In the late Joseon period, Buddhist monks often went about asking for alms with a dharma drum set up on the roadside or formed a nongak (farmers’ music) band and begged for rice.
It is written in "Hanyangsesigi" ("A Record of the Seasonal Customs of Hanyang") that beopgo monks, wearing straw hats and playing the drum and gong, also wearing a flower made of blue feathers and paper like a hair rod and a yellow Buddhist robe, and holding two halves of a seal called bujeol, gather on the streets of a village and dance in a circle like actors or clowns to beg for grains in order to present an offering to Buddha.
Unlike the sogo, in Gangneung the beopgo does not have a handle but is held by winding a string around the hand.
One of the remarkable features of nongak in the southern coastal region is bungnori (drum performance), also called beokkunori or beokgunori.
[5] As a performance featuring numerous players, beopgonori produces representative scenes expressing the collective artistic ecstasy and exhilaration of nongak.
As the Buddhist musical instrument called beopgo has been accepted widely yet on a case-to-case basis, its name has taken on a regional character.
Beopgonori testifies that in as much as nongak has a history of being passed down in relation to Buddhism its performance has great expandability.