Korean Shamanism as Culture

“Intangible Cultural Properties” Discourse on Shamanism

Abstract

This paper aims to examine the development of discourse on Korean shamanism as an intangible cultural property, with an emphasis on the exclusion of shamanism's religious aspect. The system referred to as “national intangible cultural property” started in the 1960s in South Korea and has been recognized to have contributed to the revival of traditional culture in Korea through its acknowledgement of values of shamanic rituals and music. In this regard, questions such as what is designated as cultural property of shamanism and what is the logic behind embracing its cultural aspect―excluding its religious aspect―have scarcely been researched thus far. Therefore, in this paper, I show the specific aspects―the artistry and function to bring order to the community found in shamanism―that are evaluated as ethnic culture. With respect to the discourse that describes shamanism as an intangible cultural property, we can verify that it negatively regards shamanism's fortune-telling function, rituals, and faith shared by the mudan (shaman) and followers, as low of value. The exclusion of shamanism's religious aspect from the discourse on an intangible cultural property also describes shamanism's history that has only been allowed to discuss its “cultural” aspect and has also been excluded from the category of “religion.”