SAM-HAN, OR SOUTHERN COREA.
At the time of the suppression of Chō-sen and the incorporation of its
territory with the Chinese Empire, B.C. 107, all Corea south of the
Ta-tong River was divided into three han, or geographical divisions.
Their exact boundaries are uncertain, but their general topography may
be learned from the map.
MA-HAN AND BEN-HAN.
This little country included fifty-four tribes or clans, each one
independent of the other, and living under a sort of patriarchal
government. The larger tribes are said to have been composed of ten
thousand, and the smaller of a thousand, families each. Round numbers,
however, in ancient records are worth little for critical purposes.
South of the Ma-han was the Ben-han, in which were twelve tribes,
having the same manners and customs as the Ma-han, and speaking a
different yet kindred dialect. One of these clans formed the little
kingdom of Amana, from which came the first visit of Coreans recorded
in the Japanese annals.
After the overthrow of his family and kingdom by the traitor Wei-man,
Kijun, the king of old Chō-sen escaped to the sea and fled south toward
the archipelago. He had with him a number of his faithful adherents,
their wives and children. He landed among one of the clans of Ma-han,
composed of Chinese refugees, who, not wishing to live under the Han
emperors, had crossed the Yellow Sea. On account of their numbering,
originally, one hundred families, they called themselves Hiaksai.
Either by conquest or invitation Kijun soon became their king. Glimpses
of the manner of life of these early people are given by a Chinese
writer.
The Ma-han people were agricultural, dwelling in villages, but neither
driving nor riding oxen or horses, most probably because they did not
possess them. Their huts were made of earth banked upon timber, with
the door in the roof. They went bareheaded, and coiled or tied their
hair in a knot. They set no value on gold, jewels, or embroidery, but
wore pearls sewed on their clothes and hung on their necks and ears.
Perhaps the word here translated “pearl” may be also applied to drilled
stones of a cylindrical or curved shape, like the magatama, or “bent
jewels,” of the ancient Japanese. They shod their feet with sandals,
and wore garments of woven stuff. In etiquette they were but slightly
advanced, paying little honor to women or to the aged. Like our Indian
bucks, the young men tested their endurance by torture. Slitting the
skin of the back, they ran a cord through the flesh, upon which was
hung a piece of wood. This was kept suspended till the man, unable
longer to endure it, cried out to have it taken off.
After the field work was over, in early summer, they held drinking
bouts, in honor of the spirits, with songs and dances. Scores of men,
quickly following each other, stamped on the ground to beat time as
they danced. In the late autumn, after harvests, they repeated these
ceremonies. In each clan there was a man, chosen as ruler, to sacrifice
to the spirits of heaven. On a great pole they hung drums and bells for
the service of the heavenly spirits. Perhaps these are the originals of
the tall and slender pagodas with their pendant wind-bells at the many
eaves and corners.
Among the edible products of Ma-han were fowls with tails five feet in
length. These “hens with tails a yard long” were evidently
pheasants—still a delicacy on Corean tables. The large apple-shaped
pears, which have a wooden taste, half way between a pear and an apple,
were then, as now, produced in great numbers. The flavor improves by
cooking.
As Kijun’s government was one of vigor, his subjects advanced in
civilization, the Hiaksai people gradually extended their authority and
influence. The clan names in time faded away or became symbols of
family bonds instead of governmental authority, so that by the fourth
century Hiaksai had become paramount over all the fifty-four tribes of
Ma-han, as well as over some of those of the other two han.
Thus arose the kingdom of Hiaksai (called also Kudara by the Japanese,
Petsi by the Chinese, and Baiji by the modern Coreans), which has a
history extending to the tenth century, when it was extinguished in
name and fact in united Corea.
Its relations with Japan were, in the main, friendly, the islanders of
the Sunrise Kingdom being comrades in arms with them against their
invaders, the Chinese, and their hostile neighbors, the men of
Shinra—whose origin we shall now proceed to detail.
SHIN-HAN.
