The Shaman's Daughter

By Arcadia M. Rhee

The Shaman's Daughter is the story of Yeonhui, the daughter of a single mother and gifted shaman – a mudang – born in a small Korean village in the early sixties. But being the daughter of a mudang, of a shaman, of people who are both feared and despised in Korean society as well as an illegitimate child, she endures ridicule and bullying throughout her childhood.

 

Yeonhui yearns for a normal life, a normal life where she is not an outcast and vilified, a life remote from shamanism and the spirit world all of which seems impossible…  that is until an American missionary family transfers to a nearby village and changes her life forever. But it is an American family that brings tragedy as well opportunity for her to breakaway from her roots—to marry and lead a normal life in the city. 

 

Marrying a man who loves her unconditionally and raising a family through opposition she begins to feel liberated from the curse of her shaman past … until one day she receives the Calling, the calling from something she thought she'd left behind. The Calling to become a mudang, just like her mother.  But accepting the Calling means lifelong stigma and suffering as well as possible destruction for herself and family. Desperate to protect her family from becoming social outcasts, she is seriously tested by the Spirit who will stop at nothing to use Yeonhui as both her heir and spiritual vessel. 

 

Moving with the power of myth, The Shaman's Daughter is a powerful mother daughter story of struggle and identity. It is a story of liberation of a young woman who dares to try and break the chains of fate, but whose daring has unimagined consequences.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia M. Rhee
• Release date: Nov 13, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201741303

Book preview

For my father who now lives in the perfect world

Acknowledgements

With special thanks to:

Con Anemogiannis who was generous with his time and ideas. You pointed me in the

right direction and got me here.

My wonderful husband John and two boys whose support for me is boundless. You

never fail to amaze me.

PROLOGUE.

June, 1997

The summer sky was an almost translucent blue color without a single cloud.  The atmosphere was electric with tension. It always was when the living tried to conjure the dead. Everything remained perfectly still.  There was not even a hint of a breeze.  No one made a sound or movement.  Even the village children with their gaping mouths stopped fidgeting and watched the shaman with both curiosity and apprehension.  There were layers of people standing outside the waist-high stonewall, which was covered with a neat row of faded black roof tiles on top, gawking into the front yard of the house with their arms folded and resting on the top of the wall.  The stone wraparound wall encircled the well-maintained house that was built in the mid-seventeenth century by a nobleman as his rural retreat.  Some had their young ones sitting on their shoulders to get a better view over the thick layers of spectators who filled the yard of twelve by ten meters. 

Under the watchful and rather suspicious eyes of the crowd—most of them were the villagers of Biyang—a young and delicate looking shaman, unlike many other shamans the crowd had seen before, knelt down in front of a large foot-high rectangular sacrificial table covered with plates of fruit, dried fish and rice cakes.  The table, with four short crocodile-like legs, stood on a thick straw mat before two headless pig carcasses.  On both sides of the table two long candlesticks, covered with melted wax running down like volcanic lava, were burning with a mysterious glow.  Standing behind the table was an array of portraits of different gods with glaring eyes, from which the crowd, feeling conscious of their own not-so-blameless life, were trying their best to avoid.  Instead the crowd kept glancing at the two straw-cutting guillotines that were closely placed parallel to each other with the sharp blades facing upward.  The edge of the blades looked so sharp that from a distance they looked metallic blue in color

A black top hat, made from the hair from horsetails and adorned with multicolored beads, was sitting on the shaman’s head.  The shaman self-consciously touched the knot under her chin, which she had tied only ten minutes ago to hold the hat in position.  Over her crisp white hanbok a paper-thin long blue ramie vest that came down below her knees made a shuffling sound whenever she moved.  Her feet felt tight in a pair of thick white beoseons with a pointed tip.  In her left hand was a small bell with three long colorful streams of ribbons hanging at the handle.  The shaman tightened her grip on the large black foldable fan that nestled in her right hand. 

Everything felt foreign to her even though it wasn’t her first time.  She had been hired by different clients to perform similar rituals more than two dozen times, however, she could never come to terms with the life of a shaman being forced upon her.  She couldn’t believe what she was about to do in front of a large crowd who were total strangers including the owner of the house.  Despite the fact that she hated everything including herself, she knew that she had no choice but to carry on with her unenvious life, for her murderous self-hatred would only hurt and even destroy the person she dearly cares about.

