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III. Capter et transformer les morts – Capture and Transform the Dead

Threads of Connection: Souls and Garments in South Korean Shaman Practice

Les fils de la connexion : âmes et vêtements dans la pratique chamanique sud-coréenne
연결의 실타래: 한국 무속의 영혼과 의복
Laurel Kendall
p. 129-152

Abstracts

Different from the physical sites of historical hauntings, or the offerings and paraphernalia that are part of family ritual, the garments that are the subject of this paper make a connection to dead souls in ways that are intimate, visual, and tactile. They bridge life and death as the accoutrements of a quotidian social presence that is, in this context, an uncanny non-presence rendering the garments in question as far from neutral matter. Korean shamans engage the known dead with gifts of new garments, with garments once inhabited by the dead, and those desired by the dead. Other garments, with other intentions, might inadvertently lure the dead, requiring exorcistic attention, while conversely, a scrap of clothing infused with human scent might be used to lure ghosts and other unwelcome entities away from living and imperiled flesh. This paper explores the evocative use of clothing in dealings with the dead. I consider how clothing once worn by the dead, desired by the dead, or used to draw the dead away, “works” as a vehicle of presence in different ritual settings. The paper is based on observations of shamans (mansin), a full range of the rituals they perform, and related observations from fieldwork beginning in the 1970s.

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Excerpt

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Outline

Mansin, Rituals, and “Ancestors”
Clothing the Dead in kut
Shaman Talk: Clothing and Ghostly Interventions
Clothing with Human Scent
Clothing, Scent, and Scapegoating
Boxed Clothing for Quasi-Divine Dead
Conclusion

First lines

“Rumors were suddenly floating about Petersburg that in the neighborhood of the Kalinkin Bridge and for a little distance beyond, a corpse had begun appearing at night in the form of a clerk looking for a stolen overcoat, and stripping from the shoulders of all passers-by, regardless of grade and calling, overcoats of all description […] the Person of Consequence felt that someone had clutched him very tightly by the collar. Turning around he saw a short man in a shabby old uniform, and not without horror recognized him as Akaky Akakievich. The clerk’s face was white as snow and looked like that of a corpse, but the horror of the Person of Consequence was beyond all bounds when he saw the mouth of the corpse distorted into speech, and breathing upon him the chill of the grave, it uttered the following words: ‘Ah, so here you are at last! At last, I’ve…er…caught you by the collar. It’s your overcoat I want; you refused to help me and abused me into the bargain! So now give me yours!’...

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References

Bibliographical reference

Laurel Kendall, “Threads of Connection: Souls and Garments in South Korean Shaman Practice”Extrême-Orient Extrême-Occident, 47 | 2024, 129-152.

Electronic reference

Laurel Kendall, “Threads of Connection: Souls and Garments in South Korean Shaman Practice”Extrême-Orient Extrême-Occident [Online], 47 | 2024, Online since 01 January 2027, connection on 20 July 2025. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/extremeorient/3177; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/12ko2

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About the author

Laurel Kendall

Laurel Kendall is Curator of Asian Ethnographic Collections at the American Museum of Natural History and Senior Research Scholar at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute and Adjunct Professor at Columbia University, and a former President of the Association for Asian Studies (2016-2017). As an anthropologist of Korea, she has worked with and written about Korean shamans for several decades, describing how this living tradition has responded to the social, economic, and demographic transformation of South Korean society. She is the author of Shamans, Housewives, and Other Restless Spirits: Women in Korean Ritual Life (University of Hawai’i Press, 1985); The Life and Hard Times of a Korean Shaman: Of Tales and the Telling of Tales (University of Hawai’i Press, 1988); Getting Married in Korea: Of Gender, Morality, and Modernity (University of California Press, 1996); Shamans, Nostalgias, and the IMF: South Korean Popular Religion in Motion (University of Hawai’i Press, 2009); God Pictures in Korean Contexts: The Ownership and Meaning of Shaman Paintings (University of Hawai’i Press, 2015) as well as several edited books and many articles. Her most recent book, Mediums and Magical Things: Statues, Paintings, and Masks in Asian Places (University of California Press, 2021) draws on experiences in Vietnam, Myanmar, and Bali, Indonesia as well as her deep knowledge of Korean shamans and their work to explore the shared notion of ensouled images while tugging against any easy generalization either between or within these emergent traditions.
Laurel Kendall est conservatrice des collections ethnographiques asiatiques à l’American Museum of Natural History, Senior Research Scholar au Weatherhead East Asian Institute et Adjunct Professor à l’université Columbia, ainsi qu’ancienne présidente de l’Association for Asian Studies (2016-2017). En tant qu’anthropologue de la Corée, elle a travaillé et écrit sur les chamans coréens pendant plusieurs décennies, décrivant comment cette tradition vivante a répondu aux transformations sociales, économiques et démographiques de la société sud-coréenne. Elle est l’autrice de Shamans, Housewives, and Other Restless Spirits : Women in Korean Ritual Life (University of Hawai’i Press, 1985) ; The Life and Hard Times of a Korean Shaman : Of Tales and the Telling of Tales (University of Hawai’i Press, 1988) ; Getting Married in Korea : Of Gender, Morality, and Modernity (University of California Press, 1996) ; Shamans, Nostalgias, and the IMF : South Korean Popular Religion in Motion (University of Hawai’i Press, 2009) ; God Pictures in Korean Contexts : The Ownership and Meaning of Shaman Paintings (University of Hawai’i Press, 2015). Elle a aussi dirigé plusieurs ouvrages et produit de nombreux articles. Son plus récent livre, Mediums and Magical Things : Statues, Paintings, and Masks in Asian Places (University of California Press, 2021), s’appuie sur ses expériences au Vietnam, en Birmanie et à Bali, en Indonésie, ainsi que sur sa connaissance approfondie des chamans coréens et de leur travail pour explorer la notion commune d’images ensorcelées, tout en s’opposant à toute généralisation simpliste entre ces traditions émergentes ou au sein de celles-ci.

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Copyright

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