After the fall of the Tsin dynasty in China, a small body of refugees,
leaving their native seats, fled across the Yellow Sea toward the Sea
of Japan, resting only when over the great mountain chain. They made
settlements in the valleys and along the sea-coast. At first they
preserved their blood and language pure, forming one of the twelve
clans or tribes into which the han or country was divided.
This name Shin (China or Chinese), which points to the origin of the
clan, belonged to but one of the twelve tribes in eastern Corea. As in
the case of Hiaksai, the Shin tribe, being possessed of superior power
and intelligence, extended their authority and boundaries, gradually
becoming very powerful. Under their twenty-second hereditary chief, or
“king,” considering themselves paramount over all the clans, they
changed the name of their country to Shinra, which is pronounced in
Chinese Sinlo.
Between the years 29 and 70 A.D., according to the Japanese histories,
an envoy from Shinra arrived in Japan, and after an audience had of the
mikado, presented him with mirrors, swords, jade, and other works of
skill and art. In this we have a hint as to the origin of Japanese
decorative art. It is evident from these gifts, as well as from the
reports of Chinese historians concerning the refined manners, the
hereditary aristocracy, and the fortified strongholds of the Shinra
people, that their grade of civilization was much higher than that of
their northern neighbors. It was certainly superior to that of the
Japanese, who, as we shall see, were soon tempted to make descents upon
the fertile lands, rich cities, and defenceless coasts of their
visitors from the west.
How long the Chinese colonists who settled in Shin-han preserved their
language and customs is not known. Though these were lost after a few
generations, yet it is evident that their influence on the aborigines
of the country was very great. From first to last Shinra excelled in
civilization all the petty states in the peninsula, of which at first
there were seventy-eight. Unlike the Ma-han, the Shin-han people lived
in palisaded cities, and in houses the doors of which were on the
ground and not on the roof. They cultivated mulberry-trees, reared the
silk-worm, and wove silk into fine fabrics. They used wagons with yoked
oxen, and horses for draught, and practised “the law of the road.”
Marriage was conducted with appropriate ceremony. Dancing, drinking,
and singing were favorite amusements, and the lute was played in
addition to drums. They understood the art of smelting and working
iron, and used this metal as money. They carried on trade with the
other han, and with Japan. How far these arts owed their encouragement
or origin to traders, or travelling merchants from China, is not known.
Evidently Shinra enjoyed leadership in the peninsula, largely from her
culture, wealth, and knowledge of iron. The curious custom, so well
known among American savages, of flattening the heads of newly born
infants, is noted among the Shin-han people.
Neither Chinese history nor Japanese tradition, though they give us
some account of a few hundred families of emigrants from China who
settled in the already inhabited Corean peninsula, throws any light on
the aborigines as to whence or when they came. The curtain is lifted
only to show us that a few people are already there, with language and
customs different from those of China. The descendants of the
comparatively few Chinese settlers were no doubt soon lost, with their
language and ancestral customs, among the mass of natives. These
aboriginal tribes were destined to give way to a new people from the
far north, as we shall learn in our further narrative. The Japanese
historians seem to distinguish between the San Han, the three countries
or confederacies of loosely organized tribes, and the San Goku, or
Three Kingdoms. The Coreans, however, speak only of the Sam-han,
meaning thereby the three political divisions of the peninsula, and
using the word as referring rather to the epoch. The common “cash,” or
fractional coin current in the country, bears the characters meaning
“circulating medium of the Three Kingdoms,” or Sam-han. These were
Korai in the north, Shinra in the southeast, and Hiaksai in the
southwest. Other Japanese names for these were respectively Komé,
Shiriaki, and Kudara, the Chinese terms being Kaoli, Sinlo, and Pe-tsi.
Like the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Wales, called also
Britannia, Caledonia, and Cambria, these Corean states were distinct in
origin, were conquered by a race from without, received a rich infusion
of alien blood, struggled in rivalry for centuries, and were finally
united into one nation, with one flag and one sovereign.