The Ma-han people were agricultural, dwelling in villages, but neither driving nor riding oxen or horses, most probably because they did not possess them. Their huts were made of earth banked upon timber, with the door in the roof. They went bareheaded, and coiled or tied their hair in a knot. They set no value on gold, jewels, or embroidery, but wore pearls sewed on their clothes and hung on their necks and ears. Perhaps the word here translated “pearl” may be also applied to drilled stones of a cylindrical or curved shape, like the magatama, or “bent jewels,” of the ancient Japanese. They shod their feet with sandals, and wore garments of woven stuff. In etiquette they were but slightly advanced, paying little honor to women or to the aged. Like our Indian bucks, the young men tested their endurance by torture. Slitting the skin of the back, they ran a cord through the flesh, upon which was hung a piece of wood. This was kept suspended till the man, unable longer to endure it, cried out to have it taken off. [[32]]
After the field work was over, in early summer, they held drinking bouts, in honor of the spirits, with songs and dances. Scores of men, quickly following each other, stamped on the ground to beat time as they danced. In the late autumn, after harvests, they repeated these ceremonies. In each clan there was a man, chosen as ruler, to sacrifice to the spirits of heaven. On a great pole they hung drums and bells for the service of the heavenly spirits. Perhaps these are the originals of the tall and slender pagodas with their pendant wind-bells at the many eaves and corners.
Among the edible products of Ma-han were fowls with tails five feet in length. These “hens with tails a yard long” were evidently pheasants—still a delicacy on Corean tables. The large apple-shaped pears, which have a wooden taste, half way between a pear and an apple, were then, as now, produced in great numbers. The flavor improves by cooking.
As Kijun’s government was one of vigor, his subjects advanced in civilization, the Hiaksai people gradually extended their authority and influence. The clan names in time faded away or became symbols of family bonds instead of governmental authority, so that by the fourth century Hiaksai had become paramount over all the fifty-four tribes of Ma-han, as well as over some of those of the other two han.
Thus arose the kingdom of Hiaksai (called also Kudara by the Japanese, Petsi by the Chinese, and Baiji by the modern Coreans), which has a history extending to the tenth century, when it was extinguished in name and fact in united Corea.
Its relations with Japan were, in the main, friendly, the islanders of the Sunrise Kingdom being comrades in arms with them against their invaders, the Chinese, and their hostile neighbors, the men of Shinra—whose origin we shall now proceed to detail.
SHIN-HAN.
After the fall of the Tsin dynasty in China, a small body of refugees, leaving their native seats, fled across the Yellow Sea toward the Sea of Japan, resting only when over the great mountain chain. They made settlements in the valleys and along the sea-coast. At first they preserved their blood and language pure, forming one of the twelve clans or tribes into which the han or country was divided. [[33]]
This name Shin (China or Chinese), which points to the origin of the clan, belonged to but one of the twelve tribes in eastern Corea. As in the case of Hiaksai, the Shin tribe, being possessed of superior power and intelligence, extended their authority and boundaries, gradually becoming very powerful. Under their twenty-second hereditary chief, or “king,” considering themselves paramount over all the clans, they changed the name of their country to Shinra, which is pronounced in Chinese Sinlo.