THE OWNER OF THE HOUSE, Mrs Jang, was in her fifties and had already paid a large sum of money for today’s ritual, the kut.  Sitting about five meters behind the shaman on another newly made straw mat were a drummer hired for today’s ritual.  Standing next to the drummer Mrs Jang kept rubbing her palms together murmuring a soft prayer.  The shaman closed her eyes and let out a soft sigh.  Just let yourself go, she told herself silently.  Probably it was blessing—she sneered at the irony of using this word for her new life was nothing but a curse as far as she was concerned—that she usually didn’t know what she was doing during the kut and didn’t remember much afterward. 

The shaman drew a deep breath and then started to shake the bell in her hand.  The drummer, taking it as a cue, started to beat the drum at regular intervals.  She stood up and started to walk in small circles before the sacrificial table.  She abruptly stopped and spread open the black foldable fan in a single decisive movement.  Her whole body started to shake as if she was suffering from hypothermia.  The beat of the drum became faster, trying to catch up the increasing rhythm that the shaman’s trembling body was creating.  With her eyes still closed her shaking body started to jump up and down on the spot she was standing.  In the air freed from her body weight, the graceful curve on the bottom of her white beoseons would return to its original shape like a coiled spring.  For a moment time and space seemed empty except for the ever quickening drumbeat and the tinkling of the bell, as her body moved like an automaton.  The drummer’s forehead was shiny with perspiration and his face flushed with exertion, but there was no trace of sweat on the shaman’s emotionless face that exuded a mysterious oblivion.

Suddenly the shaman stopped.  She tilted her head slightly to one side and frowned as if she was puzzled by something.  Then with a deep throaty moan she prostrated her upper body flat on the mat and spread her left arm outwards furiously shaking the bell and hissing through her half-closed lips.  She felt heat slowly burning under her feet and then travelling upwards through her legs and thighs.  She opened her eyes that shone with an unearthly gleam.  The drummer immediately stopped beating the drum which had had an almost hypnotic effect on the crowd who looked stunned by the sudden quietness that had fallen upon them like a smothering blanket.  The shaman knelt on the mat and put down the bell and fan beside her.  She took off her beoseons and lay them neatly next to the incense holder.  She picked up the bell and the fan and stood up again.  Her feet felt unbearably hot.  She started to walk on bare feet toward the direction of the straw-cutting guillotines that had been drawing the awed attention from the crowd. 

When she reached the guillotines, she hopped onto them without any hesitation, drawing involuntary gasps from the crowd.  The cold metal gave instant relief to the soles of her feet.  She closed her eyes and shook the bell.  With that the drummer started to beat the drum at regular intervals slowly quickening the beat.  She started to jump up and down on the sharp blades of the guillotines.  There was murmuring among the stunned crowd although the shaman didn’t seem to notice.  Every time the shaman’s bare feet landed on the blades, some fainthearted people in the crowd gasped and covered their eyes with hands expecting a flow of blood from the bottom of her feet.  There was, however, no blood.  Her bare feet were intact without even a small scratch. 

Her body moved not like a solid object, but more like a colorful fluid that could flow both upward and downward, like multicolored streamers.  Her face expressed nothing, if she was feeling anything.  She rather looked as if her mind had completely separated from her body.  When the drum stopped abruptly, she hopped off the blades and opened her eyes again spreading her left arm outward, jingling the bell and hissing.  She suddenly clutched her chest as if she was experiencing a chest pain, and started to cry with a mournful wail, leading the transfixed crowd into another emotional dimension.

Oh, my poor mother.  Your heart is broken.  I’m so sad for you that I cannot leave this world.  The shaman cried in a thin young woman’s voice.

Mrs Jang, who had been rubbing her palms together and offering nonstop prayers to some unseen power, jolted as she recognized her daughter’s voice.

Kil-ja, is it you?  You came to see me, my poor baby.  While Mrs Jang’s shaking voice contained desperation, it showed no surprise.  This was the reason she had paid such a large sum of money for the kut and this was the moment that she had been waiting for.

I’m sorry that I had to leave you.  My body wasn’t strong enough.  But how can I leave my poor lonely mother behind.  The voice of the young woman’s spirit coming through the shaman was so sorrowful that many people in the crowd also started wiping their eyes with their sleeves.

My poor baby, my poor baby.  I miss you so much.  You were my world and my only hope.  Now how am I going to live without you?  What do I live for?  Kil-ja, my baby, my poor, poor baby.

The grief-stricken woman’s sobs grew louder as she tried to speak to her dead daughter. 

It’s cold and dark in here.  I need a new garment and a new pair of shoes, Mother.  The shaman wrapped her body with her arms and started to shiver. 

