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Sacramental and Prophetic Aspects of Korean Shamanism

Abstract/Sommario: Shamanic rites called kut are rooted in Korean religious experience, even before the coming of other religions. In 1983 there was one shaman, or mudang, per thousand persons: they are especially women, coming from shaman families or initiatory ones. Gods and ancestral spirits are thought to possess them or kut participants. Kut rites employ various forms of prophetic, sacramental, aesthetic, and dramatic activity. Intimately bound with nature, kut commonly take place not in a u but at ...; [leggi tutto] Shamanic rites called kut are rooted in Korean religious experience, even before the coming of other religions. In 1983 there was one shaman, or mudang, per thousand persons: they are especially women, coming from shaman families or initiatory ones. Gods and ancestral spirits are thought to possess them or kut participants. Kut rites employ various forms of prophetic, sacramental, aesthetic, and dramatic activity. Intimately bound with nature, kut commonly take place not in a u but at a striking natural setting - old tree, mountain, unusual rock formation, spring of a fresh water, sea. Many invoke nature gods - Mountain God, Big Dipper, The Dragon God of the Sea. They summon no personal or totemic God or intermediary - as in the rites of Siberian hunting people. The kut tradition is closer to the biblical, focusing principally on his presence at work in a community and its history. In the kut participants become transformed into a people joined not only by blood and local ties, but by the harmonizing presence of their gods over time at the natural kut site.. Many of the signs that vitalize kut words are sacramental, meaning to mediate the presence and power of the divine. this mentality persists in some Korean Christians, who are more prone to see divine action in a strange phenomena like a weeping statue of Mary than in the Eucharist.
Also th e home is alive with supernatural presence in form of gods of the house plot, the roof beam, the kitchen, the outhouse; and in times of transition and crisis, the family sponsors kut to invoke aid of many other gods and ancestral spirits. Family kut may consist in a day-long series of mimetic representations of gods and ancestral spirits performed by mudang and musicians before altar-tables piled with food at a site vibrant with drumming, chant, colourful costumes, lively dance and comic banter. Perhaps in a mild trance, the mudang does a quickening dance to the neat of a drum to summon a god or spirit into her. The sponsors ask the god's aid: and the god, through the mudang, gives oracular advice about their situation, clarification of the future, and words of consolation. Divinatory signs, the appearance of trance, or wondrous theatrical feats at times bolster belief in the gods' presence and the truth of what is said. IN the Judeo-Christian tradition interaction with supernatural being springs in part from awareness of the evi that haunts human life. In the kut vision, it is prone to pollution and the feeling of frustration, resentment or rancor called han, especially in times of family crisis and transition. Some Korean Catholics speak in the confessional not so much of their own sinful failings as of the han they have from what others have done to them. The priest's words of spiritual advice have divine sanction, but they lack a kut's concrete power to deal with han. Perhaps for that reason, some turn to kut, whose procedures are more psychological than sacramental.
A traditional shaman is called, chosen by supernatural being. A mudang suffers the pain of dying to ordinary human life and lives anew in the service of the gods and pained human beings.. A Christian monotheist trying to appreciate the kut world is confronted with its myriad of gods and spirits. There are at least 273 deities. Kut worshippers do not think of their gods as manifestations of one, all-powerful heavenly being. The gods are discrete helpful deities with limited powers and functions. The kut pantheon includes the God of Heaven, but it focuses on indigenous deities who constitute limited models for imitation and express a limited care for Korean people at indigenous sites. Christians focus on sin and forgiveness, kut worshippers on defilement and purification, han and its release
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Campo	Valore
Descrizione	Sacramental and Prophetic Aspects of Korean Shamanism/ Daniel A. Kister
Note	IN Per: The Japan Mission Journal, vol.61, n. 3 (2007, Autumn) p. 180-192
	[Fa parte di] The Japan Mission Journal / Oriens Institute for Religious Research 2007, 61, 3 ; p. 180-192
Autori	Kister, Daniel A.
Soggetto	Sciamanismo - Corea
Lingua	Inglese
ID scheda	59453

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