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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social institutions > Customs & folklore > Customs
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Ancestor Worship and Korean Society (Hardcover)
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Ancestor Worship and Korean Society (Hardcover)
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The study of ancestor worship has an eminent pedigree in two
disciplines: social anthropology and folklore (Goody 1962: 14-25;
Newell 1976; Fortes 1976; Takeda 1976). Despite obvious differences
in geographical specialization and intellectual orientation,
researchers in both fields have shared a common approach to this
subject: both have tried to relate the ancestor cult of a given
society to its family and kin-group organization. Such a method is
to be expected of social anthropologists, given the nature of their
discipline; but even the Japanese folklorist Yanagita Kunio, whose
approach to folk culture stems from historical and nationalist
concerns, began his work on ancestors with a discussion of Japan's
descent system and family structure (Yanagita 1946). Indeed,
connections between ancestor cults and social relations are
obvious. As we pursue this line of analysis, we shall see that
rural Koreans themselves are quite sophisticated about such
matters. Many studies of ancestor cults employ a combination of
social and psychological approaches to explain the personality
traits attributed to the dead by their living kin. Particular
attention has long been given to explaining the hostile or punitive
character of the deceased in many societies (Freud 1950; Opler
1936; Gough 1958; Fortes 1965). Only recently, however, has the
popularity of such beliefs been recognized in China, Korea, and
Japan (Ahern 1973; A. Wolf 1974b; Kendall 1977; 1979; Yoshida 1967;
Kerner 1976; Lebra 1976). The earliest and most influential studies
of ancestor cults in East Asia, produced by native scholars (Hozumi
1913; Yanagita 1946; Hsu 1948), overemphasize the benign and
protective qualities of ancestors. Some regional variations
notwithstanding, this earlier bias appears to reflect a general
East Asian reluctance to acknowledge instances of ancestral
affliction. Such reticence is not found in all societies with
ancestor cults, however; nor, in Korea, China, and Japan, is it
equally prevalent among men and women. Therefore, we seek not only
to identify the social experiences that give rise to beliefs in
ancestral hostility, but to explain the concomitant reluctance to
acknowledge these beliefs and its varying intensity throughout East
Asia. In view of the limited amount of ethnographic data available
from Korea, we have not attempted a comprehensive assessment of the
ancestor cult in Korean society; instead we have kept our focus on
a single kin group. We have drawn on data from other communities,
however, in order to separate what is apparently true of Korea in
general from what may be peculiar to communities like Twisongdwi, a
village of about three hundred persons that was the site of our
fieldwork. In this task, we benefited substantially from three
excellent studies of Korean ancestor worship and lineage
organization (Lee Kwang-Kyu 1977a; Choi Jai-seuk 1966a; Kim
Taik-Kyoo 1964) and from two recent accounts of Korean folk
religion and ideology (Dix 1977; Kendall 1979). Yet we are still a
long way from a comprehensive understanding of how Korean beliefs
and practices have changed over time, correlate with different
levels of class status, or are affected by regional variations in
Korean culture and social organization. Because we want to provide
a monograph accessible to a rather diverse readership, we avoid
using Korean words and disciplinary terminology whenever possible.
Where a Korean term is particularly important, we give it in
parentheses immediately after its English translation.
Korean-alphabet orthographies for these words appear in the
Character List, with Chinese-character equivalents for terms of
Chinese derivation. As for disciplinary terminology, we have
adopted only the anthropological term "lineage," which is of
central importance to our study. We use "lineage" to denote an
organized group of persons linked through exclusively male ties
(agnatically) to an ancestor who lived at least four generations
ago. (A married woman could be said to have an informal membership
in her husband's lineage until her death.) Thus, the term
"Twisongdwi lineage" designates the agnatic kin group located in
the village of Twisongdwi. This term does not refer to a line of
ancestry. Smaller lineages may collectively constitute a larger
lineage; for example, the descendants of two brothers may form two
lineages but also ritually observe their common descent from an
earlier agnatic forebear.
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