The Mudang: Gendered Discourses on Shamanism in Colonial Korea
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THE MUDANG: GENDERED DISCOURSES ON SHAMANISM IN COLONIAL KOREA by Merose Hwang A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy Department of East Asian Studies University of Toronto © Copyright by Merose Hwang (2009) The Mudang: Gendered Discourses on Shamanism in Colonial Korea MEROSE HWANG DOCTORATE OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE DEPARTMENT OF EAST ASIAN STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO 2009 Abstract This dissertation examines the discursive production of mudang, also known as shamans, during the late Chosŏn Dynasty (eighteenth to nineteenth-centuries) and during the Japanese colonial period in Korea (1910-1945). The many discursive sites on mudang articulated various types of difference, often based on gender and urban/rural divides. This dissertation explores four bodies of work: eighteenth to nineteenth-century neo-Confucian reformist essays, late nineteenth-century western surveys of Korea, early twentieth-century newspapers and journals, and early ethnographic studies. The mudang was used throughout this period to reinforce gendered distinctions, prescribe spatial hierarchies, and promote capitalist modernity. In particular, institutional developments in shamanism studies under colonial rule, coupled with an expanded print media critique against mudang, signalled the needs and desires to pronounce a distinct indigenous identity under foreign rule. Chapter one traces three pre-colonial discursive developments, Russian research on Siberian shamanism under Catherine the Great, neo-Confucian writings on "mudang," and Claude Charles Dallet’s late nineteenth-century survey of Korean indigenous practices. Chapter Two examines the last decade of the nineteenth-century, studying the simultaneous emergence of Isabella Bird Bishop’s expanded discussion on Korean shamanism alongside early Korean newspapers’ social criticisms of mudang. Chapter Three looks at Korean newspapers and journals as the source and product of an urban discourse from 1920-1940. Chapter Four examines the same print media to consider why mudang were contrasted from women as ethical household consumers and scientific homemakers. Chapter Five looks at Ch’oe Nam-sŏn and Yi Nŭng-hwa’s 1927 treatises on Korean shamanism as a celebration of ethnic identity which became a form of intervention in an environment where Korean shamanism was used to justify colonial rule. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project could not have been realized without the generous support I received from several institutions and their affiliates. I am grateful for the materials and resources I was able to access with the assistance of these institutions in the deliberation of my research. The Korea Foundation and Yonsei University’s Institute for Korean Studies have funded me for my Ph.D. field research. Special thanks must go to my writing partners Jan Purnis and Steven Trott who have given me constant motivation to produce. In addition to countless hours of being beside me while I transferred thoughts to words, they have provided me ample feedback on papers and endless encouragement. My work was made readable through the generous and meticulous help of Professor Janice Kim and Dr. J. Barbara Rose. The following people have also given me so much emotional and professional support by sending me materials, supplying me with references, reviewing materials with me and by talking to me through my stumbling blocks: Dr. Adam Bohnet, Sanghun Cho, Chŏng Sŭng- hwa, Dr. Charles Kim, Sungjo Kim, Sunho Kim, Kim Ŭn-jŏng, Eleanor Levine, Professor Leslie Sanders, and the JCC Morning Ladies, Cholong Lim, Ruthann Lee, Erik Spigel, Michelle Szabo, Sunyoung Yang, and librarians, Hana Kim, and Seon-Woo Shin. I wish to thank Norma Escobar, Paul Chin, and Celia Sevilla for their helpful guidance in all administrative matters and Stanley Chu for his technological genius. I am most appreciative to my dissertation supervisor, Professor Andre Schmid, for his rigorous training and guidance. Thanks also to Professors Jesook Song and Janet Poole for helping me with their careful readings and compelling insight. Professors Ritu Birla, Dong- no Kim, Laurel Kendall, Seong-Nae Kim, Seung-kyung Kim, Kenneth Wells and T. Jun Yoo have shared their expert opinions with me and have profoundly impacted the way I think about Korea, colonialism, women, shamans, and life in the academy. I wish to thank the Botelho and Hwang families for their unlimited care, and friendship. Lastly, I thank Bryan for bringing me joy each and every day. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT . ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . iii INTRODUCTION: Coloniality of Korean Shamanism. 1 CHAPTER ONE: Confucian Reformers and Catholic Imperialists INTRODUCTION . 