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In the Korean mind, water is laden with mythological primitivism
and symbolism. The Creation Myth, one of Korea's oldest
myths, deals with the origin of water and fire. In the Tan-gun Myth, the oldest
of the foundation myths, Tan-gun's father, Hwanung, descends from heaven to
earth under the Shindansu, a sacred tree on Mt. T'hebaeksan,
accompanied by the god of rain. Whereas the Creation Myth presents water as a
necessity for drinking and cooking, the Foundation Myth presents it as an
agricultural necessity. From ancient times, water was thus characterized as
essential for human life for drinking and farming.
Water plays an even more conspicuous role in the Genesis Myth. It is the
fundamental agent that brought order to the universe after the emergence of heaven
and earth from chaos. According to the Genesis Myth, "Before the
Beginning, heaven and earth were crowded together in the darkness of chaos. As
heaven and earth parted gradually, dewdrops descended from heaven and sprouted
from the earth and with a yin-yang interaction initiated the creation of the
universe.' This myth credits the Creation not to the work of the Creator, but
to the result of a watery interaction. In Korean mythology, water is a leading
agent of creation as well as an essential element, together with fire, for
forging civilization and a basic feature necessary for statecraft.
In Korean mythology, heroines almost always emerge from wells, rivers or the
sea, whereas heroes always descend from heaven or the summit of a mountain. In
the story of Chumong, the founder of the Koguryo Kingdom (37
B.C-A.D. 668), his mother, Lady Yuhwa, is the daughter of Habaek, the god of
the river, and comes to the world out of a pond called Ungshi-myon. Lady
Aryong, the queen of Pak Hyokkose, the founder of the Shilla Kingdom (57
B.C.-A.D. 935), enters the world through the Aryongjong Well, and Yongnyo, who
helped found the Koryo Dynasty (918-1392), is the daughter of Yong-wang, the
dragon king of the West Sea.
The emergence from water of the founder-kings' mothers and queens is indicative
of the ancient belief in the generative powers of water. As the fecundity was
believed to influence the prosperity of the nation, they were portrayed in
myths as the embodiment of the procreative life force of water.
These ladies of the waters bring to mind Mulhalmi (Water Grandma), the goddess
of water. Koreans have long believed in the health benefits of the mineral
water that springs from deep mountains or between rocks and is called yaksu,
literally "medicine water." In some parts of Korea, this
belief has developed into what am only be called a cult-the "yaksu
cult" The object of the cult's veneration is the deity of the spring, the
goddess of water. Commonly known as Mulhalmi, the goddess is believed to be the
prototype of the queens and queen mothers of the water, Until recently, it was
not uncommon to see people praying by candlelight beside a spring or at small
shrines and altars dedicated to the goddess of water. In addition to being a
driving force for the creation of the universe, a guarantor for human life by
filling its drinking and agricultural needs and a symbol of national prosperity
and fertility, water is now an object of worship as the fountain of life.
Cleansing and Exorcising Functions
Mythological recognition of water is clearly exemplified in folk beliefs and
rites. Water plays an important role in the shaman rituals Ssitkim kut and
Pujong kut. The Ssitkim kut is a rite to cleanse the spirit of a dead person of
sins committed in this life so as to help his or her spirit proceed to the
other world The highlight of this kut, which was practiced until recently on
Chindo Island, is the shaman's cleansing of an effigy of the dead thoroughly
with water. During the cleansing, the effigy is brushed from the head downward
with a broom dipped in mugwort water, then incense water and finally clear
water from a valley.
The act is symbolic of cleansing the spirit of the dead rather than literally
cleaning the corpse, which is not present at the scene from the beginning. The
body of the effigy is made from the dead person's clothes rolled up in a rush
mat. A bowl filled with spirit money, which is a long strip of mulberry paper,
is placed on top of the propped-up "body" as its head which is topped
with the lid of a cauldron to serve as a broadrimmed hat. In the Ssitkim kut,
water rinses away the stains of the spirit as well as the body. It is believed
that once the spiritual filth and unrequited sorrows of this world are washed
away, the spirit of the dead person will be able to journey safely to the other
world.
Pujong kut, also known as Pujong kori, is a ritual performed at the beginning
of every shaman kut to cleanse the site and transform it into a sacred place.
The shaman prepares a bowl of pure water before starting the Pujong kori.
Sometimes the shaman puts a piece of charcoal and red peppers in the water, the
former to symbolically purify the water and the latter to ward off evil spirits
The shaman sings and dances and with the bowl or a gourd of water in her hand,
sprinkles the site. Sometimes the shaman expels evil spirits by wielding a
torch of rice stalks over the site. By burning evil spirits and washing away
the impurities of mundane life, the shaman sanctifies the site.
