Corea: The Hermit Nation

by William Elliot Griffis

Only men above the third rank are allowed to put on silk. Petty officials must wear cotton. Merchants and farmers may not imitate official robes, but don tighter or more economical coats and trowsers. A common term for officials is “blue clouds,” in reference to their blue-tinted garments. To their assistants, the people apply the nickname, not sarcastic, but honorable, of “crooked backs,” because they always bend low in talking to their employers.

The magistrates lay great stress on the trifles of etiquette, and keep up an immense amount of fuss and pomp to sustain their dignity, in order to awe the common folks. Whenever they move abroad, their servants cry out “chii-wa,” “chii-wa,” “get down off your horse,” “get down off your horse,” to riders in sight. The Il-san, or large banner or standard in the form of an umbrella, is borne at the head of the line. To attempt to cross one of their processions is to be seized and punished, and anyone refusing to dismount, or who is slow about slipping off his horse, is at once arrested, to be beaten or mulcted. When permission is given to kill an ox, the head, hide, and feet usually become the perquisites of the magistrate or his minions. The exuberant vocabulary in Corean, for the various taxes, fines, mulcts, and squeezes of the understrappers of the magistrate, in gross and in detail, chief and supplementary, testify to the rigors and expenses of being governed in Chō-sen.

Overreaching magistrates, through whose injustice the people are goaded into rebellion, are sometimes punished. It seems that one of the penalties in ancient times was that the culpable official should be boiled in oil. Now, however, the condemned man is exiled, and only rarely put to death, while a commutation of justice[[233]]—equivalent to being burned in effigy—is made by a pretended boiling in oil. Good and upright magistrates are often remembered by mok-pi, or inscribed columns of wood, erected on the public road by the grateful people. In many instances, this testimonial takes the form of sculptured stone. A number of the public highways are thus adorned. These, with the tol-pi, or monumental bourne, which marks distances or points out the paths to places of resort, are interesting features of travel in the peninsula, and more pleasant to the horseman than the posts near temples and offices on which one may read “Dismount.” At the funeral of great dignitaries of the realm, a life-sized figure of a horse, made of bamboo, dragged before the coffin, is burned along with the clothes of the deceased, and the ashes laid beside his remains.

As the magistrates are literary men, their official residences often receive poetic or suggestive names, which, in most cases, reflect the natural scenery surrounding them. “Little Flowery House,” “Rising Cloud,” “Sun-greeting,” “Sheet of Resplendent Water,” “Water-that-slides-as-straight-as-a-sword Dwelling,” “Gate of Lapis-lazuli,” “Mansion near the Whirlpool,” are some of these names, while, into the composition of others, the Morning-star, the Heaven-touching, the Cave-spirit, and the Changing-cloud Mountain, or the Falling-snow Cataract may enter. Passionately fond of nature, the Corean gentleman will erect a tablet in praise of the scenery that charms his eye. One such reads, “The beauty of its rivers, and of its mountains, make this district the first in the country.”

If, as the French say, “Paris is France,” then Seoul is Corea. An apparently disproportionate interest centres in the capital, if one may judge from the vast and varied vocabulary relating to Seoul, its people and things, which differentiate all else outside its wall. Three thousand official dignitaries are said to reside in the capital, and only eight hundred in all the other cities and provinces. Seoul is “the city,” and all the rest of the peninsula is “the country.” A provincial having cultivated manners is called “a man of the capital.” “Capital and province” means the realm.

The rule of the local authorities is very minute in all its ramifications. The system of making every five houses a social unit is universal. When a crime is committed, it is easy to locate the group in which the offender dwells, and responsibility is fixed at once. Every subject of the sovereign except nobles of rank, must possess a passport or ticket testifying to his personality, and all [[234]]must “show their tickets” on demand. For the people, this certificate of identity is a piece of branded or inscribed wood, for the soldiers of horn, for the literary class and government officials of bone. Often, the tablet is in halves, the individual having one-half, and the government keeping its tally. The people who cannot read or write have their labels carefully tied to their clothing. When called upon to sign important documents, or bear witness on trial, they make a blood-signature, by rudely tracing the signs set before them in their own blood. The name, residence of the holder, and the number of the group of houses in which he lives, are branded or inscribed on the ho-pai, or passport.

The actual workings of Corean justice will be better understood when treating of Christianity—an element of social life which gave the pagan tribunals plenty of work. Civil matters are decided by the ordinary civil magistrate, who is judge and jury at once; criminal cases are tried by the military commandant. Very important cases are referred to the governor of the province. The highest court of appeal is in the capital. Cases of treason and rebellion, and charges against high dignitaries, are tried in the capital before a special tribunal instituted by the king.

The two classes of assistants to the magistrate, who are called respectively hai-seik and a-chen, act as constables or sheriffs, police messengers, and jailers. French writers term them “pretorians” and “satellites.” These men have practically the administration of justice, and the details and spirit of local authority are in their power. The hai-seik, or constables, form a distinct class in the community, rarely intermarrying with the people, and handing down their offices, implements, and arts from father to son. The a-chen, who are the inferior police, jailers, and torturers, are from the very lowest classes, and usually of brutal life and temper.

The vocabulary of torture is sufficiently copious to stamp Chō-sen as still a semi-civilized nation. The inventory of the court and prison comprises iron chains, bamboos for beating the back, a paddle-shaped implement for inflicting blows upon the buttocks, switches for whipping the calves till the flesh is ravelled, ropes for sawing the flesh and bodily organs, manacles, stocks, and boards to strike against the knees and shin-bones. Other punishments are suspension by the arms, tying the hands in front of the knees, between which and the elbows is inserted a stick, while the human ball is rolled about. An ancient but now obsolete mode [[235]]of torture was to tie the four limbs of a man to the horns of as many oxen, and then to madden the beasts by fire, so that they tore the victim to fragments. The punishment of beating with paddles often leaves scars for life, and causes ulcers not easily healed. One hundred strokes cause death in most cases, and many die under forty or fifty blows. For some crimes the knees and shin-bones are battered. A woman is allowed to have on one garment, which is wetted to make it cling to the skin and increase the pain. The chief of the lictors, or public spanker, is called siu-kiō. With the long, flexible handle swung over his head, he plies the resounding blows, planting them on the bare skin just above the knee-joint, the victim being held down by four gaolers. The method of correction is quite characteristic of paternal government, and is often inflicted upon the people openly and in public, at the whim of the magistrate. The bastinado was formerly, like hundreds of other customs common to both countries, in vogue in Japan. As in many other instances, this has survived in the less civilized nation.

When an offender in the military or literary class is sentenced to death, decapitation is the rather honorable method employed. The executioner uses either a sort of native iron hatchet-sword or cleaver, or one of the imported Japanese steel-edged blades, which have an excellent reputation in the peninsula.