25 I. RUSSIAN SHAMANISM . 27 II. CHOSŎN DISCOURSES ON MUDANG . 31 III. CATHOLIC PERSECUTIONS AND MARTYROLOGY . 48 CONCLUSION . 61 CHAPTER TWO: Mudang Mark the Dawn of Colonialism INTRODUCTION . 64 I. PROTESTANT INROAD . 67 II. MAKING THE NEWS . 82 CONCLUSION . 97 CHAPTER THREE: Urban Print Media INTRODUCTION . 101 I. CITY LIFE . 104 II. THE RURAL EXODUS . 123 III. WOMEN ENTER THE CITY . 129 CONCLUSION . 138 CHAPTER FOUR: Making Scientific Mothers INTRODUCTION . 140 I. FEMININE CONSUMPTION . 142 II. SCIENTIFIC MOTHERS . 155 III. MILITARY MOTHERS . 169 CONCLUSION . 176 CHAPTER FIVE: Masculinizing the Nation INTRODUCTION . 179 I. THE SPIRIT WORSHIPPERS’ GUILD . 183 II. CH’OE NAM-SŎN’S ETHNOCENTRIC SHAMANISM . 189 III. MASCULINIZING THE NATION – YI NŬNG-HWA’S NOSTALGIC RETURN . 199 IV. INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF FOLKLORE . 217 CONCLUSION . 225 EPILOGUE: Reconciling Colonialism through Kut . 229 APPENDICES . 246 BIBLIOGRAPHY . 256 INTRODUCTION Coloniality of Korean Shamanism In 1951, Mircea Eliade published Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, setting the contemporary stage for the field of phenomenology of religion.1 His boldest and most enduring argument about shamanism was that this spiritual practice was a universal phenomenon shared among primitive societies. Today, shamanism is practiced in the most modern and cosmopolitan cities around the world. “Urban shamans,” “neo-pagans,” and “modern primitives” amass large followings and influence sub-cultures and fashion trends around the world.2 If one was to browse the Official Seoul City Tourism Website in 2009, one may find the following declaration: that shamanism is “the indigenous belief system of Korea.”3 What sets Korean shamanism apart from similar practices in other countries is that it is not considered something that has ever disappeared, been revived or made anew. Korean shamanism is promoted as a practice that has continued from the very moment Korea came into existence. Shamanism has been widely circulated with the goal of conjuring mystery and intrigue. For the interests of South Korea’s Tourism Board, shamanism is used to create a vaguely understood, differentiating, and distinguishing characteristic of the country in order to entice 1 Mircea Eliade did not base his writings on observed practices from the field and relied instead on second-hand data from previously published ethnographies from around the world to present universal elements of shamanism such as the “cosmic tree,” “sacred drum,” and “ecstatic” trance. He is the most widely considered historian of religion and his models, taxonomies, and definitions of shamanism continue to dominate ethnographic studies. Mircea Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, translated by Willard R. Trask, 1951, reprint Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. 2 Browsing the New York City official city website, people can find a number of stories and events on “urban shamans.”NYC.gov (17 July, 2009), http://search1.nyc.gov/search?output=xml_no_dtd&site=default_ collection&proxystylesheet=default_frontend&client=default_frontend&q=Shaman. The Google search engine gives over 15 million hits for “modern primitives.” 3 Official Seoul City Tourism, “Traditional Korean Dance: Salpuri,” (17 July, 2009), http://english.visitseoul.net/visit2007en/activities/performingarts/performingarts.jsp?cid=121&sid=828. 1 Introduction COLONIALITY OF KOREAN SHAMANISM 2 travellers to spend their holidays in a foreign and exotic place. Korean shamanism has not only succeeded in appealing to tourists; it has also appealed to ethnographers and anthropologists, who have published a large body of scholarly work on the subject. Questioning the a-historicity and universality of shamanism, as promoted by Eliade, this dissertation sets out to demonstrate that the concept of “shamanism” was a relatively recent import into Korea and that, although the South Korean Tourism Board has claimed it as indigenous, Korea has a long history of efforts to eliminate those practices that today have come to represent shamanism. Given the importance of shamanism in defining Korean indigeneity, the first question this dissertation asks is how and why did shamanism come to define Korea and Koreans?4 I argue that what is known as shamanism today emerged in Korea as a part of imperializing discourses to determine knowledge over indigenous subjects. In tracing this history, I assert that figures that had previously been known in Korean as mudang were rendered to be synonymous to shamans.5 Shamans and shamanism were unrecognizable terms and categories to the very spiritual practitioners these terms purported to represent, as these analytical terms were created by and for the interest of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century writers. Without any certainty of how the people referred to as mudang or shamans were addressed