Talk:Korean shamanism

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Korean Shamanism has about a million adherents in China.

Is this meant to indicate that all one million ethnic-Korean Chinese people are shamanism followers? Is there a source? -Baixue

[edit] Shamans consider themselves Buddhists

It seems like it might be kind of hard to say how many people hold shamanism as their religion, since, when asked, most people who practice it self-identify as Buddhist. In fact, of course, the two co-exist--shamanic gods (some of whom are Buddhist or Taoist) for day-to-day, Buddhas for more ultimate concerns like salvation after death.

Maybe people with a Western view of religion (as in, you're either Christian or Jewish or Muslim or atheist or neopagan, but not any two at once) aren't the best people to collect data on Asian religion. Look at the hash that idea has made of the statistics on Shinto. Under normal circumstances, nobody but the most devout self-identify as any one thing, except for Christians. 71.223.169.27 01:47, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

That's a good point. However, I would note that the Choson Dynasty did try to impose one religion (Confucianism) on Korea to the exclusion of both Shamanism and Buddhism. We can really only report what reliable sources say about this topic. I believem, based on the note at the bottom of the article, that most of the current text comes from a public source document from the Libary of Congress Country Studies series. I'm in the process of trying to rewrite this on the basis of a monograph written by a professor at Kyung Hee University. JChap2007 02:15, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Small issues with writing; otherwise, immensely better

In general, I cannot praise the improvements to this article enough. Some actual depth in an article about Korea is a breath of fresh air; too many of the Korea articles just seem to be content with a big table or list, and precious little explanation. See, for example, the article on Korean honorifics. The shamanism article used to be little more than that, just a list of some gut without a scrap of detail about what, specifically, a shaman does.

That said, hanja for as many terms as hanja exist for would be quite helpful (apparently gut doesn't have one). They're useful in showing a) the syllable breaks in words, and b) the precise meanings of words. For instance, until I saw it written in Hanja, I just assumed the psychopomps god, Saja, meant "Death something," possibly Death Child (死子); imagine my surprise to discover it means something along the lines of "agent, messenger" (使者).

Also, isn't it the Wikipedia policy to use Revised Romanization? Don't sweat that too much, though. Nagakura shin8 20:30, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind words. I don't know much hanja and cannot type it (nor can I type hangul for that matter), so in the best tradition of {{sofixit}}, feel free to add hanja characters where appropriate. However, as shamanism is a native/Siberian-derived rather than being borrowed by the Koreans from China, it wouldn't surprise me if none of the words that are used to discuss it were Sino-Korean. If the words aren't Sino-Korean, they will not have associated hanja characters. ObiterDicta ( pleadings • errata • appeals ) 03:42, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I mean the compliments; it's much improved. Actually, though, a surprising number of Shamanic terms have hanja, at least for parts of the words. "Mudang" for instance is 巫堂.

I have no problem with going through and adding hanja for words I know the hanja for (the above, for instance), but I'd really like hanja for the types of shaman, as those are terms I'd never encountered before. Possibly someone more acquainted with the hanja for this specialized area can help? Nagakura shin8 18:37, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Issue with this passage in the "Origins" section

" Shamanism has its roots in ancient, land-based cultures, dating at least as far back as 40,000 years. ..... During a trance, the shaman’s soul left his body and travelled to other realms, where helping spirits guided him in his work."

From my research (I'll provide the source later when I get a chance to find it) there is no form astral travel in Korean Shamanism but rather the opposit where the shaman allows the dieties from other realms to enter her body for spiritual guidance and insight.

-Bill July 27, 2007