I’ve already made a new garment for you.  Your shoes with high heels, I have kept them too.  You liked them so much that you slept with them every night.  You were going to wear them like those actresses in the movies when you got better.  But you never had chance to wear them.  Oh, what happened to my beautiful baby?  Kil-ja.  Kil-ja.

Please don’t be too sad for me, Mother.  I don’t feel pain anymore, and I’m grateful that I have this opportunity to say goodbye. 

I lost a husband when I was only nineteen.  If it wasn’t for you who were growing in my widowed belly, I would have followed your father then and there.  Now I’ve lost you.  What ill-luck do I carry?  What did I do to deserve this?  What terrible sins did I commit in my past life?  It’s my fault that you had to die at such a young age.  I’m getting punished for my sins.  But why my poor girl who never had a chance to know her own father?  It should have been me, not you.  You had a whole life ahead of you.  It’s all my fault, my fault. 

As the woman hit her own chest with her fist, the loose strands of her hair started to fall out of the neatly made bun pinned with silver binyeo behind her head just above her wrinkled nape.

My poor mother.  After being a widow at a tender age, you gave up your life for me.  I promised to give you grandchildren and look after you when you get older.  Now who is going to look after you?  Please forgive this undutiful daughter. 

Weeping uncontrollably the shaman collapsed on the ground at the old woman’s feet.  The two women embraced each other and wailed so mournfully that some older spectators in the crowd also collapsed onto the ground wailing their hearts out.  Those who were still standing didn’t bother to wipe away the warm and wet anguish streaming down their cheeks.  The yard that carried many secrets of long lost ancient aristocrats was now a sea of disconsolate tears.  Everyone united in sadness, each one of them, grieving for their own loss and pitiful lives.

The shaman lifted her face from the old woman’s shoulder.  Her face was wet, but she was no longer crying.

I know that I have to go to the other side soon.  I can see Granny.  She is waiting for me, but I can’t leave this world because my heart is too heavy with your grief to cross over to where Granny is now.  The shaman’s voice was trembling.

You see your Granny?  With surprise the old woman blinked her teary eyes and looked around as if she forgot where she was.

Please don’t cry for me anymore.  It makes it harder for me to go.

Go.  Go with your Granny.  Don’t worry about me, Kil-ja.  For your sake I won’t cry anymore.  I now know that you are going to a good place.  Your happiness is what matters to me.  The woman held the shaman’s hand and brought it to her chest.

Thank you, mother.  I’ll always look over you.

You are going to meet me when my time comes to leave this world, won’t you, Kil-ja?  The woman said ruefully in between sobs, while gently stroking the shaman’s hand. 

I must go now.  The shaman gently pulled her hands away from the woman’s grip and stood up.  She spread her arms and slowly lifted them creating two large semi-circles by her side in the air until two open hands finally met and rested on her forehead, the left hand overlapping the right one.  She slowly crossed her legs in front of the old woman until her bottom completely touched the ground.  Then resting her open hands on her forehead with palm facing outwards, she slowly bent her upper body forward until her left palm almost touched the ground.

This is my last bow to you, my dear Mother.  Please look after yourself.  May you enjoy a good health and longevity. 

The shaman slowly stood up and found her bell.  The drummer started to beat the drum again while the shaman was shaking the bell, furiously muttering something unintelligible.  Mrs Jang struggled with her shaky legs.  Two middle-aged women from the crowd came to the old woman’s side and helped her get up to her feet while constantly dabbing their own red swollen eyes with their sleeves.  Mrs Jang kept praying, rubbing her palms together and rocking her sorrow-stricken body backward and forward.  As the shaman’s bell died down, the drumbeat stopped.  The shaman bowed deeply, still murmuring a prayer and rubbing her palms together in a circle, before the portraits of gods. 

After some minutes, the shaman straightened her slim body.  With a solemn face, she reached for the rice cakes on the table and started to distribute the cakes to the crowd, who eagerly accepted the cakes with both hands and shared them among themselves by breaking them into small pieces.  People believed that the rice cakes from the sacrificial table of a kut would bring good luck to those who consumed it.  The shaman handed the last piece of the square-shaped rice cake to an old woman in the front row, who had red swollen eyes from weeping. 

It was over.  Another one of her successful kuts that she had performed as an independent shaman, a mudang, was now over.  The slowly dispersing crowd watched her with astonishment and awe, under which lay deep-rooted disdain and discrimination that they wouldn’t hesitate to use against people like her when it suited them, as the now exhausted shaman, Yeonhui, knew all too well.

