MOURNING AND BURIAL.
The fashion of mourning, the proper place and time to shed tears and
express grief according to regulations, are rigidly prescribed in an
official treatise or “Guide to Mourners,” published by the government.
The corpse must be placed in a coffin of very thick wood, and preserved
during many months in a special room prepared and ornamented for this
purpose. It is proper to weep only in this death-chamber, but this must
be done three or four times daily. Before entering it, the mourner must
don a special weed, which consists of a gray cotton frock coat, torn,
patched, and as much soiled as possible. The girdle must be of twisted
straw and silk, made into a rope of the thickness of the wrist. Another
cord, the thickness of the thumb, is wound round the head, which is
covered with dirty linen, each of the rope’s ends falling upon the
cheek. A special kind of sandals is worn, and a big knotty stick
completes the costume of woe. In the prescribed weeds the mourner
enters the death-chamber in the morning on rising, and before each
meal. He carries a little table filled with food, which he places upon
a tray at the side of the coffin. The person who is master of the
mourners presides at the ceremonies. Prostrate, and struck by the
stick, he utters dolorous groans, sounding “ai-kō” if for a parent. For
other relatives he groans out “oi, oi.” According to the noise and
length of the groans and weeping, so will the good opinion of the
public be. The lamentations over, the mourner retires, doffs the
mourning robes, and eats his food. At the new and the full moon, all
the relatives are invited and expected to assist at the ceremonies.
These practices continue more or less even after burial, and at
intervals during several years. Often a noble will go out to weep and
kneel at the tomb, passing a day, and even a night, in this position.
In some instances, mourners have built a little house before the grave,
and watched there for years, thus winning a high reputation for filial
piety.
Among the poor, who have not the means to provide a death-chamber and
expensive mourning, the coffin is kept outside their houses covered
with mats until the time of sepulture.
Though cremation, or “burying in the fire,” is known in Chō-sen, the
most usual form of disposing of the dead is by inhumation. Children are
wrapped up in the clothes and bedding in which they die, and are thus
buried. As unmarried persons are reckoned as children, their shroud and
burial are the same. With the married and adult, the process is more
costly, and the ceremonial more detailed and prolonged. This, which is
described very fully in Ross’ “Corea,” and with which Hamel’s curt
notes agree, consists of minute ceremonial and mourning among the
living and the washing, combing, nail-paring, robing, and laying out in
state of the dead, with calling of the spirits, and with screens,
lights, and offerings, according to Confucian ritual. In many
interesting features, the most ancient rites of China have survived in
the peninsula after they have become obsolete in the former country.
The very old tombs opened, and the painted coffins, coated with many
layers of silicious paint, dug up near Shanghai recently, are much like
those of the Coreans.
The coffin, which fits the body, is made air-tight with wax, resin, or
varnish, and is borne on a bier to the grave by men who make this their
regular business. Often there are two coffins, one inside the other.
Sons follow the body of their father on foot, relatives ride in
palanquins or on horseback. Prominent at the head of the procession is
the red standard containing the titles and honors of the deceased. This
banner, or sa-jen, has two points on it to frighten away the spirits,
and at the funeral of a high officer, a man wears a hideous mask for
the same purpose. When there are no titles, only the name of the
deceased is inscribed upon the banner.
The selection of a proper site for a tomb is a matter of profound
solicitude, time, and money; for the geomancers must be consulted with
a fee. The pung-sui superstition requires for the comfort of both
living and dead that the right site should be chosen. Judging from the
number of times the word “mountain” enters into terms relating to
burial, most interments are on the hillsides. If these are not done
properly, trouble will arise, and the bones must then be dug up,
collected, and reburied, often at heavy expense. Thousands of
professional cheats and self-duped people live by working upon the
feelings of the bereaved through this superstition.
The tombs of the poor consist only of the grave and a low mound of
earth. These mounds, subjected to the forces of nature, and often
trampled upon by cattle, disappear after the lapse of a few years, and
oblivion settles over the spot.
