Song of Dorang-seonbi and Cheongjeong-gaksi
The Mangmuk-gut is no longer performed in North Korea, but the ritual and the narrative are currently being passed down by a South Korean community descended from Hamgyong refugees.
The most recurrent tasks are tearing out her hair and weaving the hair into a rope, boring holes into her palms and threading the rope into the holes, and either hanging on it, going back and forth on it, or both; repeatedly drenching her fingers in oil, then setting them on fire; and, finally, paving a difficult mountain road with only what remains of her bare hands.
Dorang-seonbi and Cheongjeong-gaksi were worshipped in the Mangmuk-gut as eminent gods who paved the road on which the deceased soul would travel to the afterlife.
Whether Cheongjeong-gaksi is motivated by a patriarchal ideal of female virtue that the Song therefore supports, or whether she acts out of personal love, remains debated.
Gut rituals are illegal and no longer held in North Korea,[7] so the oral transmission of the narrative is presumed extinct.
[9] But in the 2010s, researchers were able to contact a community descended from North Korean refugees, living near the city of Sokcho in South Korea, who continue to recite the narrative today.
He leaves alone on the wedding night, after telling his wife that he will have died if she sees a man with shorn hair at noon the next day.
No such man comes at noon, but a shorn-haired servant of Dorang-seonbi arrives at her house at night[a] and announces that his master has died.
The sound of weeping reaches the hall of the Jade Emperor, who orders a subordinate god, the Sage of the Golden Temple, to find the reason why.
"[25] When the woman brings him the jorangmalttadari, the Sage gives her the task—already seen in the 1926 version—of smearing and drying fifteen mal of oil and setting her fingers on fire.
They select an auspicious day for the wedding, but Dorang-seonbi suddenly falls ill and dies on his wife's lap on the night of the marriage.
Cheongjeong-gaksi's first task is to go to Geumsang Temple and recite ten thousand nianfo (ritual praises of the Buddha) without moving her hands or feet.
[36] The Song of Dorang-seonbi and Cheongjeong-gaksi is recited during the dorang-chugwon, the tenth rite of the Mangmuk-gut: the funeral ceremony of South Hamgyong shamanism.
[39] The dorang-chugwon is the single most important component of both the second process and of the entire funeral because it is believed to generate the road to the afterlife on which the deceased soul will journey.
[b] As the shaman recites the sacred narrative, the bereaved at the funeral come to accept that their loved one is gone to a place where no living person can possibly reach them, just as Cheongjeong-gaksi could not resurrect her husband even at the end of such pain.
"[47] Despite the emphasis on the separation between the living and the dead, Dorang-seonbi and Cheongjeong-gaksi are invoked as divine linkers between the two, and scholars have also emphasized connective motifs in the myth.
[49] Kim also notes that the narrative centers on liminal spaces such as gates, graves, mountain temples, and bridges, furthering its ritual purpose of connection.
This parallels the nature of the funeral itself, in which the bereaved are able to briefly reunite with their loved ones and bid them farewell before they enter the unreachable world of the dead.
[54] The Song of Dorang-seonbi and Cheongjeong-gaksi has received scholarly attention for its vividly gory descriptions, which are unusual in Korean shamanic narratives.
[55] The Samguk yusa, a thirteenth-century compilation of Korean legends by the Buddhist priest Iryeon, includes two apparently related stories.
[58] The long-ruling Joseon dynasty (1392–1910) of Korea sought to mold Korean family structures along Neo-Confucian patriarchal values, and a key part of this effort was the promotion of the social ideal of the "virtuous woman" (열녀/烈女, yeolnyeo): a wife totally devoted to her husband.
Moralistic tracts published by the Joseon government include hundreds of stories of such "virtuous women," including dozens of young women who committed suicide when their husbands died and one tale of a young widow who cut off her hair, ears, and nose to protest her family's suggestions that she remarry.
[59] In an important article in 2001, folklorist Cho Hyun-soul first[58] argued that the Song promoted this social ideology among the worshippers, writing: The cultural arbitrary inculcated by Cheongjeong-gaksi and Dorang-seonbae is this rule: that a wife must endure every possible hardship for her husband's sake, and that she is a being whose the earthly duty is to restore her family...
[62] For instance, the folklorist Han Yang-ha notes that since Cheongjeong-gaksi is barred from women's social identities of a wife and a mother, her only way to gain recognition is as a self-sacrificial "virtuous woman.
"[63] However, scholars such as Han also noted that Cheongjeong-gaksi shows desires and sexual lust as well, as in her repeated attempts to make physical contact with her husband.
Han argued that the heroine's suffering reflected the common perception in patriarchal Korean society that female desire was sinful.
He argues that the difference is that "virtuous women" were motivated by the patriarchal notion of female virtue, while Cheongjeong-gaksi is driven by genuine personal love.
[66] Yoon also notes the fact that Dorang-seonbi is responsible for his own death in most versions and that it is the woman who actively brings about their reunion, which may imply an overcoming of the patriarchal order.
In the 1966 version, this becomes an etiological story that explains why maternal uncles are now banned from being involved in marriage arrangements in South Hamgyong culture.
[68] This motif is understood as a reflection of the historical shift of Koreans from matrilocal to patrilocal residence, caused by the Joseon enforcement of Confucian family structures.