The all-cleansing water serves as a magical vehicle in that it cleanses the
spirit of the dead and the ritual site. Officiants of a village tutelary rite
are also required to bathe to cleanse their bodies and minds. In fact, bathing
is one of the most strictly observed prerequisites for both the shaman and
officiants. For a certain period before the rite, the officiants should take a
bath every morning and night and also after going to the toilet. Although in
some areas the full bathing requirement has been reduced to the washing of hands
and face, the belief that an offician's body should be purified remains strong.
The cleansing of the body is also integral to various rituals stemming from
Confucian tradition. For the ancestral rites on Solnal (New Year's Day),
Ch'usok (Harvest Moon) and memorial days, officiants of all ranks wash their
hands with water in a basin next to the offering table and dry them with a
special handcloth before they dedicate libations to the ancestral spirits. By
the same token, participants in a coming-of-age ceremony should wash their
hands at the command of the master of ceremonies. This type of cleansing
symbolizes that the rite is being held with wholehearted sincerity.
Cleansing as a display of sincerity is very strictly observed in village rites.
Community rites and kut for village tutelary deities are often held in the
middle of winter about the time of the First Full Moon when springs and rivers
are frozen solid Breaking the ice to take a bath in the icy water is no easy
task, but the people selected to be officiants must do so. The bathing cannot
be a cursory gesture; it must be a complete bath done while naked in the middle
of the night at a designated spot Sometimes the wife of an officiant is
required to bathe also as are others who want to participate in the rite at the
sanctified place, for no one is allowed to enter the ritual site without being
cleansed.
By the same token, foods for the offering table should also be purified.
Therefore, a well is designated and protected in advance for drawing water
needed to make the food offerings. The well is cleaned about three days before
the First Full Moon and closed to the public with a taboo rope. Only the
persons responsible for preparing the food offerings can use the well and then
only for water to brew liquor, make rice cakes, and clean and cook the various
foods. In this way, the foods become purified. The well is returned to public
use the day after the village rite, but all the villagers must first eat the
food offerings and dedicate a resounding kut to the well with songs and dances
before removing the taboo rope.
Offering to Gods and Sacred Symbol
Sometimes water itself is used as an offering. Chonghwasu (essence of the
well), the first water drawn from the well in early morning, is dedicated to
Chowang, the kitchen god, or Ch'ilsongshin, the Seven Star Spirit Early every
morning, a good housewife fills a bowl with the first-drawn water and offers it
to the gods along with prayers for her family.
Chowang is believed to protect the family from disease, make food taste better
and prevent a house from catching fire Some people believe that Chowang
prevents accidents and guarantees a long life. The tangible symbol of Chowang
is the bowl of water, which women keep at the center of the kitchen range. In
the belief that Chowang is especially benevolent to the first person to make a
water offering in the morning, village women compete to be the first to draw
water from the community well. The competition becomes quite intense the
morning after the community rite held on the First Full Moon, with some women
staying up through the night to wait for the officiants to return from the
rite, because it is commonly believed that the family of the first person to
draw water from the well will have a bumper harvest in the coming year.
Ch'ilsong-shin, the Seven Star Spirit, whose embodiment is the Big Dipper,
controls the life span of humans and is generally venerated at a small stone
altar in the kitchen garden or on the chang-doktae, "sauce jar
terrace." Ch'ilsong-shin is popular among women because it is also
believed to govern both the birth of children and longevity. The kitchen garden
with the Ch'ilsong altar is usually to the north of the house where it is easy
to see the Big Dipper. Whereas Chowang is worshipped at dawn, Ch'ilsong-shin is
venerated late in the evening when the constellation appears. After dinner, a
woman combs her hair and composes herself before she dedicates a bowl of clean
water at the altar and makes supplications. The prayers of young women for a
baby and the prayers of mothers who are seeking blessings for their children
are transmitted to the Seven Star Spirit through the bowl of water.
Chonghwasu water is the purest offering and the easiest to prepare on a daily
basis. Water is also on hand for critical, urgent situations such as
childbirth, at which time a bowl of water is offered to Samshin, the goddess of
childbirth, for a safe delivery. Any other offering would be untenable because
of the urgency of the situation. When childbirth is over and the miyokkuk, a
seaweed soup women are traditionally fed after childbirth, is made, a bowl of
rice and soup is offered to Samshin in gratitude for a safe delivery. The
chonghwasu water is thus the humblest and the most common offering.
Chonghwasu is used in many rites. When a baby is ill, Samshin is invoked with a
bowl of water. When a misfortune befalls a family because some earthmoving work
was done improperly or a household item was moved to an inauspicious place, a
water bowl is placed on the spot in question, and prayers are offered to cancel
the misfortune. The water bowl also makes its way to the altar of the village
rite. The officiants go to the Sanshin (Mountain Spirit) Shrine, draw three
bowls of water from the sacred well, and take a bath before cooking the rice
and offerings for the rite. Shamans also dedicate a bowl of water at the altars
set up in their houses. The first thing a shaman does in the morning is to
greet her own guardian spirit with a bowl of chonghwasu. As she presents the
water, she prays to the guardian spirit to bestow on her magical powers and
help her perform the kut. She does this every day.
