Traditional Funerals in Korea
Probably the greatest ceremony is that of the funeral. Believing that their own future welfare and happiness depends upon the reverence and care which they show to the dead, it…
Location: North Korea, South Korea
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Funerals
From Korea: The Land People and Customs by George Heber Jones, 1907.
Probably the greatest ceremony is that of the funeral. Believing that their own future welfare and happiness depends upon the reverence and care which they show to the dead, it is natural that it should become the supreme ceremonial observance of Korean life.
When death occurs in a house, a pause of one or two hours takes place, in order to see whether the dead will revive again. When assured that death has taken place, the funeral rites begin with a ceremony known as ''Calling the Soul." A carpet of new cotton cloth is laid from the dead body across the room and outside of the house. Then someone takes a garment, and going out of the house waves it in the air, calling on the departed one to come back.
After this is done, a table containing a sacrificial offering to the spirits who have come for the dead is placed outside the door. On this table are placed three bowls of rice for the three great spirits, and one large bowl of rice for his attendants. In the case of the death of a woman, nine sets of chop-sticks are placed in the large bowl of rice, and in the case of a man twelve sets.
About the table are placed nine or twelve sets of straw sandles, these being the number of attendants respectively in the case of a woman or of a man. On the table containing the rice there will also be a large squash.
The body is then prepared for burial by being washed and tightly bound in grass cloth, until it reminds one of the mummies of Egypt. Here, too, the numerals nine and twelve are observed, women being bound with nine layers of grass cloth and men with twelve.
The date of the funeral will be determined by the social grade of the deceased. Men of the lower classes are not buried until three days after death; middle classes, nine days; the nobility, one hundred days; and in the case of an Imperial personage, not until after nine months. This is the theoretical rule, but the observance of it varies somewhat. The coffin is a rude but strong pine structure.
Great attention is paid to the selection of the grave site, there being a special class of geomancers, who make this their business. Most Korean families possess their own grave sites or cemeteries, in each case some special mountain being selected for this purpose from among the landed possessions of the clan. As a rule, it is stipulated that there should be a stream of running water near the grave site, it should face south if possible, and be in view of some famous mountain.
The Koreans are extremely sensitive of any intrusion into their burial grounds. Many of the feuds of the land have grown out of fights over the possession of grave sites, for it is believed that the geomantic influences which emanate from these sites are sufficient, in case of a good selection, to secure fortune, high position, posterity, and all the other things in the catalogue of Korean blessings; or, in the case of a bad selection, to entail terrible calamities.
Some writer has facetiously said that the favorite occupation of the Koreans is fighting over grave sites. It is a fact that the habitations of the dead occupy more beautiful positions and are more conspicuously present on the scenery than the habitations of the living. A journey in the inhabited parts of Korea resembles a trip through a vast cemetery.
On the day of the funeral the body is carried in a gaudy hearse or bier, borne high on the shoulders of twelve bearers to its last resting place. Standing on the platform in front of the hearse is a man ringing a bell. The bearers sing a wailing song as they proceed on their way, in some sections of the country dancing and making short spurts of speed with the hearse. Wine and food mark the festivities. The sons and male relatives, with many of the female relatives, follow the corpse to the grave and see it properly interred.
The son and those nearest to the dead must wear mourning garments of a white or dull sack cloth color for three years, during which period they go about the streets with a long coat of sack cloth, confined at the waist with a hempen rope girdle, a large bushel basket hat with scalloped edges over their heads, and a small hand banner to conceal the face. The period of mourning varies with the degree of relationship, but whatever this may be, it is strictly observed by the Korean. All graves are circular in shape, in obedience to the dictum of Confucius.
Sacrifices of various kinds are offered at time of interment and at other specified times at the grave, but the main worship of the dead takes place before the ancestral tablet, consisting of a curiously constructed piece of wood taken from the eastern branch of a chestnut tree. This tablet consists of two strips of wood fitted closely together, and on the inside is inscribed the name and deified titles of the dead. There is a small hole drilled in the top, through which the spirit of the dead is thought to enter. To this tablet, which is preserved at the residence of the deceased, an offering of rice and. foodstuffs is made each month, and on the anniversary of the death for three years.
Tablets are maintained for the dead for five generations. The duty of the sixth generation from any dead ancestor is to carry his tablet with all the ceremony of a funeral and reverently bury it beside the grave of the man whom it represents. The rites attending the interment and worship of the dead are based on the idea that man has three souls. After death one remains at the grave, one inhabits the tablet, and one goes on to its destiny.
These various ceremonies to the dead occupy a very large part of the Korean's time and thought, while the demands upon his material resources in connection with them often reduce the individual Korean to beggary.
Jones, George Heber. Korea; The Land, People, and Customs. Jennings and Graham, 1907.
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