, before
arriving at the capital Seoul. The remainder of the story
is irrelevant here, but it should be noted that the Sonnim
muga of Pae Kyngjae and Pyn Ynho both present a
distinct view of Korean territory, political unity, history
and culture. Geomantic descriptions of the peninsula, an
important vehicle for the concept of national unity since
at least the Kory period,
46
play a signicant role in the
denition of this space. In general, the muga in both the
early and more recent collections nearly always take care
to situate the ritual for which they are sung in the wider
context of the country as a whole, which is apparently rel-
evant to the realm of ritual, or even essential to it.
CHANNELS AND AGENTS
The question of how certain means of communication
were established between literate and oral culture is too
complex to be dealt with exhaustively in this article, but
at least some of the channels and agents through which
this process took place should be indicated. A crucial
factor is the extent of literacy in Chosn. Unfortunately,
even dening the meaning of this term is difcult. If it
signies a command of written Chinese sufcient to read
the kind of literature prescribed for the state examina-
tions, the number of literate persons was small, but still
much larger than those who actually took the examina-
tions. If literacy is dened as no more than a knowledge
of hangl, the number of literate people vastly increases,
but exact gures are impossible to come by.
47
In prac-
tice, literacy was not an absolute matter, but existed in all
kinds of gradations, from a perfect or somewhat less than
perfect command of Classical Chinese, to the capacity to
understand Chinese with the help of idu ,
48
a knowl-
edge of the basic characters from elementary readers for
children, or just the ability to read and write hangl.
For those who were unable to read Chinese with ease,
bilingual nhae editions of the classics and elemen-
tary readers offered access although it was limited
to Sinitic culture. By the end of the Chosn period, the
quantity and distribution of such literature was consid-
erable.
49
One of the elementary readers was Tongmong
snsp (First lessons for ignorant children),
which in the eighteenth century was published in an
nhae edition at the orders of King Yngjo .
50
Tong-
mong snsp was very widely used, in various forms, both
printed and as a manuscript. In the present context it is
relevant to note that this book contains a brief overview
of Chinese history, beginning with the legendary sover-
45 Choe Chngy & S Taesk, Tonghaean muga, pp. 240-265.
46 Gari Ledyard, Cartography in Korea, in J.B. Harley and David Woodward (eds.), History of Cartography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), vol. 2,
book 2, pp. 235-345.
47 The earliest gures are from the colonial period and suggest very low rates of literacy. Considering the state of late Chosn book culture, I get the impression,
however, that these gures tend to underestimate the actual extent of literacy, probably because they do not sufciently take all possible gradations into
account.
48 A system of writing in which Chinese characters were used to render Korean particles and verbal endings in an effort to Koreanize Chinese texts, much used by
government clerks until the end of the nineteenth century.
49 For a general survey of Chosn book culture, see Boudewijn Walraven, Readers Etiquette, and Other Aspects of Book Culture in Chosn Korea, in Books in
Numbers ed. by Wilt Idema (Cambridge MA: Harvard-Yenching Library, 2007), pp. 237-265.
BOUDEWIJN WALRAVEN DIVINE TERRITORY
53 KOREAN HISTORIES 2.2 2011

of Chinese history, beginning with the legendary sov-
ereigns and emperors, which is not unlike the description
of the same topic in the muga quoted earlier.
51
Tongmong
snsp also provides a short account of Korean history.
It is conceivable, therefore, that its contents were either
read by shamans who had mastered hangl, or transmit-
ted orally to them by persons who possessed only limited
literacy. More likely such material was rst transferred to
performance genres other than the muga, because these,
too, contain similar passages.
To describe cases in which texts that are not of oral ori-
gin are transmitted orally, possibly by performers who
are not illiterate (which disqualies them as oral per-
formers in the strict sense of the Parry-Lord theory of oral
literature), the category of the vocal has been proposed
as an intermediary between the oral and the written.
52
Such vocal literature was of crucial importance for the
propagation of ideas, concepts and images in the diglos-
sic society of Chosn Korea, with its range of degrees of
literacy. In Korea, the concise shijo and more discursive
kasa t perfectly under this rubric and have served as
major channels for the transmission of Chinese culture.
In principle, they were creations of yangban culture,
albeit to a lesser degree in the late Chosn period than in
the early years of the dynasty. They circulated primarily
in vocal form and were, on occasion, consciously used
to reach layers of society who were not literate, at least
not in so far as literacy was understood by the yangban.
