I delighted in making this little sculpture, trying to make big gloppy tears that run and collect like in a cartoon. The figure is massive from the front but from the side you see they are flat and dented in– already opening up to an airy dancing skeleton.

Baubo (earthenware and underglazes) goddess of mirth, head optional. She is barely known in the pantheon but the stories about her are delightful, all body, no head, sexy and silly and playful. Tell me how to remove my head and be my body, come alive

the shrine goddesses are GONE :^( they took my old bitches away :^(( where are my shrine hags :^((( my dusty girls :^(((( my CRONES :^(((((

LOVE reading pliny the elder and coming across a passage where he says shit like "so some people say that if a horse steps in a wolf's tracks it will fucking EXPLODE"

“Rosalía Lemus De La Rosa, known as Mama Chali is a Marakame (master shaman) from the Wixárika culture of Mexico. She is a living library of knowledge and a powerful healer.”

Unrelated, but boy do I wish I were an anthropology major in college right about now so that I could write a bombing thesis on why doing the hokey pokey at Hurricane Florence in the hopes that she’ll turn herself around is a seemingly legitimate modernized attempt at animistic folk magic. 

As an anthropology minor and psychology major I can absolutely assure you that it is. A large portion of magic particularly folk magic regarding weather and tragedy is about meaning making and reassurance. It drives humans up the walls to have no control over our environment and for bad things to happen for no tangible reason because we’re normally so good at controlling our world and noticing cause and effect. Because of this even just joking about “Let’s blast “Florence at the Machine at Hurricane Florence until it leaves” makes us feel better because it gives us an illusion of meaning when its not there. 

Lets break that joke down into some different language though. “Let’s play the music of a woman who bears the same name that was given to this storm in the hopes that it leaves us in peace.” Suddenly it sounds really legit. Or the joke used above “Let’s play a song we’ve all known since our youth and pray that the storm is compelled to follow the steps.”

Animistic folk magic and other things that we consider to be long gone like sacrifices to beings for safety (many modern approaches to recycling and composting focus on ‘giving back’ to an unnamed source for future safety), reverence or fear of spirits or the unknown (fae/ghosts/demons/evil in general), and the worship or reverence of certain sites (monuments/national parks/memorials) have stayed with us because they’re an inherently human part of the meaning making process when confronted with our world. 

At the end of the day it’s more comforting to think of a hurricane as a sentient entity sent to wreak havoc rather than an unfortunate byproduct of greedy people not listening to a hundred years of scientific warnings. You can reason with a hurricane.

We still practice sympathetic magic (I think that’s what it’s called?) Just go to any North American sporting event. Our mascots beat each other up, mimicking their hopeful defeat. Some HSs will smash an effigy of the opposing team, it’s all there somewhere in the margins.

Banten Saiban - The Offering After Cooking. Bali Indonesia We do it after done cooking, and before we start eating. It’s for re thanks for what god has given in our life 😇😇 (via Instagram: Joe_bali_driver)

Stealth Ancestral Veneration

Above anything, the following:

A note about food: if you offer food…it’s now theirs. It can be stored in things like tupperware, earthenware pots, etc. Offerings can be left up to three days in a designated ancestral space, then disposed of in nature or some other discreet method.

Bujeok (부적 符籍) are amulets and talismans that Korean Shamans make for clients for protection from misfortune, healing, prosperity and good fortune. These are typically inscribed in red letters on yellow paper (both “good luck” colors), and they can be placed in the home or carried on the person. The background color of the paper Bujeok amulets is normally yellow because that is the color that repels evil spirits, and the designs are inscribed in red ink which represents blood and fire, thus symbolizing life and human emotions. Although the designs may look like Chinese characters, they are “spirit writings” that can be interpreted only by the Mudang, but they also sometimes contain within the overall design some actual Chinese characters.

Salp'uri Dance

Images: blog.daum.net

Description: asianinfo.org

Video: Youtube|aprilyouknow

Salp'uri (Spirit-Cleansing Dance)

Description via asianinfo.org: “Salp'uri means literally to wash away evil spirits. Usually a mudang(shaman) presided over the process. Shamanism is a long-held tradition which emerged around the Three Kingdoms era. Salp'uri was the climax of shaman rituals. Its representative by-product is the unique salp'uri rhythmic cycle that has been adapted in other performing arts. Salp'uri is prevalent in the Honam region, the southwestern part of Korea, in the form of ssitkimgut, the soul cleansing shaman rite. This is regarded as the archetype of the present Salp'urich'um which uses a white silk scarf as a key prop.

The salp'urich'um dance has been polished over the centuries to add artistic value, and so it is hard today to trace it back to a mere exorcism rite. It was performed in shaman rites accompanied by the rhythms of shinawi (featuring an extensively improvised ensemble with wind and percussion instruments) to attract the interest of spectators. As it was refined into an artistic artform, salp'uri’s name changed to ipch'um, chukhungch'um, or sugonch'um.

