Chongho Kim - Korean Shamanism: The Cultural Paradox

Why do Koreans use shamanic ritual even though prejudice against shamanism is universal? Why do so many Koreans employ a practice that is widely stigmatized and despised as superstition?

Shamanism occupies a contradictory position within the Korean cultural system. This has led to the periodical suppression of shamanism and has also, paradoxically, ensured its survival throughout Korean history. This book examines the place of shamans within contemporary society, exploring shamanism as a cultural practice in which people make use of shamanic ritual, and disputing the prevalent view that shamanism is popular culture, womens religion, symbolic healing or performing arts. Kim also disputes the common view among medical anthropologists that places shamanism firmly within the realm of traditional medicine.

Drawing on case studies within Korea, Chongho Kim presents a study of indigenous anthropology with ethnographic material drawn from an insiders perspective and offers an engaging understanding of the appeal of this indigenous folk practice in a highly industrial society. Directly confronting the prejudice against shamans and their paradoxical situation in a modern society such as Korea, this book reveals the cultural discrepancy between two worlds in Korean culture, the ordinary world and the shamanic world, and shows that these two worlds cannot be reconciled with each other. Kim explains that it is the difference between them that explains why shamans are necessary but also despised.

Focusing on ordinary people who make use of shamans, rather than focusing merely on the way of the shaman, this unique study of shamanism offers a significant contribution to the growing field of studies in indigenous anthropology and indigenous religions. Yet Korean Shamanism: The Cultural Paradox is not merely a piece of academic writing: it provides an enjoyable and captivating read for a wide range of readers through retelling the stories-never-to-be-told involving shamanic ritual.

First published 2003 by Ashgate Publishing

Reissued 2018 by Routledge

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Copyright Chongho Kim 2003

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ISBN 13: 978-1-138-71051-1 (hbk)

ISBN 13: 978-1-315-19815-6 (ebk)

Series Editors

Graham Harvey, King Alfreds College, UK

Lawrence Martin, University of Wisconsin Eau Claire, USA

Tabona Shoko, University of Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe

Ashgates Vitality of Indigenous Religions series offers an exciting new cluster of research monographs, drawing together volumes from leading international scholars across a wide range of disciplinary perspectives. Indigenous religions are vital and empowering for many thousands of indigenous peoples globally, and dialogue with, and consideration of, these diverse religious life-ways promises to challenge and refine the methodologies of a number of academic disciplines, whilst greatly enhancing understandings of the world.

This series explores the development of contemporary indigenous religions from traditional, ancestral precursors, but the characteristic contribution of the series is its focus on their living and current manifestations. Devoted to the contemporary expression, experience and understanding of particular indigenous peoples and their religions, books address key issues which include: the sacredness of land, exile from lands, diasporic survival and diversification, the indigenization of Christianity and other missionary religions, sacred language, and re-vitalization movements. Proving of particular value to academics, graduates, postgraduates and higher level undergraduate readers worldwide, this series holds obvious attraction to scholars of Native American studies, Maori studies, African studies and offers invaluable contributions to religious studies, sociology, anthropology, geography and other related subject areas.

OTHER TITLES IN THE SERIES

Sacred Landscapes and Cultural Politics

Edited by Philip P. Arnold and Ann Grodzins Gold

ISBN 0 7546 1569 3

Maya Identities and the Violence of Place

Charles D. Thompson, Jr.

ISBN 0 7546 1377 1

To my late mother and my wife Misook
who suffered the most from this research

This book is a study of the place of shamans {mudang) within contemporary Korean society, based on fieldwork both in the small town of Soy, some 150 km from Seoul, and in the city of Seoul itself. In the book, I explore what I call the cultural paradox of shamanism within Korean culture: why do Koreans use shamans even though prejudice against shamanism is universal and much consultation of shamans goes on in secret? Why do so many Koreans employ a practice that is widely stigmatized and despised as superstition?

I argue that shamanism has a contradictory position within the Korean cultural system. This contradictory position has led to the periodic suppression of shamanism and has also, paradoxically, ensured its survival throughout Korean history. At the same time, it is the contradictions surrounding shamanism which generate the power of shamanic healing. There is a cultural discrepancy between two worlds in Korean culture: the ordinary world and the shamanic world. These two worlds cannot be reconciled with each other, and it is the difference between them which explains why shamans are necessary, but also despised.

Although this book is a study of shamanism, shamans and their arguments are not my main concern. Rather, I focus on the ordinary people who make use of shamans. Throughout this research, I have tried to understand their point of view as closely as possible. I have approached shamanism, not as the way of the shaman, nor as a belief system, but as a cultural practice in which people make use of shamanic ritual. In several respects, this has led me to very different conclusions to existing studies of shamanism in Korea and elsewhere.

Previous studies have mainly focused on shamans and their views. However, I argue that shaman-centred studies are unable fully to comprehend the cultural paradox of shamanism. Shamans and their clients interact in a cultural environment, the central feature of which is the contradiction between shamanism and public culture. For this reason, this study is not focused on shamans, but on ordinary people, with the problems they refer to the shamans, and the ways in which they use the framework of shamanism to manage their problems.