Yeonhui had become a successful mudang, just as her spiritual mother had predicted.  Now that the kut was over, she was released from the Spirit that had taken over her body during the kut and her self-consciousness returned.  She cringed as the familiar feeling of abasement and self-hatred crept back into under her pale skin.  She felt like a crowd-drawing circus freak.  She had fought with her life not to become a mudang, but lost.  As her spiritual mother had said, it was her fate.  The fate that she could not escape from.  Not even death could save her from it.  Feeling her heart burn with shame and anger, she inwardly whispered her daughter’s name, Hyejin —the collateral of her cruel fate.

Chapter 1

March 1970

Holding her mother’s hand Yeonhui was skipping on the long narrow dirt track in the forest.  Yeonhui and her mother lived at the north-western edge of Ulnae, and their only neighbors were the dead resting in the village cemetery.  Three other similar sized villages surrounded Ulnae, and Biyang, which was the biggest and shaped like a Buddha’s ear, spread around the western and southern outskirts of Ulnae.  It was her first day at Biyang Elementary School—located near the western border of Ulnae—as Ulnae didn’t have its own school.

Yeonhui tilted her head back and closed her eyes.  The warm sunlight gently touched her soft skin.  She tried to see the sun under her closed eyelids.  She could see a small orange dot gradually growing bigger before changing into a big purple blob and then a small yellow dot again.  She loved walking with her eyes closed while holding her mother’s hand.  It was her favorite game.  She had tried doing the same many times before when she was alone, but she could never go forward more than two small tentative steps which she made by cautiously feeling the ground with the tip of her shoes even though she had cleared the ground beforehand of any objects that could trip her over.  Without the safety of her mother’s gentle and sure guidance, fear took over her young mind every time without fail. 

The gentle breeze blew her bobbed hair, tickling her cheeks that were already pink with excitement.  The green smell of spring air mixed with the sweet aroma of azaleas along the track was so thick that her head felt dizzy.  Her new shoes left faint impressions with each step on the dry track.  Yeonhui loved her new black shoes that had a red flower on the top.  For over a week since her mother bought them from the weekly street market she tried them inside the house over and over again, but not outside until today.  She arranged them neatly over her pillow when she went to sleep and they were the first thing that she looked for when she got up in the morning.  She was careful not to stand on any mud, but every so often she stopped to shake dirt off her shoes, causing her annoyed mother to tug her hand.  Yeonhui twitched her little nose.

Mom.  Are you really sure that I can go to school?  You have to be eight to be able to go to school, right?  I’m only seven years old, you know, she asked without opening her eyes.

You can start going to school even though you are only seven because you were born in January.  I think it is the hundredth time you’ve asked that question, her mother, Jinsuk, sighed softly.

It’s only the fourth time actually.  Are you sure that my teacher knows that I’m seven but was born in January, so I can go to school? 

Yeonhui opened her eyes a little and squinted to look up at her mother who looked like a heavenly angel with a golden shower of light shining from behind her head. 

They know that you are old enough to start school this year.  I’ve done all the paperwork, so don’t you worry.  All you have to worry about is to behave yourself.  Jinsuk put on a mock serious voice.

I’m always good.  You said that yourself.  Watching the shimmering of glorious spring air that rose from the sunny footpath, Yeonhui swung the hand that held her mother’s hand.

I said you are generally well-behaved.  You have to listen to your teacher and do what she tells you to do, OK?

You said that before a thousand times.  Yeonhui pouted her lips.

It’s only the third time actually, not a thousand times.  A slow smile came up on Jinsuk’s perfectly-defined uncolored lips.

She would have to walk for about one hour every day just to get to Biyang Elementary School which was about three kilometers away from her home, however, today Yeonhui and her mother were taking a shortcut through the forest, which would save their walking time considerably.  Her mother told her not to walk through the shortcut alone because the track, even during the busiest time, was almost deserted.  In fact they would not have taken the shortcut this morning if it wasn’t for Yeonhui’s whim that made her mother spend over half-an-hour on parting her hair in different ways. Yeonhui reluctantly agreed to part her hair on the right-hand side, which her mother did for the last time in the morning before her exhausted mother threatened to cut her hair shorter like boys’ hair so that she wouldn’t need to part her hair every morning.

The L-shaped two-story gray concrete school building looked overwhelming to Yeonhui who lived in a small two-bedroom hut with straw-thatched roof—one was a bedroom for both her and her mother and the other was used as a shrine.  Except for those few who were rich enough to have a modern tiled roof like Landlord Choi’s grand house which was so big that one could get lost inside as the village kids used to say, most of the people in her village lived under the thatched roof, but the villagers had more rooms and larger yards for a cowshed, a pigsty and coops.  Yeonhui and her mother only had two chickens that had never laid any eggs at all even though they were hens. 