With the richer class monuments are of stone, sometimes neat or even
imposing, sometimes grotesque. Some, as the pi-popi, are shaped like a
house or miniature temple; or, two stones, cut in the form of a ram and
a horse respectively, are placed before the sepulchre. The man-tu,
“gazing headstone,” consists of two monoliths or columns of masonry,
flanking the tomb on either side, so that the soul of the dead, changed
into a bird, may repose peacefully. In the graveyards are many tombs
paved with granite slabs around the temple model, but for the most part
a Corean cemetery is filled with little obelisks, or tall, square
columns, either pointed at the top or surmounted with the effigy of a
human head, or a rudely sculptured stone image, which strangely reminds
a foreigner of “patience on a monument, smiling at grief.” This
apparition of a human head rising above the tall grass of the
burial-ground may be the original of Japanese pictures of the ghosts
and spirits which seem to rise dark and windblown out of the wet grass.
Often the carving in Corean grave-yards is so rude as to be almost
indistinguishable.
Mourning is of many degrees and lengths, and is betokened by dress,
abstinence from food and business, visits to the tomb, offerings,
tablets, and many visible indications, detailed even to absurdity.
Pure, or nearly pure white is the mourning color, as a contrast to red,
the color of rejoicing. Even the rivets of the fan, the strings on the
shoes, and the carrying of a staff in addition to the mourning-hat,
betoken the uniform of woe.
When noblemen don the peaked hat, which covers the face as well as the
head, they are as dead to the world—not to be spoken to, molested, or
even arrested if charged with crime. This Corean mourning hat proved
“the helmet of salvation” to Christians, and explains the safety of the
French missionaries who lived so long in disguise, unharmed in the
country where the police were as lynxes and hounds ever on their track.
The Jesuits were not slow to see the wonderful shelter promised for
them, and availed themselves of it at once and always.
The royal sepulchres within the peninsula have attracted more than one
unlawful descent upon the shores of Chō-sen. The various dynasties of
sovereigns during the epoch of the Three Kingdoms in the old capitals
of these states, the royal lines of Kokorai at Ping-an, of Korai at
Sunto, and of the ruling house at Seoul, have made Corea during her two
thousand years of history rich in royal tombs. These are in various
parts of the country, and those which are known are under the care of
the government.
Are these mausoleums filled with gold or jewels? Foreign grave-robbers
have believed so, and shown their faith by their works, as we shall
see. French priests in the country have said so. The ancient Chinese
narratives descriptive of the customs of the Fuyu people, confirm the
general impression. Without having the facts at hand to demonstrate
what eager foreigners have believed, we know that vast treasures have
been spent upon the decoration of the royal sepulchres, and the
erection of memorial buildings over them, and that the fear of their
violation by foreign or native outlaws has been for centuries ever
before the Corean people. That these fears have too often been
justified, we shall find when we read of that memorable year, A.D.
1866. The profuse vocabulary of terms relating to burial, mourning, and
memorial tablets in Corea show their intense loyalty to the Confucian
doctrines, the power of superstition, and the shocking waste of the
resources of the living upon the dead.
The voluble Corean envoys when in Tōkiō, visited the Naval College, and
on learning that in certain emergencies the students from distant
provinces were not allowed to go home to attend the funeral of their
parents, nor to absent themselves from duty on account of mourning,
were amazed beyond measure, and for a few moments literally speechless
from surprise. It is hard for a Corean to understand the sayings of
Jesus to the disciple who asked, “Lord, suffer me first to go and bury
my father,” and “Let the dead bury their dead.”
From the view-point of political economy, this lavish expense of time,
energy, money, and intellect upon corpses and superstition is
beneficial. Without knowing of Malthus or his theories, the Chō-senese
have hit upon a capital method of limiting population, and keeping the
country in a state of chronic poverty. The question has been asked the
writer, “How can a people, pent in a little mountainous peninsula like
Corea, exist for centuries without overpopulating their territory?”
Wars, famine, pestilence, ordinary poverty answer the question in part.