To propagate the Confucian message of the sixteen shijo
collectively entitled Hunmin ka (Songs to educate
the people), composed by Chng Chl (1536-1593),
the government had them printed in the seventeenth cen-
tury and sent to the provinces, to be constantly recited by
women and children.
53
From the contents of this publi-
Evidence that shamans were familiar with shijo by the
end of the nineteenth century at the latest is provided by
muga from Seoul which incorporate some of these shijo
in their entirety. Muga from other regions contain at least
traces of shijo.
54
Apart from that there is considerable
overlap between muga and shijo in formulaic phrases. The
same may be said, a fortiori, of kasa. It is no exaggeration
to say that the references to literate Sinitic culture that are
common in the muga can nearly all be found in kasa too,
even though they often appear in a completely different
context.
In some cases, a somewhat closer relationship may
50 Tongmong snsp has been attributed to Pak Semu (1487-1564) and Kim Anguk (1478-1543). The postface to the oldest printed edition,
dated 1543, however, names Min Chein (1493-1549) as the author. There is ample evidence to show that it was frequently reprinted and widely used.
Tongmong snsp nhae, the edition commissioned by Yngjo, was published in 1742, 1748 and 1797. One commercial edition of Tongmong snsp from
1880 added Korean endings to the notes, making it easier to read for those with an imperfect knowledge of Chinese. Another edition was published in 1891.
In several places its printing blocks were kept so that new copies could be made at any time. Cf. Maurice Courant, Bibliographie Corenne: Tableau littraire de
la Core 3 vols. with supplement (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1894-1901), nrs. 12 and 13; Fang, Chaoying, The Asami Library: a Descriptive Catalogue (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1969), p; 209; Kim Tujong , Hanguk ko-inswae kisul sa (Seoul: Tamgudang, 1981), pp. 240, 372, 457
and 459; Maema Kysaku , Hanguk panbonhak (Korean annot ated edition, prepared by An Chungn , of Chsen no hanpon
. Seoul: Pmusa, 1985), pp. 69-70. For online access to an nhae version of the book, see: http://yoksa.aks.ac.kr/jsp/aa/ImageView.jsp?aa10up=kh2_
je_a_vsu_A10D^26_000&aa10no=kh2_je_a_vsu_A10D^26_001 [accessed 20 November 2010].
51 Pak Semu (oe ), Tongmong snsp (oe), with transl. by Yi Skho (Seoul: Ury munhwasa, 1974), pp. 42-73.
52 Barbara Ruch, Medieval Jongleurs and the Making of a National Literature, in John Whitney Hall and Toyoda Takeshi (eds.), Japan in the Muromachi Age
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), pp. 286-287.
53 They were also referred to as Kwnmin ka (Songs to encourage the people [to behave properly]). Cf. Dieter Eikemeier, Da Man die Frauen und Kinder
in den Drfern Veranlat sie Stndig zu Rezitieren, in Dieter Eikemeier et al. (eds.), Chen-yeh chi (Tbingen: Attempto, 1982), pp. 31-53. For a reection on
the boundaries and connections between Chinese and vernacular literature, it is interesting to note that in the nineteenth century Song Talsu translated
the Hunmin ka into Chinese; ibid. p. 45.
54 Walraven, Songs of the Shaman, pp. 116-117.
Tongmong snsp (see footnote 50 for more details)
BOUDEWIJN WALRAVEN DIVINE TERRITORY
54 KOREAN HISTORIES 2.2 2011
be detected between kasa and muga, although their exact
connection is hard to dene. The initial lines of the Thou-
sand Character Text, for instance, which have been men-
tioned above as appearing in a muga, also appear as the
opening lines of the anonymous kasa Oksl hwadap ka
, which must have been written before 1828.
55
This kasa also contains geomantic descriptions of China
and Korea and references to Chinese and Korean history
that are very similar to passages found in many shaman
songs.
The kasa Myngdang ka , which is of uncer-
tain date but belongs to the late Chosn period, contains
a description of a geomantically auspicious home (which
ultimately derives its force from Paektusan,
56
the ances-
tor of all Korean mountains).
57
Such geomantic descrip-
tions constitute a theme that is frequently found in muga,
but is not shamanic in origin. Geomancy was a separate
system of belief, potentially at odds with shamanism,
which was introduced from China in the late Shilla period.