When a village well is deified and becomes the object of a kut, water is more
than an offering-it is a deity that deserves veneration. During the Three
Kingdoms period (1st century B.C.-AD. 7th century), big mountains, rivers and
the seas, the home of the dragon king, were honored with rites organized by the
royal court. In farming areas, a stream flowing toward a village was venerated
with a kut called Sugu magi (Blocking the Watergate), while fishermen held a
rite to honor Yongwang, the dragon king. These rites were held annually in
addition to the village rite held on the First Full Moon. However, there were
also rites held at special times such as during a drought Because dragons were
believed to be responsible for rain, rites were held to pray for rain at a deep
pond, river or by the sea where a dragon was thought to live, and sometimes the
king himself led the rite.
Much as the water springing from the earth sustains human life by providing
drinking water, rain allows plants to grow. People could not live if wells
dried up and rain ceased to fall. This is why a well is deified and venerated
with a kut for abundant water and why rivers and seas are prayed to for rain.
Water has fertility in itself. The water in natural springs and community wells
never dries up or diminishes despite everyday use, always returning to a
certain level. Water has the ability not only to sustain all living creatures
including humans but to generate and procreate. Like the moon, which with its
eternal cycle of waxing and waning is regarded as a symbol of procreation,
water is regarded as a symbol of procreation because of its self -generating
ability and power to cleanse impurities and revive creatures on the verge of
death.
Water Rites for Fertility
Water was the driving force for the creation of the universe and is now the
sustainer of human life. It is thus sometimes personified as Mulhalmi and as a
dragon living in deep waters at other times. The dragon is the god of waters
and seas, responsible for rain, and thus the object of veneration in
rain-supplicating rites. It is also the god of farming who decides the success
of a harvest. Whether it is understood as a fisherman's sea god or a farmer's
god of the harvest, the dragon is venerated for its ability to secure a bumper
harvest, both from the sea and from the land. A kut for Yongwang is always
included in community rites in fishing villages. In farming areas, a kut called
Yongwang mogigi (Feeding the Dragon King) is held in summer.
Farmers make simple food offerings on the ridges of paddies and pray for a
bumper harvest on Ch'obok, the first of the three hottest days of summer. This
rite to offer food to the dragon king overseeing the harvest is sometimes
called Yongje (Dragon Rite). In Kyongsangbuk-do province, Yongje begins with a
farmer propping up a pine branch in the middle of his paddies on Ch'obok. Once
propped up, the branch is called yongshindae (dragon god's pole). Farmers heap
rice cakes and money on top of the yongshindae and pray for their rice plants
to bear plentiful grain and ripen well and fast Yongje is also held in dry
fields but the food offerings" include noodles, not rice cakes, because
the rite is to pray for the watermelon, melon, cucumber and pumpkin vines to
grow as long as noodles.
Yongwangje is held with much greater variety in fishing villages. According to
the Tongkyong chapki (Eastern Capital Miscellany) of the 17th century, people
wrapped cooked rice in paper and threw it into their wells on the First Full
Moon as part of Yongwangje. Until recently, fishermen in Ch'ungchongbuk-do
province held Yongwangje on their boats or ferries and women held Yongwangje by
a stream or a well. For a Yongwangje by the well inside a residential compound,
the well is cleaned the day before the First Full Moon. The housewife takes a
bath in the middle of the night, places' a candle and a bowl of chonghwasu on a
small table, and makes deep bows while praying for the well-being and good
fortune of her family. The chonghwasu is sometimes supplemented with cooked
rice and seaweed soup. If there is no well in a woman's house, she will hold
the rite at the village well. Wells and rivers are believed to be the home of
the farming god who guarantees abundance.
When it is identified as Mulhalmi, the medicinal water yaksu is revered because
it has the life force and symbolizes abundance. The name yaksu signifies the
water's reputed healing powers If the dragon king is venerated beside a yaksu
spring, the water is seen as the embodiment of Yongwang, the water god In some
places, on the night of the First Full Moon, the reflection of the moon on
water is said to be a dragon's egg and it is believed that a barren woman will
conceive if she drinks the water. Women thus go to the well early in the
morning of the First Full Moon to "scoop up the dragon egg." This is
reminiscent of the legend about the birth of Pomil, the hero of the Kangnung
Tano Kut Festival, who was conceived when his virgin mother drank up the sun
that was floating on the water. According to the legend, the child possessed
extraordinary talents from birth, and grew up to do great things to defend his
country. He became the mountain spirit of Taegwallyong after his death. In this
story and other similar ones, water works together with the moon and the sun to
create life.