Although it derived from shaman rites, salp'uri does not carry out any religious function. The dancer, attuning herself to the sorrowful shinawi music, portrays sadness and anxiety in her every step. During this process, the dancer’s movement reveals striking energy and movement as she performs in a trance- like state.

The salp'uri’s rhythmic normal font cycle starts out with slow-paced shinawi rhythms and gradually builds up speed which conveys the dancer’s excitement.” asianinfo.org

The Korean peninsula is home to ancient religious practices that are usually described as Shamanism. In this tradition, natural phenomena are associated with spiritual entities, and shamans, known in Korean as mu, assist others in communication with this nature spirits. Elements of Korean Shamanism were absorbed into Buddhism and today it is common to find shrines to the local Mountain Spirit, or Sanshin, within Korean Buddhist temple complexes. Paintings such as this one serve as the focus for prayers and offerings, particularly from those who seek protection and bountiful crops. Always shown as an elderly gentleman-sage in the company of resting tiger, the Sanshin represents the age, wisdom, and power of the mountains. Here he sits in a rocky setting, wearing the gauzy cap of a scholar, while boy servants bring a peony and a melon, both of which are emblems of bounty.

Mudang, photos from the beginning of the 20th century

The Korean word 무 mu is related to the Chinese 巫 wu, which defines shamans of either sex. Korean shamanic terminology has, however, at least a partial origin in Siberian languages. Already in records from the Yi dynasty, mudang has a prevalent usage. Mudang itself is explained in relation to Chinese characters, as originally referring to the “hall”, 堂 tang, of a shaman. A different etymology, however, explains mudang as stemming directly from the Siberian term for female shamans, utagan or utakan.

Mudang is used mostly, but not exclusively, for female shamans. Male shamans are called by a variety of names, including sana mudang (literally “male mudang”) in the Seoul area, or baksu mudang, also shortened baksu (“doctor”, “healer”), in the Pyongyang area. According to some scholars, baksu is an ancient authentic designation of male shamans, and locutions like sana mudang or baksu mudang are recent coinages due to the prevalence of female shamans in recent centuries. Baksu may be a Korean adaptation of terms loaned from Siberian languages, such as baksi, balsi or bahsih.

The theory of a Siberian origin of Korean shamanic terminology is more reasonable than theories which explain such terminology as originating in Chinese, given that Chinese culture influenced Korea only at a relatively recent stage of Korean history. Likely, when Koreans adopted Chinese characters they filtered their previously oral religious culture through the sieve of Chinese culture.

Lee, Jung Young (1981). Korean Shamanistic Rituals.

Shamans, Housewives, and Other Restless Spirits by Laurel Kendall

Granted, written by a white woman, from what I saw, but at 12 bucks, it’s a pretty good deal. It’s also one of the only books on Korea written in the 1980′s that’s not the Korean War. But that might be because it’s from Hawaiian University Press, which has a large Asian collection.

The book contains detailed case studies of mudang (ethnographies) mostly in the Seoul area and the roles that are played throughout a Kut in pretty fascinating detail, but only a modern look–mostly through women’s PoV and their roles in the religion as it is now. It includes a list of the spirits called upon, etc. I originally asked for it through the library, but decided to buy it for the details.

And since tumblr has almost nothing under the muism tag, except for me, I thought I would add some resources to look at. This book is useful for if you want to do something other than Buddhism and Christianity in the modern era and are getting stuck on how to write it with respect. It has enough details in it so you can skate by without doing much more research. There is an updated version of the book from the same author too. Shamans, Nostalgias, and the IMF: South Korean Popular Religion in Motion by Laurel Kendall, 2010. But I haven’t gotten my hands on it yet.

Korean Shaman Ritual, “Mudang-kut” performed by Kim Gum-hwa, from the JVC Video Anthology of World Music and Dance. Shamanism is the ancient religion of the Korean peninsula. The female shaman, or mudang, performs a kut, or ceremony. This particular ceremony, cholmuri-kut, is for luck and safety when moving into a new house.  In the first scene, the mudang invites the spirits. In the second scene, the mudang dons a white coat and priest’s hat, a kokkal. She becomes possessed, and is able to read the cymbals (para) by the way they fall when she throws them down. Worries and requests of the homeowners are presented, and then the mudang purifies the home with water. The other mudang sing hymns. In the third scene, a young mudang whirls in a frenzied dance, holding a knife in her mouth and rubbing it on her arms to demonstrate the power of the spirits. In the final scene, a dance is performed that uses sword blades and sacred banners. The mudang divines the future by reading the banners. The person who commissioned the shaman ritual takes on the benefits of this cleansing by touching the feet of the mudang and offering money on the altar.

Well I can’t not share this there’s a seismogram on the very front of it. I’ll let the caption give details:

South Korean shamaness

BOOK OF KELLS BOOK OF KELLS BOOK OF KELLS BOOK OF KELLS