Only when it had become too inuential to ignore must it
have intruded into the world of the muga. In Myngdang
ka there are also several references to Chinese tradition
or Confucian customs that cannot be explained as being
of purely shamanic origin. The kasa speaks, for instance,
of the wealth of Shi Chong , the hundred children
of Guo Fenyang , and functionaries of the Con-
fucian local compacts (hyangyak ). All this makes it
unlikely that Myngdang ka is a literary elaboration
of a shaman song. It is quite plausible, on the other hand,
that the geomantic descriptions found so frequently in
muga are derived in their entirety from geomantic kasa
like Myng dang ka.
In this connection, Shin Chaehyos Kos is of inter-
est. As its alternative name Myngdang chugwn
suggests, it is very similar in content to Myngdang
ka, but references to the superior geomantic quali-
ties of the Kyngbok Palace suggest a connection
with the rebuilding of this palace, which was completed
in 1869. This is corroborated by Shins Syngjyo ka,
which appears to have been written for performance by
his protge Chin Chaesn at a banquet held to
celebrate the reconstruction of Kyngbok Palace. Shin
adapted ritual texts, such as the mudang might sing, to suit
his own purposes. On the other hand, later muga for the
house god also refer to the rebuilding of the Kyngbok
Palace and seem, directly or indirectly, to be inuenced
by Sin Chaehyos version.
58
Another kasa that should be considered here is Antaek
ka ,
59
which is, again, of uncertain date. Antaek
was the name of a ritual that was performed by pansu
60

or mudang to obtain the blessing of a peaceful house-
hold. One may assume that the kasa Antaek ka, which is
replete with references to Chinese history and Confucian
sages, is a sinied version of a song sung during such ritu-
als. Possibly the sinitic elements were added in the milieu
of the pansu, who were men and therefore somewhat
more acceptable to the yangban elite than the mudang. It
is also possible that learned allusions were inserted when
the text came to be sung for entertainment rather than for
ritual purposes. In any case it is quite likely, however, that
the more elaborate, sinied versions again inuenced the
songs sung by the pansu and mudang, which in general
also display features associated with elite culture.
Pansori is another possible channel through which ele-
ments from elite culture may have entered the muga. The
Hogu nojnggi mentioned earlier, for instance, contains
quite an explicit reference to the pansori libretto Hngbu
ka. Pansori itself may have grown out of the narrative
songs of the shamans,
61
but if so the latter inuenced
the manner of singing rather than the content of the
songs. On the whole the formulaic phrases and themes
shared by pansori and muga are of such a nature that it
is much more plausible that they entered the muga from
the pansori than the other way around. A good example
is one of the hdu ka (relatively short songs for
pansori singers to loosen their voices) written by Sin
Chaehyo. Sometimes referred to as Yktae ka ,
it presents an overview of Chinese and Korean history of
55 Kim Sngbae et Al., Kasa munhak chnjip (Seoul: Chngynsa, 1961), pp. 556-561; B.C.A. Walraven, Chnjamun-ro poa-on Hanguk
kasa , Kug kungmunhak XCIII (Seoul, 1984), pp. 459-472.
56 Gari Ledyard says of Mt. Paektu that from the Kory period it functioned as a spiritual power plant that sent potent legitimating forces coursing through Koreas
veins; see his Cartography in Korea, p. 278.
57 Kim Sngbae et al., Kasa munhak chnjip, pp. 298-300.
58 Walraven, Songs of the Shaman, pp. 152, 173-174
59 Kim Sngbae et al., Kasa munhak chnjip, pp. 311-316.
60 The male pansu carried out rituals for purposes that were similar to those performed by the mudang, but they were more likely to exorcize spirits, whereas the
for the most part female shamans tended to adopt a more respectful manner, begging and cajoling the spirit world.
61 Marshall R. Pihl, The Korean Singer of Tales (Cambridge, Mass.: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1994), pp. 60-63.
55 KOREAN HISTORIES 2.2 2011
the kind one also nds in simplied form in the shaman
songs.
62
The genres mentioned above could not function as
channels for the transmission of elements of literate cul-
ture without human agency. The clerks in administra-
tive ofces, both in the capital and in the provinces, were
instances of the diffusion of elite culture, and they undoubt-
edly contributed to its further dissemination. Some mem-
bers of their class, for example, became involved in the
publication of books. In spite of their literacy and aspira-
tions to upward mobility, however, they held on to the
corporate worship of deities venerated by the shamans,
which their yangban superiors regarded with a wary eye.
