The dæmons whose professed servants the Shamans are, and whose yoke lies heavy on Korea, are rarely even mythical beings, who might possibly have existed in human shape. They are legion. They dwell in all matter and pervade all space. They are a horde without organization, destitute of genus, species, and classification, created out of Korean superstitions, debased Buddhism, and Chinese mythical legend. There have been no native attempts at their arrangement, and whatever has been done in this direction is due to the labors of Mr. G. H. Jones and Dr. Landis, from whose lists a few may be chosen as specimens.
The O-bang-chang-kun are five, and some of the more important preside over East Heaven, South, West, North, and Middle. In Shaman’s houses shrines are frequently erected to them, bearing their collective name to which worship is paid. They are held in high honor and are prominent in Pan-su rites. At the entrance of many villages on the south branch of the Han the villagers represent them by posts with tops rudely carved into hideous caricatures of humanity, which are ofttimes decorated with straw tassels, and receive offerings of rice and fruit as village protectors.
The Shin-chang are dæmon generals said to number 80,000, each one at the head of a dæmon host. They fill the earth and air, and are specially associated with the Pan-su, who are capable of summoning them by magic formulæ to aid in divination and exorcism. Shrines to single members of this militant host occur frequently in Central Korea, each one containing a highly-colored daub of a gigantic mediæval warrior, and the words, “I, the Spirit—dwell in this place.”
The Tok-gabi are the most dreaded and detested, as well as the best known of all the dæmon horde. Yet they seem nondescripts, and careful and patient examination has only succeeded in relegating them to the class of such myths as the Will o’ the Wisp, and Jack o’ Lantern, elevated, however, in Korea to the status of genuine devils with fetishes of their own. They are regarded as having human originals in the souls of those who have come to sudden or violent ends. They are bred on execution grounds and battlefields, and wherever men perish in numbers. They go in overwhelming legions, and not only dwell in empty houses but in inhabited villages, terrifying the inhabitants. They it was who, by taking possession of the fine Audience Hall of the Mulberry Palace in Seoul, rendered the buildings untenable, frightful tales being told and believed of nocturnal dæmon orgies amidst those doleful splendors. People leave their houses and build new ones because of them. Their fetishes may be such things as a mapu’s hat or the cloak of a yamen clerk, rotten with age and dirt, enshrined under a small straw booth. Besides the devilry attributed to the Tok-gabi they are accused of many pranks, such as placing the covers of iron pots inside them, and pounding doors and windows all night, till it seems as if they would be smashed, yet leaving no trace of their work.
The actually unclean spirits, the Sagem, the criminal class of the vast “Dæmoneon,” infest Korean life like vermin, wandering about embracing every opportunity of hurting and molesting man. Against these both Pan-su and mu-tang wage continual war by their enchantments, the Pan-su by their exorcisms, either driving them off or catching them and burying them in disgrace, while the mu-tang propitiate them and send them off in honor.
Another great group of dæmons is the San-Shin Ryöng—the spirits of the mountains. I found their shrines in all the hilly country, along both branches of the Han, by springs and streams, and specially under the shade of big trees, and on ampelopsis covered rocks, a flat rock being a specially appropriate site from its suitability for an altar, and thus specially “fortunate.” The dæmon who is the tutelary spirit of ginseng, the most valuable export of Korea, is greatly honored. So also is the patron dæmon of deer hunters, who is invariably represented in his shrine as a fierce looking elderly man in official dress riding a tiger. Surrounding him are altars to his harem, and there are also female dæmons, mountain spirits, who are pictured as women, frequently Japanese.
The tiger which abounds in Central and Northern Korea is understood to be the confidential servant of these mountain dæmons, and when he commits depredations, the people, believing the dæmon of the vicinity to be angry, hurry with offerings to his nearest shrine. The Koreans consider it a good omen when they see in their dreams the mountain dæmon, either as represented in his shrine, or under the form of his representative, the tiger. These mountain dæmons are specially sought by recluses, and people ofttimes retire into solitary mountain glens, where by bathing, fasting, and offerings they strive to gain their favor. These spirits, believed to be very powerful, are much feared by farmers, and by villagers living near high mountains. They think that if when they are out on the hillsides cutting wood they forgot to cast the first spoonful of rice from the bowl to the dæmon, they will be punished by a severe fall or cut, or some other accident. These spirits are capricious and exacting, and for every little neglect take vengeance on the members of a farmer’s household or on his crops or cattle.
The Long-shin, or Dragon dæmons, are water spirits. They have no shrines, but the Shamans conduct a somewhat expensive ceremony by the sea and riversides in which they present them with offerings for the repose of the souls of drowned persons.
The phase of Dæmonolatry which is the most common and the first to arrest a traveller’s attention is also the most obscure. The Söng Whoang Dan (altar of the Holy Prince), the great Korean altar, rudely built of loose stones under the shade of a tree, from the branches of which are suspended such worthless ex votos as strips of paper, rags, small bags of rice, old clouts, and worn-out shoes, look less like an altar than a decaying cairn of large size.[58] A peculiarity of the Söng Whoang Dan is that they are generally supposed to be frequented by various dæmons, though occasionally they are crowned by a shrine to a single spirit. Korean travellers make their special plea to a travellers’ dæmon who is supposed to be found there, and hang up strips of their goods in the overhanging branches, and the sailor likewise regards the altar as the shrine of his guardian dæmon, and bestows a bit of old rope upon it. Further than this, when some special bird or beast has destroyed insects injurious to agriculture, the people erect a shrine to it on these altars or cairns, on which may frequently be seen the rude daub of a bird or animal.
Two spirits, the To-ti-chi Shin and the Chon-Shin, are regarded as local dæmons, and occupy spots on the mountain sides. They receive worship at funerals, and a sacrifice similar to that offered in ancestral worship is made to them before the body is laid in the earth. Two Shamans preside over this, and one of them intones a ritual belonging to the occasion. The shrine of Chon-Shin is a local temple, a small decayed erection usually found outside villages. In Seoul he has a mud or plaster shrine in which his picture is enshrined with much ceremony, but in the country his fetish is usually a straw booth set up over a pair of old shoes under a tree. For the observances connected with him all the residents in a neighborhood are taxed. He may be regarded as the chief dæmon in every district, and it is in his honor that the mu-tang celebrate the triennial festival formerly described.