I am not at present in possession of evidence to show this in the Corea itself (almost totally unknown and unexplored), but in the island of Formosa the same mode of burial is observed, only that among the Formosans other customs are added, which remind one of the commemorative customs of the Mandans.
“Their (Mandan) dead, partially embalmed, are tightly wrapped in buffalo hides softened with glue and water, and placed on slight scaffolds, above the reach of animals or human hands, each body having its separate scaffold.”
The Mandan dance was round “the big canoe,” and a part of their ceremony on the roof of their wigwams.
Among the Opischeschaht Indians (vide Field, Oct. 2, 1869) there was a dance which they called “the roof dance.” “While the dance and song were going on below, leaped up and down between the roof-board, pushed aside for that purpose, making a noise like thunder.... After the dance was finished an old Seshaaht came forward, and remarked, that as it was a dance peculiar to his tribe it could not be omitted,” though “very injurious to the roof.”
Ogilby’s Japan, p. 52.
“The manner of disposing of their (Formosans’) dead and funeral obsequies is thus: When any one dies, the corpse being laid out, after twenty-four hours they elevate it upon a convenient scaffold or stage, four feet high, matted with reeds and rushes, near which they make a fire, so that the corpse may dry by degrees.... They drink intoxicating liquors. One beats on a drum made like a chest, but longer and broader, and turning the bottom upwards; the women get up, and two by two, back to back, move their legs and arms in a dancing time and measure, which pace, or taboring tread, sends a kind of murmuring or doleful sound from the hollow tree.”
N.B.—Their boats were constructed by hollowing out a tree (vide Catlin’s “Last Rambles,” p. 99).[227]
Now, compare with the above, and also with the extracts from Burton and Catlin, at [p. 254], remembering the prominence of the ox or bull (the ox and bull dance) in the Mandan customs, and the connection of the bull with Nin or Ninip, [p. 200], [203], and other mythological figures of which I believe Noah to have been the antitype. The following description of the most curious traditional representation in Japan (Ogilby, p. 279):—
“Moreover, besides the ox temple in Meaco, there is also to be seen the stately chapel dedicated to the Creator of all things (the ox in the above-mentioned temple is represented as breaking the mundane egg, vide supra, [p. 257]), who is represented in a very strange manner. In the middle of the temple is a great pot full of water surrounded with a wall, seven feet high from the ground, in the middle of which appears an exceeding great tortoise, whose shell, feet, and head stands in the water; out of its back rises the body of a great tree, on the top of which sits a strange and horrible figure” ... [then follows a good deal which has its explanation, but must be curtailed] ... “the image hath four arms” ... in one “the hand grasps a cruse, from whence water issues continually; the other hand holds a sceptre.... The tree whereon he sits is of brass, ... about the middle of this tree an exceeding great serpent hath wreathed itself twice, whose head and body is on the right side held fast by two horrible shapes, the remaining part thereof to the tail, two kings and one of Japan sages stretch forth” [evidently representing the contending influences (as in Mandan dance), one of the kings having the duplicated Janus head, supra, [p. 220].][228]