63

They were also in regular contact with people who were
directly related to the vocal genres mentioned above. In
the eighteenth century, Kim Chntaek and Kim
Sujang , both non-yangban government employ-
ees, established a reputation as singers and anthologists
of shijo. In general, the clerks who worked in government
ofces had the opportunity to get to know the musicians
and other performing artists (kwangdae ) who were
called upon to perform at ofcial functions and who, in
turn, were often married to mudang.
64
Kwangdae were also
called upon in certain places to perform the small ritu-
als referred to as kosa
65
and they played a pivotal role in
the creation of pansori, a genre which in itself fused elite
and popular culture. How close the kwangdae were to the
mudang may be inferred from the use of the term mubu
, shamans husband as an alternative appellation for
the performing artists who worked for the government.
66

The existence of ties between shamans and kwangdae is
illustrated by some lines from the Changbu kri ,
a ritual sequence devoted to the deied spirits of kwang-
dae. In a muga sung in Seoul during this sequence the
early-nineteenth-century pansori singer Mo Hnggap
is mentioned as the Urvater of all kwangdae.
67
The
parallelism in the lines of this song clearly expresses the
close relationship between mudang and kwangdae:

The great ancestors of the mudang are Ahwang and
Yyng ,
68
the great ancestor of the kwangdae is Mun [= Mo]
Hnggap.
Kim Hnsn has suggested that the text of the
Changbu kri was originally used by the kwangdae for
kosa that they themselves used to perform, as well as by
other artists of the Chosn period, such as the itinerant
namsadang or kllippae .
69
On the basis of
details in the text he argues convincingly that the muga
is probably based on a particular form of kosa the kwang-
dae performed for the yangban who had passed the state
examinations.
70
If this is true, it is important to remember
that in the end such texts were used for all kinds of sha-
manic rituals and had a much wider audience than that
for which they were originally intended.
Kisaeng , too, were part of the chain that linked
elite culture to other strata of the population. They are
known as performers of both shijo and kasa in general,
and more specically there are records of kisaeng chant-
ing the Confucian classic of The Great Learning (in Andong
), Chng Chls kasa Kwandong pylgok
(in the Kwandong area and Seoul) and the eulogy of
the ancestors of the royal family, Yongbichn ka
(in Ynghng , the ancestral abode of the Yi
monarchs).
71
They stood in frequent contact with the
yangban, but were often related through blood ties to sha-
mans and kwangdae.
72
Because they were in the employ-
ment of the government, they were, moreover, in regular
contact with the government clerks, for whom they were
potential wives.
73

Last but not least, we must take into account the possi-
62 Kang Hanyng, Shin Chaehyo pansori sasl chip, pp. 655-657.
63 Walraven, Popular Religion in a Confucianized Society, pp. 178-179.
64 Walraven, Songs of the Shaman, p. 105-107.
65 Son Taedo , Kwangdae i kachang munhwa (Seoul: Chimmundang, 2003), pp. 156-179.
66 The mubu were united in local associations, which seem also to have supervised the activities of the mudang; Akamatsu & Akiba, Chsen fuzoku no kenky, vol.
2, pp. 275-296. It should be noted that the statutes of these associations were in Chinese, suggesting a certain command of the language among the mubu.
For a recent study of the connections between mubu or kwangdae and shamans see Son Taedo, Kwangdae i kachang munhwa, in particular Chapter 2.
67 Akamatsu & Akiba, Chsen fuzoku no kenky, vol. 1, p. 110. The text actually says Mun Hnggap, but there is general consensus that this is a corruption of Mo
Hnggap.
68 Ahwang and Yyng are the names of the two wives of the legendary Chinese emperor Shun .
69 These groups were originally afliated to Buddhist temples for which they collected money for reconstruction projects, and the like.
70 Kim Hnsn, Hanguk hwaraengi musok i yksa-wa wlli (Seoul: Chisik sanpsa, 1997), pp. 82-85.
71 Yi Nnghwa , Chosn haehwasa (facsimile of the original 1926 edition; Seoul: Sinhan srim, 1968), pp. 192-194.
72 Walraven, Songs of the Shaman, p. 111.
56 KOREAN HISTORIES 2.2 2011
bility of the existence of a limited number of literate sha-
mans. As spiritual mothers and fathers (shin mni
and shin abji ) of junior shamans they may
have been able to train their disciples to memorize texts
that were more indebted to literate culture than would
have been possible otherwise. In the case of the pansu,
who were blind (like the singer of the Sngjo muga dis-
cussed above), the abundance of literary references may
be explained as due to the training they received from
literate assistants.
