The Naewat-dang shamanic paintings () are ten portraits of village patron gods formerly hung at the Naewat-dang shrine, one of the four state-recognized shamanic temples of Jeju Island, now in South Korea. The shrine was destroyed in the nineteenth century, and the works are currently preserved at Jeju National University as a government-designated Important Folklore Cultural Property. They may be the oldest Korean shamanic paintings currently known.
Although twelve gods were worshipped at Naewat-dang, only ten paintings survive. They are all painted with mineral-based pigments on Korean paper with an ink brush, perhaps by the same painter. They depict six male and four female deities, who are dressed in various headgear, robes, and shoes and usually hold a fan. The attire of the gods can sometimes be linked to their names, or to the shamanic myths told about them. For instance, a god said to come from the Central Asian Western Regions wears an unusual hat that may be based on a turban, while the youngest goddess wears the loose hair of an unmarried woman.
The existence of paintings at Naewat-dang is attested since 1466, when some portraits at the shrine were burnt; these may be the two currently missing works. Whether the paintings present in 1466 survived a large-scale persecution of shamanism in 1702 is unknown, but even if they were destroyed, they were probably quickly repainted once the persecution had ended a year later. Analyses of the gods' attire suggest a date of composition in or before the 17th century.
The works are highly divergent from mainland Korean shamanic paintings, and also unusual in that Jeju Island shamanism usually does not involve paintings. Unlike the human-like gods of mainland portraits, the Naewat-dang deities appear inhuman and grotesque, reminiscent of the hybrid human-tree deities worshipped in some Jeju villages. The paintings also invoke both snake and bird imagery.
Introduction
In many mainland traditions of Korean shamanism, portraits of the gods are hung in a shrine room above the altar. These works hold great religious significance, being both the objects of daily worship and a medium by which the depicted deity sends forth divine inspiration, to the point that "the shaman does not venture to touch them without first making offerings and petitioning the gods, requesting their indulgence". Some shamans go as far as to not distinguish the painting and the god, at least in speech. Shamans regularly replace damaged works and replace old paintings with new ones as a way to express gratitude to the depicted gods. As a result, mainland shamanic paintings from even the 18th century are extremely rare, and ones from before then are unattested. Mainland works generally mimic the mainstream Chinese-style or Buddhist paintings. Indeed, many shamanic portraits were actually painted by "goldfish monks": Buddhist priests trained in Buddhist temple art.
Compared to the mainland paintings, the portraits of the Jeju Island Naewat-dang shrine are exceptional in both antiquity—they may be the oldest shamanic paintings yet discovered—and distinctiveness of style. However, paintings are not generally part of Jeju ritual practice, and the Naewat-dang works are thus unusual. Many reasons have been suggested for the lack of shamanic paintings on the island, including a tradition of offering worship in exposed environments such as forests and caverns rather than inside buildings; the impoverished state of the island during the Joseon era (1392–1910) which made materials difficult to afford; and the fact that the local Buddhist tradition had gone nearly extinct under persecution by the Neo-Confucian Joseon state, so that there remained very few goldfish monks. The physical representations of the gods in Jeju shamanism are usually cut paper figurines called gime.
Mythology The village-shrine bon-puri (shamanic narrative associated with village patron gods) of Naewat-dang is of the incipient type, meaning that shamans recite only the names of the village's patron gods without an accompanying myth concerning them. The bon-puri refers to twelve gods, but only ten or eleven are actually named. They are the following:
Korean name Transliteration Translation Notes Jeseok-cheonwang-manora Lord Jeseok, King of Heaven Portraits hung towards the more honored north side Male Bon'gung-jeon Front of the Original Palace Female Sometimes omitted in the bon-puri Eomora Wonmang-nim Eomora Resentment Male Surang-sangtaeja-manora Lord High Prince of the Spirit of Water Naeoe-cheonjado-manora Lord Deity the Inner and Outer Son of Heaven Portraits hung towards the west side Gamchal-jibanggwan-han-jip-manora Lord of the Great House, Regional Officer of the Censorate Said to have come from Ora upstream of Naewat-dang Sangsa-daewang Great King of High Affairs Said to have come from the Western Regions Jungjeon-daebuin Great Wife of the Queen's Residence Female Jeongjeol-sanggunnong Perhaps "Uppermost Lady of Chastity" Jajihong'i-agissi Red Girl Naeoe-buldo-manora Inner and Outer Lord Deity of Fertility No painting. Possibly a pair of deities.
Several of these gods also appear in the village-shrine bon-puri of Gung-dang shrine, which was formed following a schism from the Naewat-dang shrine. According to the Gung-dang bon-puri, which includes mythological narratives, Sangsa-daewang has two wives: Jungjeon-daebuin, his primary spouse, and Jeongjeol-sanggunnong, his lesser wife. When the latter is pregnant, she has a craving for pork, a ritually impure meat. The goddess is burning pig hair to at least smell the scent of pork when Sangsa-daewang arrives. After realizing what Jeongjeol-sanggunnong is doing, he expels both of his wives to Gung-dang. Jeongjeol-sanggunnong gives birth to seven daughters there, of whom the youngest is Jajihong'i-agissi. At Gung-dang, Jungjeon-daebuin is worshipped with rice and wine as a goddess of fertility, while pork is offered for Jeongjeol-sanggunnong.