The Magic of Rainmaking Rites
Water plays a critical role in the sprouting and growing of seeds and in human
childbearing. Water plays the role of the male semen in the myths in which
virgins are impregnated by spring water. A shaman myth of Chejudo Island tells
of a thirsty goddess who drank water pooled in the footsteps of a pig on Mt.
Hallasan and became pregnant.
Water is not only life-giving but also life-restoring. For a person dying of
thirst, water is the fountain of life. Water also restores crops after a
drought. The concept of medicinal water having the power to heal is stretched
to the extent that it can revive the dead in some legends. Whereas the potency
of medicinal water is so widely accepted that women pray to it to be blessed
with children, nobody believes it will revive a dead person. The water of life
that revives the dead is a different thing. Although medicinal water is
ubiquitous in deep valleys, the water of life is not found in this world for it
belongs to the other world.
The myth of Princess Pari (pari is a vernacular form of porin,
"abandoned") which is sung during the Ogu kut, a shaman rite to guide
the spirit of the dead to the other world, is about an abandoned daughter who
searches for the water of life to revive her dead parents:
Once upon a time, there was a king whose queen gave birth to daughter after
daughter. The king's patience snapped when the queen delivered their seventh
daughter, and he ordered his men to discard the baby. The men left the baby by
a desolate riverside, but she did not die because birds and animals protected
her until a childless old couple found her and raised her as their child. Years
later, the king and queen fell ill and died. The daughter they had abandoned
came home at that moment and, after much difficulty, brought the water of life
from the other world She returned to this world just as the Catafalque bearing
her parents' bodies was leaving the palace. She dripped the water of life
between her parents' lips and they came back to life. Princess Pari later
became a shaman goddess.
This tale is chanted during the Ogu kut in the hope that the dead will be
revived in the other world. Prayers express the hope that the deceased be
allowed to forget the sufferings of this life and enjoy a new, spiritual life
in the other world.
The belief in the water of life is related with geomancy. Called p'ungsu,
"wind and water," in Korean, geomancy is a divination method used to
select a site that is safe from wind and has abundant water. Water sought
through geomancy is not limited to rivers, streams and oceans, but also
includes that which flows deep underground. Many people believe that the sire
of a house or a grave should be selected by giving careful consideration to the
flow of water both over and under the ground if the family of the deceased is
to prosper and have good descendants. Water affects nor only the living but
also the dead buried in the ground and, as such, control the luck of the
descendants of the dead.
Critical to the survival of all living creatures and believed to have the
ability to revive the dead, water is an object of diverse rites. There is the
Saem kut (spring rite) to supplicate for a spring to be bountiful in water and
rites to pray for rain held during a drought. In an agricultural society,
Kiuje, the rite to supplicate for rain, is a serious affair because the sprouting
and growing of everything depends on mill, the result of the interaction of
heaven and earth. Since the supplication for rain is not for the benefit of a
particular individual but for the prosperity of the whole community, the Kiuje
is a public event. In fact, prayers for adequate rain and wind are included in
all community rites, not just the Kiuje. Because the well-being of an
agricultural community depends on the right amount of rain, the head of the
village, or in some cases the king acting on behalf of the whole country,
participated in the rite as an officiant in times of severe drought.
Legends about Kiuje abound. An official burned his arm as a sacrifice when rain
did not fall even after a Kiuje rite, and a king was about to throw himself
into a fire when rain began to fall. The reason the government officials and
kings willingly risked their lives for rain was because the extent of rain was
indicative of their ability to rule.
The rite for rain was often held by a spring that never dried up in drought, an
idea inspired by sympathetic magic. Other examples of sympathetic magic are
simulations of rainfall by having women climb up a mountain and urinate
together at the summit or wear rain hats and spray water over them. Not all
rites for rain relied on sympathetic magic, however. For exam pie, in some
cases, a dog was killed and its blood sprinkled over a sacred altar in the hope
that the god would send rain to wash away the repulsive stains. A pond w here a
dragon was thought to live might be drained or a hill or rock where a dragon
lived might be set on fire to threaten the dragon into making it rain to save
its life. This type of rainmaking rite is based on the belief that the dragon
is responsible for rainfall, and the tradition is very much alive today.
The diversity of the rainmaking rites and the fact that the kings of ancient
states were rainmakers or officiants of rainmaking rites are indicative of the
extent to which water was valued in human life from the mythological age. Folk
beliefs in medicinal water, water of life and geomancy are graphic examples of
the deep reverence people had for water.
When water was revered as a cleansing and healing medium and the sacred
sustainer of life, water pollution was not a source of concern. However, if one
discredits the life-restoring ability of water and disregards it as nothing but
Hi), water will become not only polluted but a life-threatening poison.
Perhaps, it is time to revive the tradition of worshipping water.
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