#63. Beware of the vixen (Shamanism 3)

Gather around with your roasted chestnuts and a blanket, lie on the warmest part of the stone-heated floor, and I'll tell you some stories from my childhood that my grandparents have told me. Through the "folklore" series of this blog, you will get to meet the Korean deities and the demons, which form the basis of the modern Korean shamanism as well. I will upload a folklore every Wednesday.

There are several aspects of the ancient shamanism that survived up to the modern day Korea.

One aspect is called "풍수지리." It can be decomposed into three parts: 풍 + 수 + 지리.

• 풍 means "wind" in Chinese. For example, you will see on your fan the option "강풍" meaning "strong wind," as well as "약풍" meaning "weak wind, or breeze."
• 수 means "water" in Chinese. "수요일," or "Wednesday" is the day of the water. "생수" means "mineral water" and "약수" means "water that's good for you like a medicine."
• 지리 means "geography."

In the Korean shamanism, "풍수지리" refers to the belief that the geography (how your house is situated, for example) is linked to your luck and misfortune. Sounds crazy, but some people believe it to this day.

Another aspect is called "관상." This word means that depending on how your face looks (each type of face is called a "상,") your fate is already determined by the heavens. Sounds crazy, but people still believe it. A very light usage of this classifies the Korean women into "강아지상" and "고양이상," i.e. a puppy-type face and a kitten-type face. But there are hundreds of different "상"s in the study of 관상 ("관상학," it's called.) The Korean shamans are said to be able to look at someone's face, and read off their future.

The left is considered a clear puppy-type face, the right a clear kitten-type face. Do you agree?

The Koreans learn about these things through various folklore. I was never taught any of this, as my family was a fairly strict Roman Catholic family. But my grandparents still told me these stories, from which I learned how the shamanism worked.

Here is a story about the shamanism, and a vixen ("여우"). Just like in the western folklore, foxes are usually portrayed as negative beings, presumably because they were always killing livestock. In the Korean folklore, however, foxes are always female. They can transform themselves into humans (often beautiful women, although not always), and they are very good at misleading humans into thinking that they are seeing things. The phrase "여우에 홀리다" is something that many Koreans grow up hearing. The Korean vixen are often malicious, magical, and evil. Unlike the 도깨비, you want to stay away from them. If you do encounter them, you want to try your hardest to kill them, because otherwise they will kill you.

Thus begins another story of my childhood, through which I learned about 풍수지리, 관상, and 여우.

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Once upon a time, there lived a father with his three sons. The father was very ill, and he soon passed away. The sons were preparing for his funeral in their sorrow, when a Buddhist monk ("중") passed by. Being faithful in heart, the three brothers invited him in, and fed him, to show their respect for the Buddha.

The monk, in his gratitude, offered to the three sons:

"I learned a little bit of 풍수지리 during my meditations. If you'd like, I can tell you where to bury your father so that your family will prosper through the coming years."

The sons gratefully accepted this offer, and the monk looked around their village with the three sons. The monk stopped at one spot. He hesitated for a while, looked carefully at each of the brothers' faces, then said to himself, "I believe that the youngest can withstand it."

He then told the three sons, "this plot here is very good (in Korean, such a good plot to bury the dead in your family is called "명당" -- if you manage to find such a plot, your family will prosper), if you can keep your father here." The three sons were confused about why they might not be able to keep their father there, but as the monk had claimed this plot to be 명당, they went ahead and buried their father there.

That night, the eldest son had a dream. Their father appeared in his dream and begged, "I can't sleep peacefully here. Please bury me somewhere else." The eldest son, upon waking up, told his two brothers about his dream, but as the two brothers still believed the monk, they decided to keep their father there.

The next night, the second son had a dream, in which the father begged him to please move him elsewhere. Again, the three sons talked, but the youngest son convinced the other two to keep the father at the plot.

The next night, the youngest son had a dream. His father appeared in his dream and begged him, "I already begged your brothers to move me, but they will not listen. Will you please tell your brothers to move me?"

The youngest son, being suspicious, said, "as you are standing in the dark, I cannot properly see you. Will you please come out and let me look upon your face one more time?"

The father then said, "I am already beginning to look terrible. But I will let you hold my hand, like how you used to when I was alive." The youngest son agreed, and the father held out his hand.

The youngest, holding tightly onto the hand, called out his servants, and called out:

"The dead cannot come back to life and walk. This is surely a demon pretending to be my father. Bring your clubs and kill this thing!"

When the servants came with their clubs, it seemed to them that the youngest son was holding onto their long-dead mother. They hesitated to lift their clubs against their old mistress and a woman, but the youngest was adamant, and the servants eventually clubbed the mother to death.

As soon as the woman breathed her last breath, the woman turned into a dead vixen.

In their astonishment, the three brothers sought out the monk and told him of their experience. The monk said, "The 명당 that I had sought out for you had one fault; a vixen was living in it. I knew that the vixen would try various things to get the plot back and also to harm you. But I also knew, upon looking at your faces, that the youngest son would be match enough for the vixen."

Thus they were able to bury their father in a 명당, and true to the monk's word, their family prospered for a long time after that.

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Lastly, notice how a Buddhist monk also knew 풍수지리, which is an aspect of shamanism! Through its long history, a lot of the Korean religions mixed with one another to create a unique brand of religion. This is fairly common to this day.