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Religion in ancient Korea is typically classified as “Shamanism.” The oldest literary documents—the accounts found in Chinese dynastic histories—describing the religious and ritual activities of the tribal peoples who would eventually coalesce into the “Korean people,” however, never use the term “shaman” (Kor. mu, Ch. wu) to describe the ritual and religious specialists, and yet they depict many kinds of beliefs and practices that we would call “religious.” This paper problematizes the concepts of shaman and Shamanism as they are deployed in scholarship and provides greater clarity on the nature of ancient Korean religion by describing instead four interrelated categories of practices evident in the literary sources, both Korean and Chinese, and in the archaeological record. These categories are (1) the worship of objects worthy of veneration, (2) ancestor worship and the reverence of founder-kings, (3) calendrical rituals, and (4) the activities of shamans. Many of these categories overlap, but what is important is that the evidence suggests that social elites and tribal and village leaders were responsible to approach the gods and could officiate in rituals for their propitiation: not shamans. Shamans, of course, existed, but there is little evidence to suggest that they ever enjoyed a pre-eminent position in ancient Korean society, unless we say that all tribal and village elites were shamans. Ancient Korean religion is complex, and yet it shares much with other East Asian peoples. While “indigenous Korean religion” is certainly better than “Shamanism” as a descriptive term, it is not readily apparent to non-specialists and ignores the rich academic vocabulary available in the English language. After all, describing the characteristics of ancient Korean religion may be preferable to deploying a single term.

The namsadang represent a professional class of traveling entertainers that flourished during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Korea. With deep roots in ritual practices and itinerant troupe performance culture, the namsadang in many ways served the role of mass entertainment for their rural, pre-modern Korean audiences. These artistic troupes were composed exclusively of males, and during the height of their activity they featured performances of percussion music and dance, bowl spinning, acrobatics, tightrope walking, mask dance, and puppetry. Although the namsadang were mistrusted and despised by the ruling elite, they were largely embraced by the commoner classes who eagerly awaited their visits to the countryside. The namsadang as an institution came to a close in the mid-twentieth century, under the pressures and other contingencies of the Japanese occupation and the Korean War. A revivalist movement, however, took place beginning in the 1950s with the help and concerted efforts of the activist and folklorist Professor Sim Usŏng. His academic and administrative work helped shed light on the poorly documented past of the namsadang, at the same time elevating their status and appreciation among a modern South Korean population. This article provides a critical translation of the first chapter of his seminal book on the topic, Namsadangp’ae yŏn’gu (A study of namsadang troupes). The translator would like to thank the Korea Foundation for a fieldwork grant that helped support the research necessary for this article.

In recent years there has been an on-going detective-like investigation to identify the mysterious musical sources, Korean or foreign, of King Sejong’s great dynastic suites. This paper demonstrates firstly the affinity between the Chinese tune-title (qûpái) Blue Sky Song and King Sejong’s dance tune Hyŏkchŏng, no. 5 in Chŏngdae’ŏp, his martial suite Settling the Great Enterprise, which celebrates the heroic founding of the Chosŏn dynasty. Secondly, it shows the relationship of the dramatic Blue Sky Song, a choral song with a unique formation dance, to the Jurchen Jin dynasty and Daoist ritual. Finally, it reveals underlying sextuple or triple rhythms in this piece and other related songs in King Sejong’s suite. After an introduction on time values, I begin by tracing the background of the assorted elements involved in the construction of King Sejong’s great suite, and finally proceed to its musical analysis and comparison. I would like to thank Dr. Lee Hye-ku of Seoul National and Prof. Kwon Ohsong of Hanyang University for their invaluable support and guidance in the years following 1988, when I began research on King Sejong’s scores.

In this article, I emphasize Korean women’s literary traditions and the social and historical relevance of Korean women’s literature. I trace the emergence of twentieth-century Korean women’s poetry in the context of the Korean women’s movement of the 1920s and 1930s and the more recent developments in the Korean women’s movement from the 1970s to the 1990s. I give attention to Korean feminist poets such as Ch’oe Sŭng-ja, Kim Hye-sun, and Yi Yŏn-ju, who in their works challenge and resist the literary expectations imposed on Korean women poets with their innovative use of language. I argue that their poetry displays critical consciousness of the condition of Korean women in a neocolonial, capitalist, and patriarchal society.

Kim Yŏngha was born in Seoul in 1968 and studied at Yonsei University and the International Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa. He debuted on the literary scene in 1995 with the short story “Kŏul e taehan myŏngsang” (Meditation on a mirror), and is widely acclaimed as one of the best young writers in Korea today, noted for his imaginative story-telling and lively narrative style. His first novel, Na nŭn na rŭl p’agoehal kwŏlli ka itta (1996, I have the right to destroy myself), earned him the Munhaktongne New Writer Award, and in 2004, he was awarded both the Yi Sang Prize for Literature and the Hwang Sunwŏn Prize for Literature for his collection of short stories, Oppa ka torawatta. In addition to fiction, Kim is also the author of many essays and film reviews, the host of a radio program about literature, and most recently, a screenwriter. In “Moving,” first published in 2004, Kim treats the story of a young couple’s move with his characteristic sympathetic irony, touching on issues of class, the com-modification of Korean history, and the questionable nature of the idea of “home.”

James H. Grayson is Professor of Modern Korean Studies at the University of Sheffield, and is the Director of the Centre for Korean Studies there. He is currently President of the British Association for Korean Studies (BAKS), and Vice-President of the Association for Korean Studies in Europe (AKSE). An anthropologist, Professor Grayson is particularly interested in the diffusion of religion, beliefs and ideas across cultural boundaries. Among his monograph publications are Early Buddhism and Christianity in Korea: A Study in the Emplantation of Religion (1985), Myths and Legends from Korea: A Compendium of Ancient and Modern Materials (2001), and Korea, A Religious History: Revised Edition (2002). He has also written numerous articles on the ancient religion in Korea, Korean Christianity, and Korean folklore, which have been published in various journals. Professor Grayson very kindly gave the following interview for Acta Koreana at his office in the School of East Asian Studies at the University of Sheffield on 15 February 2006.