Simon Mills’ book is an important addition to the growing body of work in English on Korean shamanism, contemporary traditional culture, and ritual music. Scholars often define hereditary shamans in Korea as priests because they do not practice any of the ecstatic magic-oriented activities with which the term shaman has become associated. However, in Korean those religious practitioners are called mudang[1], just like charismatic shamans who get into trance states of mind in which they perform extraordinary acts. Both kinds of mudang perform a long ritual called kut in which spirits of ancestors, gods, nature, and historic heroes are appeased and asked to help. In the Korean literature, the music of hereditary shamans is considered more sophisticated than that of possessed practitioners. Scholarly work in English about Korean shamanism has focused mainly on charismatic shamans (by, among others Youngsook Kim Harvey, Laurel Kendall, Antonetta Bruno, Kim Chongho, Maria Seo, and Lee Yongshik), describing in a rich ethnographic manner the ways of life, ritual, music, and belief system of possessed mudang. Less was published about hereditary shamanism (mainly by Boudewijn Walraven and Daniel Kister). Therefore, Mills’ book offers an important source in English for learning about this now declining tradition.
After performing fieldwork in Korea in 1999-2000, Mills hosted two musicians in England, interviewed them, and recorded their music with himself participating. The CD that resulted from that visit accompanies the book. The five chapters of the book are named after the musical titles of the pieces on the CD. The book provides transcription of prominent drumming patterns that can be followed in the audio CD, and one of the tracks is discussed in detail (41-8).
Throughout the book, Mills allows the Korean ritual specialists to present their perspectives about Korean life, society, beliefs, and musok practices, while his role in theorizing it is very limited. The two musicians belong to the Kim family, which is the most well known troupe of that ritual genre. Kim Junghee, now a leading folk musician and a university teacher of kut music, is a typical offspring of a hereditary shamans’ family. His father was a famous musician and his mother a mudang, as traditionally hereditary shamans intermarried within their social group. However, Kim Junghee’s father discouraged him from becoming a part of the musok-performing troupe because of the difficult lifestyle and negative social stigma of that profession. Kim Junghee remembers telling his father at the age of seventeen, “If I can’t do kut, there is absolutely nothing for me” (11). Then, he gained access to his father’s knowledge and teaching. The second interviewee is the younger musician Jo Jonghun, who was adopted in 2000 by Kim in order to learn and perform kut.
Mills narrates a story of change and development in Korea’s East Coast hereditary shamanism over the past fifty years, comparing his contemporary observations with those written in the past by Korean scholars, mainly Ch’oe Kils?ng and Kim T’aegon. Hereditary shamans used to have regional influence zones. However, several strong families have increasingly expanded their clientele to include various regions, and almost all the troupe members live now in Seoul most of the time. The learning process has also changed. While in the past most of the music was absorbed by the young offspring of the family in a manner similar to mother tongue acquisition, it has been formalized and taught in a more analytic and systematic manner to older apprentices who are not natural family members. Mills and the Korean musicians lament together the shortcomings of this learning process and its adverse effect on the ability of the young generation to improvise and to develop a personal style. The book supplies the structure, components, and ideology of East Coast kut music. It also describes the way musicians and shamans have been recruited and taught their arts, the perspectives that shape their trade, the way they acquire their musical instruments, and how they maintain their clientele and restrain their competitors.
There are several discrepancies between the title and the book’s cover and its content. While the title reads “Healing Rhythms,” the author and Kim Junghee seem to see it more as entertainment music than a healing tool; the subtitle, The World of South Korea’s East Coast Hereditary Shamans, leads the reader to think that shamans (mainly female) will be discussed, while in reality they are almost absent from the book, which looks at the world of kut from the perspective of male musicians. Furthermore, the beautiful paper flower offerings that are typical to this kut style are the only items shown on the cover but are not discussed in the book. Another topic that could add to the discussion of contemporary East Coast shamanism in Korea is the yearly Tanoje festival in Kangn?ng, which was designated as among the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO. It would have been interesting to hear what role kut musicians played in the designation process and in that yearly ritual, which has become a symbol of national heritage preservation.
The book offers what might be a last glimpse of the way the elders of the Kim family still run kut rituals in a traditional setting at seaside villages. A broader repertoire has gradually ceased to be practiced, and even rituals held at the time of the research are in danger of becoming un-kut-like staged petrified forms (102), while their musical patterns are being incorporated into contemporary experimental music.
[1] When describing charismatic religious practitioners in Korea, many Western scholars have preferred to use the term mansin since mudang carries some negative connotations in Korea. Mansin means ten thousand spirits and relates to the close relationship of the possessed mudang with the gods. However, Mills describes hereditary shamans, and accordingly he uses the word mudang.
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[Review length: 963 words • Review posted on June 19, 2008]