Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LECTURE III The Shamanism Of Korea We have studied the Taoism of China and the Shintoism of Japan, and now turn to the last of the three specifically ethnic religions. The word "Shaman" is a Persian word, meaning "an idolater," but has become more particularly restricted to those who, ', in a peculiar way, profess that by the use of fetiches, charms, and other supposed means of influence over , spirits and demons, they can cure diseases and avert impending disaster. They are sometimes called .' devil-doctors, and the term "Shamanism" has come ; to be applied to that system which especially is ', restricted to these practices. i As we shall soon see, the nature-worship of Korea, which seems to be indigenous, for certain reasons has J remained up to this date so little developed, and "has along certain lines been so largely superseded " by the two foreign religions later introduced, that 1 to the stranger the Pansus (diviners) and Mutangs (sorceresses), the real "Shamans" of Korea, appear so prominent, and their works by divination and exorcising so common, that this term has been the one most generally applied to this indigenous faith. As in China, so here, the native will tell you that there are three religions in this land, mentioning in addition to Buddhism and Confucianism this, which he calls "Shin Kyo," or the doctrine of the gods or spirits, — being the characters "Shin," the same as used in Shinto, and "Kyo," or teaching; and they occasionally even call it " Shinto," — speaking of Kong-to Confucianism, Pul-to Buddhism, and Shin-to Spiritism. As we shall see, there are other than Shamanistic elements in the Shinto of Korea, but to the Korean the everyday evils of this life are so overshadowing, and his struggles to escape them so evid...