The absurd and rigorous rules of mourning, requiring frightful expense,
postponement of marriage to young people—who even when betrothed must
mourn three years for parents and grandparents, actual and expected,
the impoverishing of the people, and the frequent hindrances to
marriage at the proper season, serve to keep down population. This fact
is an often chosen subject for native anecdotes and romances. The
vexations and delays often caused by the long periods of idle mourning
required by etiquette, are well illustrated by the following story,
from the “Grammaire Coréenne,” which is intended to show the sympathy
of the king Cheng-chong (1776 to 1800) with his subjects. It is
entitled “A Trait of Royal Solicitude.”
It was about New Year’s that Cheng-chong walked about here and there
within the palace enclosure. Having come to the place reserved for the
candidates at the literary examinations, he looked through a crack in
the gate. The competitors had nearly all gone away to spend the New
Year holidays at home, and there remained only two of them, who were
talking together.
“Well, all the others have gone off to spend New Year’s at home; isn’t
it deplorable that we two, having no place to go to, must be nailed
here?”
“Yes, truly,” said the other; “you have no longer either wife,
children, or house. How is this?”
“Listen to my story,” said the first man. “My parents, thinking of my
marriage, had arranged my betrothal, but some time before the
preparations were concluded, my future grandfather died, and it became
necessary to wait three years. Hardly had I put off mourning, when I
was called on to lament the death of my poor father. I was now
compelled to wait still three years. These three years finished, behold
my mother-in-law who was to be died, and three years passed away.
Finally, I had the misfortune to lose my poor mother, which required me
to wait again three years. And so, three times four—a dozen years—have
elapsed, during which we have waited the one for the other. By this
time she, who was to be my wife, fell ill. As she was upon the point of
death, I went to make her a visit. My intended brother-in-law came to
see me, found me, and said, ‘Although the ceremonies of marriage have
not been made, they may certainly consider you as married, therefore
come and see her.’ Upon his invitation I entered her house, but we had
hardly blown a puff of smoke, one before the other, than she died.
“Seeing this, I have no more wished even to dream at night. I am not
yet married. You may understand, then, why I have neither wife,
children, nor home.”
In his turn the other thus spoke: “My house was extremely poor. Our
diet looked like fasting. We had no means of freeing ourselves from
embarrassment. When the day of the examination came I presented myself.
During my absence my wife contrived in such a manner, that putting in
the brazier a farthing’s worth of charcoal, she set a handful of rice
to cook in a skillet, and settled herself to wait for me. She served
this to me every time I came back. But I never obtained a degree. The
day on which I was at last received as a bachelor of arts, on returning
after examination, I found that she had as before lighted the charcoal,
put to boil a dish of soup, and seating herself before the fire, she
waited. In this position she was dead.
“At sight of this my grief was without bounds. Having no desire to
contract a new union, I have never re-married.”
Hearing these narratives, Cheng-chong was touched with pity. Entering
the palace, seating himself upon the throne, and having had the two
scholars brought in, he said to them:
“All the other scholars have gone to their homes to spend New Year’s.
Why have not you two gone also?” They answered, “Your servants having
no house to go to, remained here.”
“What does that mean?” said Cheng-chong. “The fowls and the dogs, oxen
and horses have shelter. The birds have also a hole to build their
nests in. Can it be that men have no dwelling? There should be a reason
for this. Speak plainly.” One of the scholars answered: “Your servant’s
affairs are so-and-so. I have come even till now without re-marriage.
It is because I have neither wife, child, nor family.”
The story being exactly like that which he had heard before, the king
cried out, “Too bad!”
Then addressing the other, he put this question: “And you, how is it
that you are reduced to this condition?” He answered, “My story is
almost the same.”
“What do you wish? Speak!” replied the king.
“The circumstances being such and such, I am at this moment without
wife and without food. That is my condition.”
As there was in all this nothing different from the preceding, the
king, struck with compassion, bestowed upon them immediately lucrative
offices.
If he had not examined for himself, how could he have been able to know
such unfortunate men, and procure for them so happy a position in the
world? In truth, the goodness of his Majesty Cheng-chong has become
celebrated.