The combined efforts of these different social groups
the clerks, kwangdae and other performing artists,
kisaeng, pansu and mudang provided stepping stones,
bridging the divide between the literate and the oral, the
rulers and the ruled.
CONCLUSIONS
In the argument presented above, the emphasis has been
on the movement from elements of elite culture that were
originally rmly linked to the cosmopolitan language
of written Chinese towards the vernacular songs of the
shamans. The use of phrases from Chinese history and
literature in the muga was an effort to appropriate at least
something of the authority of the culture of the dominant
elite. It may also be seen as an attempt to cater to the
taste of the yangban and educated patrons, who in the
privacy of their own quarters continued to sponsor sha-
manic rituals.
74
The very wide diffusion of such phrases in
muga from all over the country suggests, however, that it
was not only to please the more educated clients. At least
by the time the muga were recorded, elements that had
originally been part of elite culture were a major ingredi-
ent of the songs, irrespective of the audience. By then the
muga had turned into a channel for the transmission of
Confucian culture to layers of the population that were far
removed from the centre of power.
At the same time, however, shaman songs turned
into an instrument for the transformation of the culture
they seemed to defer to. They subverted it, because they
did not respect the exclusive, hegemonic claims of the
dominant ideology. In the songs Confucian elements
appear side by side with Buddhist phrases, all within a
shamanic context, and in the nal analysis all borrow-
ings serve the ends of the shamans. A female shaman
from Chungchng Province begins her narrative muga
about the god Chesk (originally the Indian celestial god
Indra) as follows, effortlessly moving from Confucianism
to Buddhism and then to concepts that, in a broad sense,
may be called Daoist:
75
When Heaven was created under the sign of cha
76
the Heavenly Sovereign appeared,
when Earth was created under the sign of chuk
the Terrestrial Sovereign appeared,
when man was created under the sign of in ,
the Human Sovereign appeared.
Taihao Fuxi and Emperor Shennong ,
Yao , Shun, Yu and Tang , Wen and Wu ,
the Duke of Zhou ,
and Confucius revered the Way of the Literati.
At that time the Way of the Buddha was created
and the Tathgata kyamuni, the Buddha Amitbha
and the World-Honoured Three Buddhas appeared.
Then the heavenly ofcial Skchon
77
Chesk
who had been on a mission in heaven
committed an offence in heaven
and [by way of punishment] went down
to the Chancellery [in the world] of Mankind
(Inganchng ).
What we see at work here we may regard as what Michel
de Certeau has called the use made in popular milieus
of the cultures diffused by the elites that produce lan-
guage, which is the revenge that utilizing tactics take on
the power that dominates [cultural] production.
78
There is another, and for the purposes of this article
more important, implication, however. The abundant use
of language and ideas derived from elite culture, which
benetted from the consistent attempts by the govern-
ment to propagate Confucian values among the popula-
tion, was more than just an attempt to share the prestige
of the elite and a ruse to retain other cultural forms that
73 Kim Yongsuk , Hanguk ysoksa (Seoul: Minmsa, 1990), p. 245.
74 Walraven, Popular Religion in a Confucianized Society, and Shamans and Popular Religion Around 1900, in Henrik H. Srensen (ed.), Religions in Traditional
Korea, (SBS Monographs 3; Copenhagen, 1995), pp. 107-130.
75 Kim Yngjin , Chungchngdo muga (Seoul: Hyngsl chulpansa, 1976), p. 244.
76 Cha, and in following lines chuk and in, are the rst three of the Twelve Branches, the zodiacal signs of Rat, Ox and Tiger.
77 Skchon is actually a designation for akyamuni, but here seems to refer to Chesk.
78 Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, transl. by Steven F. Rendall (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), p. 32.
BOUDEWIJN WALRAVEN DIVINE TERRITORY
57 KOREAN HISTORIES 2.2 2011
better tted the daily needs of the dominated. Whether it
intended to do so or not, it also created, or helped to cre-
ate (because there were other factors at work as well), a
common language and a common set of ideas shared by
a very large proportion of the population, which in turn
forged a larger community than the groups constituted by
ties of family, class and locality. Ultimately it may be seen
as contributing to the creation of a national culture and
the nation-state.