Children of various ages and their parents half-filled the school ground.  One bald-headed man was announcing something through a megaphone.

Let’s go and find your teacher, said Jinsuk, after trying to listen to the announcement by cupping a hand around her ear.

Who is my teacher, Mom?

I don’t know yet, but we’ll find out soon.  Ah, I can see the red flag with the number one on it.  Let’s go over there.  Jinsuk grabbed Yeonhui’s wrist and pulled her through the crowd.  Her new sharpened pencils, rubber and ruler made a clanging sound in her metal pencil case.

Park Mudang, is it you?  A middle-aged woman with her hair wrapped in a dirt-stained white towel tapped her mother’s shoulder.  It was a split second, but Yeonhui saw her mother’s shoulder stiffening before she turned around to greet the woman with a tentative smile.  Yeonhui hated it when people called her mother that way.  She much more preferred that people called her mother Yeonhui’s mom or Mrs Park as they normally did to each other.  But in truth she had never heard anyone calling her mother anything other than Park Mudang.  Luckily other people around them were too busy to notice.

Oh, hi.  Her mother smiled politely trying hard not to show the awkwardness or discomfort that was crawling under her beautiful skin.  Yeonhui had a strong feeling of resentment stirring up in her belly and she decided that she didn’t like this woman whom she’d never met before.

Is Yeonhui starting school this year too?  She has grown a lot since I last saw her.  Was it about five years ago?  The woman leaned her upper body backward gauging Yeonhui.  A boy with small weasel-like eyes and a shaved head stood next to the woman staring curiously at Yeonhui.  His unevenly tanned skin had yellowish-gray patches and dried green snot covered the skin under his nose, which made fastidious Yeonhui cringe with disgust.

My son Kyeongho is starting school this year.  I always thought Yeonhui was a year younger than Kyeongho. 

I’m only seven, but I was born in January, so the teacher said that I could come to school, Yeonhui answered quickly before her mother could respond. 

Yes, that’s right.  You were born in January, I remember that.  The woman threw a quick knowing glance to her mother who muttered a barely audible agreement before starting to chew on her lower lip, which, as Yeonhui knew, was her mother’s subconscious habit that occurred whenever she was feeling nervous.

There was another announcement from the same bald-headed man asking the parents to bring their children to their classes.

I have to find Kyeongho’s father before we go to see the teacher.  He was just here not long ago.  Where has the old fool disappeared to?  The woman sighed looking around nervously.

Well, we should get going then.  It greatly relieved Yeonhui to be able to get away from the boy called Kyeongho who had been studying her with his small beady eyes, but she shuddered at the thought of being in the same class with him, which was more likely, given that there weren’t many kids to form more than two or three class in each grade.

See you around, Park Mudang, the woman said loudly before she hurried the boy pushing him through the chaotic crowd, looking for her husband.  This time some people turned around to look at them.  Some held their children and drew them back as if Yeonhui and her mother carried an infectious disease.  Yeonhui felt her face flushing with a vague shame, but she lifted her face and looked at them defiantly.

Come on, your teacher is waiting.  That lady must be your teacher.  Her mother tugged her sleeve, feeling the crowd’s sharp gaze that stabbed her like a vengeful knife which numbed her heart with a familiar pain she felt for her daughter.  If it was any other day Yeonhui would have stubbornly maintained her position glaring at the people who were gawking at them until they averted their eyes, however, today her curiosity for her new teacher took over from her usual obstinate determination.  She reluctantly turned her eyes away from the people who were still looking at her and her mother as if they were ghastly creatures, but not before she threw a final dagger-like glance at them.

How are you?  I’m Kim Sun-hwa.  I’m a Grade One teacher.  Are you looking for the class 1-1?  The teacher introduced herself with a friendly smile.

Oh, Hello.  This is my daughter Park Yeonhui.  I believe that she is in your class.  Her mother bowed slightly and pushed Yeonhui forward.

Hello, Yeonhui.  I like your pretty shoes.

I like them too.  My mom bought them for me for school.  Her mother jabbed Yeonhui in the back with her elbow and whispered just loud enough for the teacher to hear, You should say thank you.

That’s all right.  Welcome to my class, Yeonhui.  Miss Kim patted her head gently.  At that moment Yeonhui—who had a habit of instantly deciding whether she was going to like the person when she met someone for the first time, and who rarely gave anyone a chance to amend her view afterward—decided that she