The Gungdang bon-puri also features Cheonjado, equivalent to Naeoe-cheonjado-manora in the Naewat-dang bon-puri. According to the narrative, Cheonjado is born to two deities, neither of whom are worshipped at Naewat-dang specifically. His father Socheon'guk emerges from Jeju Island, while his mother Baekju-manura is born in China. At the age of fifteen, the latter sails to Jeju and marries Socheon'guk. They have eighteen sons and twenty-eight daughters. Due to the large number of children to feed, Baekju-manura—who is newly pregnant with Cheonjado—suggests that Socheon'guk take up farming. But the hungry god devours all of his plowing oxen and even his neighbor's oxen, and begins to plow the fields with his stomach. At this, Baekju-manura divorces him. When Cheonjado is born, Baekju-manura takes him to Socheon'guk, who imprisons him in an iron chest which he throws into the sea. After six years, it sinks into the underwater realm of the Dragon King. The Dragon King's youngest daughter opens the chest and finds the handsome Cheonjado reading a book inside. She marries Cheonjado, but her husband eats so much everyday that it bankrupts the Dragon King's realm. The King finally expels the two, and they go to China, where Cheonjado suppresses a rebellion. In return for his service, the Jade Emperor allows him to become a god at Naewat-dang.
The motifs of the Gung-dang bon-puri, such as gods with multiple wives, conflicts over eating habits, and the abandonment of a child into the sea, are typical of Jeju village-shrine myths.
Physical description
The ten surviving paintings are all drawn with mineral-derived deep-color pigments (jinchae) on Korean paper using an ink brush, with gold leaf in parts. The colors used are the Five Intermediary Colors, excluding violet, as well as black and white. Various motifs were apparently added by screen printing. The paintings were originally attached to pinewood frames, although they are now preserved in a chest. The paintings' dimensions are between 63 and 64 centimeters vertically and 39 and 39.5 centimeters horizontally (25 × 15½ inches). The style is consistent throughout the ten paintings, perhaps because they were drawn by the same painter or because the deities were conceived as kin who would resemble each other.
The gods are centered, or located slightly above the center. The six male gods are dressed in an overcoat, often with long cords of cloth—symbols of military command in traditional Korean attire—hanging from their waist or chest, and are seated in lotus position. The goddesses wear a skirt and a long upper garment tucked under it, and either bare their breasts or have marks on their robes over their breasts. Three of the four goddesses take an unnatural position in which the shape of the skirt suggests that they are seating while the legs under them suggest that they are standing. All deities wear ribbon-like scarves on their necks almost unattested in the history of Korean clothing; similar pieces of clothing are known only from the late first millennium. Golden bracelets often adorn their wrists. All but two of the gods hold fans: two folding fans and the rest non-folding ones. All gods have red dots on their faces. The gods hung in the north and those hung in the west would have appeared to be looking at each other when hung, except for Jajihong'i-agissi, who looks away towards the south.
The names of the gods as given by the paintings correspond to a specific element within the full names given by the bon-puri. They are written in red in Chinese characters, in upper left for the northern portraits and in upper right for the western ones. All names are given in three characters with the final character being 位 wi "seat", so that the painting of the god Surang-sangtaeja-manora "Lord High Prince of the Spirit of Water" is simply titled Suryeong-wi "Seat of the Spirit of Water".
Male deities Jeseok-cheonwang-manora, whose name is given as Jeseok in the painting, is dressed like a Buddhist priest. He wears a transparent conical hat associated with Korean Buddhist monks, but the red orb on top, reminiscent of the sun, is unknown in monks' garb. He has a red kasaya over a yellow overcoat, although actual Korean monks wear gray. The god holds a white fan, and a lacquered bamboo staff (not used by Korean monks) with a red-beaked crow perched on it. His stance with the staff is suggestive of a warrior holding a spear. Cloud and chrysanthemum motifs are drawn on the fringes of Jeseok's overcoat; dancheong patterns on the pink cloth that flutters around him; and diagonally positioned rectangles on his red kasaya.
Eomora Wonmang-nim (Wonmang in the painting) wears a black gat hat over a headband, and a green overcoat with red and blue fringes, probably cheollik: the traditional coat of Korean military commanders. The coat has cloud and chrysanthemum motifs. His shoes are black wooden ones, which were traditionally worn at the Korean court. The god holds a lacquered folding fan in one hand—unusual in Korean folding fans, which are painted but not lacquered—and extends his other hand as if making a command.
Surang-sangtaeja-manora (Suryeong in the painting) has either a wonyu-gwan headdress, worn by kings and crown princes when greeting the court, or a geumnyang-gwan headdress, worn by the highest-ranking ministers. Like Wonmang, he wears a green overcoat with red and blue fringes and cloud and chrysanthemum motifs, as well as black wooden shoes, and holds another lacquered folding fan. However, the god's headdress cannot be worn together with such an overcoat in Korean court protocol, nor does he wear the necessary belt. Suryeong's face is childlike, despite the beard.