The concept of the community of the nation was based
on a Confucian social template, but it is important to
note that, for both the elite and the dominated, this had
been shorn of one characteristic that is thought by some
to have inhibited the emergence of a true national con-
sciousness: the cosmopolitan, universalistic aspect of
Confucianism.
79
High and low conceived of the commu-
nity they lived in as delimited by the Yalu and the Tumen
in the north and by the seas surrounding the peninsula.
80
In this sense, too, Confucian ideology was subverted.
The content of the muga provides concrete evidence for
the creation of a national consciousness in this sense, and
also for its diffusion. The songs of the shamans illustrate
a conception of the world in which their rituals, in them-
selves private and local,
81
are placed in a much wider
and public context, which also, however, has clear lim-
its. With their descriptions of the territory of the nation,
from Paektusan in the north to Hallasan on Cheju Island
in the south,
82
the muga created an imaginary space that
went beyond the actual experience of the participants in
the rituals, but stayed within national boundaries. Both
shamans and clients were depicted as belonging to a
specic territory, which was not the local village or the
private space where the ritual was performed, but Korea
(which even in the twentieth-century versions of the
songs retained many of the characteristics of Chosn)
as a whole. This was done through the frequent repeti-
tion of standard themes such as Mountains and rivers,
Auspicious geomantic location, and Itinerary, which
would give even peasants who had never strayed from
their own hamlet a mental map of the country.
83
This ter-
ritory was, moreover, depicted, through the many muga
passages enumerating successive dynasties and national
capitals, as a historically constituted entity. Sometimes
these passages are historically correct, at other times not,
but in this context their accuracy is irrelevant. The imag-
ining of a community does not depend on valid histori-
cal proof; the act of imagination itself sufces. The muga
also present Korea as a politically unied whole, with a
particular administrative structure and recruiting mech-
anisms for new ofcials, through themes like Govern-
ment posts, Magistrates procession, and Examination
scene. As the lines quoted at the beginning of this article
attest, in the imaginary of the muga the apparatus of this
state was so much respected and central that even gods
are described as going to take the examinations in the
nations capital.
In some passages, Chinese territory and Chinese his-
tory are mentioned as well, but there is always an aware-
ness that Korea is different, even while it shares the same
civilization. Sinitic civilization is an important point of
reference for Little China, but Korea retains its own
identity.
84
In the Sonnim kut muga, the crossing of the
Yalu by the Guests is marked as a crucial moment by the
great difculties the Sonnim have to overcome to reach
the other bank of the river. Other Sonnim songs, from
different Korean regions, also emphasize that Korean
food is different from and better than Chinese food. This
is a typical example of ignoring regional differences in
79 James Palais mentions the inuence of Sung Neo-Confucianism as a major obstacle to the development of national consciousness; see Nationalism: Good
or Bad? in Nationalism and the Construction of Korean Identity, ed. by Hyung Il Pai and Timothy R. Tangherlini (Berkeley: Institute of Asian Studies/Center
for Korean Studies, 1998), pp. 215-216. For some objections against this idea see Duncan, Proto-nationalism in Premodern Korea, p. 210: The modern
depiction of the yangban as hopeless Sinophile toadyists [] seems to me to be a gross simplication of a complex and constantly shifting mentality that often
placed primary emphasis on a distinctly Korean identity.
80 This is obvious when one reads, for instance, kasa or shijo written by the yangban about their trips beyond the border. Crossing the border is invariably a moment
of great emotional signicance. In an account of his exile to a remote island off the southern coast, Yi Sebo (1802-95) expresses relief that although the people
there are hardly civilized, they at least belong to our country (aguk ); Chin Tonghyk , Chusk Yi Sebo shijo chip (Seoul:
Chngmsa, 1985).
81 It is responsiveness to private needs that are not served by general social and political structures that has kept shamans in business over the centuries; cf.
Walraven, Popular Religion in a Confucianized Society, pp. 160-198, and for contemporary society Weavers of Ritual: How Korean Shamans Achieve their
Aims, Review of Korean Studies vol. 5, No. 1 (2002): pp. 85-104.
