A Graduate Student Perspective: Graduate Summer Research in South Korea 2014: Hyeok Hweon Kang

Hyeok Hweon Kang, G2 EALC Graduate Student, Recipient of a Korea Institute Summer Research Grant

Guns, Germs, and Ghosts: Exorcising the Chosŏn Dynasty of Korea

Thanks to the generous support of the Korea Institute, I had a fruitful summer in South Korea conducting research for my forthcoming article in the Routledge Handbook on Asian Music: Cultural Intersections. My research traced the development of military rites during the Chosŏn dynasty of Korea (1392-1910). Specifically, I sought to examine the symbolic and political significance of performing “Exorcist Ritual” (narye 儺禮), a military rite held on the last day of the year to dispel evil spirits and to usher in the new year. Through my summer research, I have come to argue that “Exorcist Ritual” played a crucial role in furthering the Chosŏn king’s political legitimacy: in a Neo-Confucian symbolic universe where evil spirits are linked with “disease” that causes nomadic invasions, natural disaster and social unrest, this rite exorcised the state and its people of such “disease,” and foregrounded the king as the arbiter of ritual prowess in his realm.

Thanks to my time in the archives, and with the help of unstinting senior scholars, I was able to find concrete sources on the topic that, in turn, allowed me to reconstruct details on the ritual procedures and how they changed over time. Originally, “Exorcist Ritual” featured masked performances by children-shamans (侲子), and monster-hunters (方相氏) who paraded in arms while reciting incantations against demons; and a musical accompaniment by fifers and drummers. With the advent of gunpowder technology, this rite also came to include the showcase of firearms (火戲), particularly fire-lances and muskets, as an important deterrent of spirits; it harnessed the symbology of gunpowder as “fire medicine” (火藥), and of the musket as the “Divine Weapon” (神器) to dispel disease-ridden demons. In this way, the rite continued to bear strong ties with military institutions until the end of the dynasty.

Looking ahead, I hope to use my summer findings to approach the history of “Exorcist Ritual” from a transcultural perspective, as I was informed that variations exist in China and Japan. In fact, the Korean ritual was imported from China in the eleventh century, reified as a national rite by ideologues of Chosŏn in the fifteenth century, and later spread outside the court to become a major performance venue of Korean folk arts. Funneling out from this perspective, I hope to continue developing ideas on 1) the processes of inter-adopting Chinese rites among East Asian states, 2) the historical structures of symbiosis between shamanic groups and military institutions, and 3) the role of military institutions in shaping urban performance culture of Seoul. Finally, delighted by the possibility that this project may grow into a dissertation topic, I would like to thank again the generous support of the Korea Institute for funding my research in Korea this summer.