Corea: The Hermit Nation

by William Elliot Griffis

Whatever may be thought of the theory there suggested, it is certainly surprising to find a distinctly marked feudal system, already past the rudimentary stage, in the wilderness of Manchuria, a thousand miles away from the seats of Chinese culture, as early as the Christian era.

As nearly the whole of Europe was at some time feudalized, so China, Corea, and Japan have each passed through this stage of political life.

The feudal system in China was abolished by Shi Whang Ti, [[23]]the first universal Emperor, B.C. 221, but that of Japan only after an interval of 2,000 years, surviving until 1871. It lingers still in Corea, whose history it has greatly influenced, as our subsequent narrative will prove. In addition to the usual features of feudalism, the existence of serfdom, in fact as well as in form, is proved by the testimony of Dutch and French observers, and of the language itself. The richness of Corean speech, in regard to every phase and degree of servitude, would suffice for a Norman landholder in mediæval England, or for a Carolina cotton-planter before the American civil war.

Out of this kingdom of Fuyu came the people who are the ancestors of the modern Coreans. In the same Chinese history which describes Fuyu, we have a picture of the kingdom of Kokorai (or Kao-ku-li), which had Fuyu for its northern and Chō-sen for its southern neighbor. “The land was two thousand li square, and contained many great mountains, and deep valleys.” There was a tradition among the Eastern barbarians that they were an offshoot from Fuyu. Hence their language and laws were very much alike. The nation was divided into five families, named after the four points of the compass, with a yellow or central tribe.

Evidently this means that a few families, perhaps five in number, leaving Fuyu, set out toward the south, and in the valleys west of the Yalu River and along the 42d parallel, founded a new nation. Their first king was Ko, who, perhaps, to gain the prestige of ancient descent, joined his name to that of Korai (written however with the characters which make the sound of modern Korai) and thus the realm of Kokorai received its name.

A Japanese writer derives the term Kokorai from words selected out of a passage in the Chinese classics referring to the high mountains. The first character Ko, in Kokorai, means high, and it was under the shadows of the lofty Ever White Mountains that this vigorous nation had its cradle and its home in youth. Here, too, its warriors nourished their strength until their clouds of horsemen burst upon the frontiers of the Chinese empire, and into the old kingdom of Chō-sen. The people of this young state were rich in horses and cattle, but less given to agriculture. They lived much in the open air, and were fierce, impetuous, strong, and hardy. They were fond of music and pleasure at night. Especially characteristic was their love of decoration and display. At their public gatherings they decked themselves in [[24]]dresses embroidered with gold and silver. Their houses were also adorned in various ways. Their chief display was at funerals, when a prodigal outlay of precious metals, jewels, and embroideries was exhibited.

In their religion they sacrificed to Heaven, to the spirits of the land, and of the harvests, to the morning star, and to the celestial and invisible powers. There were no prisons, but when crimes were committed the chiefs, after deliberation, put the criminal to death and reduced the wives and children to slavery. In this way serfs were provided for labor. In their burial customs, they made a cairn, and planted fir-trees around it, as many Japanese tombs are made.

In the general forms of their social, religious, and political life, the people of Fuyu and Kokorai were identical, or nearly so; while both closely resemble the ancient Japanese of Yamato.

The Chinese authors also state that these people were already in possession of the Confucian classics, and had attained to an unusual degree of literary culture. Their officials were divided into twelve ranks, which was also the ancient Japanese number. In the method of divination, in the wearing of flowery costumes, and in certain forms of etiquette, they and the Japanese were alike. As is now well known, the ancient form of government of the Yamato Japanese (that is, of the conquering race from Corea and the north) was a rude feudalism and not a monarchy. Further, the central part of Japan, first held by the ancestors of the mikado, consists of five provinces, like the Kokorai division, into five clans or tribes.

At the opening of the Christian era we find the people of Kokorai already strong and restless enough to excite attention from the Chinese court. In 9 A.D. they were recognized as a nation with their own “kings,” and classified with Huentu, one of the districts of old Chō-sen. One of these kings, in the year 30, sent tribute to the Chinese emperor. In 50 A.D. Kokorai, by invitation, sent their warriors to assist the Chinese army against a rebel horde in the northwest. In A.D. 70 the men of Kokorai descended upon Liao Tung, and having now a taste for border war and conquest, they marched into the petty kingdom of Wei, which lay in what is now the extreme northeast of Corea. Absorbing this little country, they kept up constant warfare against the Chinese. Though their old kinsmen, the Fuyu men, were at times allies of the Han, yet they gradually spread themselves eastward and southward, so [[26]]that by 169 A.D. the Kokorai kingdom embraced the whole of the territory of old Chō-sen, or of Liao Tung, with all the Corean peninsula north of the Ta-tong, and even to the Tumen River.