82 Akamatsu & Akiba, Chsen fuzoku no kenky, vol. 1, p. 257.
83 For a list of the most common themes of this kind, see Walraven, Songs of the Shaman, Appendix III.
84 Similarly, in the Chinese poems written by Koreans during the Kory period constant allusions and overt references to China did not stand in the way of an
already rm sense of Korean identity; Franois Martin, Expression Chinoise et Spcicit Corenne: Quelques Remarques sur le Hansi (Pome Coren en
Langue Chinoise), Cahiers dtudes Corennes 5 (1989): pp. 147-167.
BOUDEWIJN WALRAVEN DIVINE TERRITORY
58 KOREAN HISTORIES 2.2 2011
order to imagine national unity, which characteristically
has to gloss over an abundance of potentially conicting
identities. The fact is that even in the second half of the
twentieth century regional differences in food in Korea
were so pronounced that a taxi driver in Chnju
could assure me that people like him could go to nearby
Kyngsang Province, but it was impossible for them to
stay there overnight, because we cannot eat their food.
Yet, in the muga Korean food is one, and in its imagined
unity, superior to Chinese food.
Thus in the muga one can detect a premodern vernac-
ularly imagined community, a representation of unity
with, I would suggest, the contours of a nation-state. The
fact that this idea of unity, disseminated vocally through
popular rituals, did not depend on developments associ-
ated with modernity such as print capitalism, the factor
Benedict Anderson has seen as crucial to the origin of
national consciousness,
85
should stimulate a question-
ing and rethinking of the use of terms like national con-
sciousness and nation-state and their relation to moder-
nity (a concept whose validity has also been questioned).
This is, of course, not an issue that is only relevant to
Korean history. The common assumption that the rise
of nation-states is a relatively recent phenomenon, and
inseparably linked to the emergence of modernity, has
also been challenged by prominent European mediaeval
historians who advocate the thesis that the formation of
nation-states took place centuries before the advent of
modernity. Recently, a vigorous debate about the mat-
ter in Britain has suggested a cautious rapprochement
between the two positions, which may inspire a rethink-
ing of the problem in the context of other geographical
areas.
86
For Korea, the nationalist tendency of much of
twentieth-century historiography has stood in the way of
a dispassionate examination of the origin of national con-
sciousness, with advocates of a perennial national iden-
tity confronting scholars who reacted by countering any
suggestion that the nation-state, let alone nationalism,
might have predated the nineteenth or twentieth century.
Undoubtedly the radical changes occurring around that
time signicantly changed concepts of Korean identity.
Without a thorough investigation of all relevant factors,
however, there is no reason to believe that Korea, which
in its historical development followed a path different
in many ways from that of European nations, neatly ts
the paradigm that links modernity (in itself a notion that
needs to be questioned
87
) and the nation-state (which
poses problems even when applied to Europe
88
). To men-
tion but one factor, the Confucian vision of the state as
an organic whole in which each group has its own tasks
to full but everyone is part of the wider community, has
the potential to develop into the basis of a nation-state
when this vision comes to be shared by the majority of the
population, which arguably it did in the second half of the
Chosn period.
89
Contrary to what one might expect, the
muga (together with other vernacular vocal genres like
the kasa) reinforced this vision, functioning as a chan-
nel for the diffusion and reproduction of an identity that
transcended the local community.
85 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, Chapter 3.
86 The dialogue between the modernists and their opponents in Len Scales and Oliver Zimmer (eds.) Power and the Nation in European History (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2005) points in the direction of a modication of the viewpoints of both parties and adds considerable nuance to the debate but
is, as the title indicates, completely focused on European history.
87 Cf. Jack Goodys assault on the concept of modernity as a fundamentally European phenomenon, with the Italian Renaissance as the critical moment in the
development of modernity. Goody, Renaissances: The One or the Many (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). For an alternative East-Asian con-
cept of modernity, see Miyajima Hiroshi, The Advent of the Japanese Early Modern Age Within East Asia, Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies vol. 7, 2
(2007), pp. 25-48.
88 The general concept of the nation-state tends to deect attention from important differences between nations. Great Britain and Italy, for instance, are nation-
states in very different ways.
89 Theorists of national consciousness and nationalism tend to see (theoretical) equality as crucial to the emergence of the (modern) nation-state. This assump-
tion, too, should be questioned. Wide-spread political involvement, deemed essential for the nation-state, does not automatically guarantee an absence of
hierarchy; cf. Scales and Zimmer, Power and the Nation in European History, p. 9.