Joseon in mourning: Where the dead receive more consideration than the living

A funeral purportedly in Seoul in the late 1890s or early 1900s. Courtesy of Diane Nars Collection

By Robert Neff

Korea was once described as "a land where the dead seem to receive more careful consideration than the living and where they occupy the most pleasing of all sites and surroundings." This description may have been true, for the most part, especially when the deceased were affluent men, but for the poor and those without family, it was a land of ignoble endings.

In the late 19th century, Westerners visiting or residing in Korea often described the funerals they encountered ― generally for wealthy and affluent individuals ― which were quite elaborate and usually held at night. Funerals for the higher classes were usually not held immediately. Sometimes it took months of delay to determine a propitious date for the funeral and a site for the grave.

In the mid-1890s, Isabella Bird Bishop, an English travel writer, described a funeral (held during the daytime) she encountered in the streets of Seoul:

"First came four drums and a sort of fife perpetrating a lively tune as an accompaniment to a lively song. These were followed by a hearse, if it may be called so, a domed and gaudily painted construction with a garland of artificial flowers in the center of the dome, a white Korean coat thrown across the roof, and four flagstaffs with gay flags at the four corners, bamboo poles, flower-wreathed, forming a platform on which the hearse was borne by eight men in peaked yellow hats garlanded with blue and pink flowers. Bouquets of the same were disposed carelessly on the front and sides of the hearse, the latter being covered with shield-shaped flags of gaudily colored muslin. The chief mourner followed, completely clothed in sackcloth, wearing an umbrella-shaped hat over 4 feet in diameter, and holding a sackcloth screen before his face by two bamboo handles. Men in flower-wreathed hats surrounded him, some of them walking backwards and singing. He looked fittingly grave, but it is a common custom for those who attend the chief mourner to try to make him laugh by comic antics and jocular remarks."

A coffin and a dead horse or pony. Circa 1900s. Robert Neff Collection

Horace Allen, the American diplomatic representative to Korea, also described the many funerals he witnessed in his letters home and in his personal writings. He noted that many of the mourners were hired ― male and female ― and accompanied the bier through the city, escorted by men bearing red lanterns. The whole time the hired mourners kept up "a loud perfunctory chant" that echoed in the darkness of the empty streets.

Of course, these funerals were not cheap. According to Allen, "Money is often spent on these occasions in excess of the circumstances of the family." To help cope with the costs, some people established "burial clubs." This club consisted of three men who would each contribute a little over 33,000 cash (about 11 dollars). The family of the first member of the club to die would receive 30,000 cash, the family of the second member ― when he died ― would receive 33,000 and the when the final person died, the remaining sum of 37,000 cash would go to his family.

There was also a non-financial cost to funerals. Bishop wrote: "A mourner may not enter the palace grounds, and as mourning for a father lasts for three years, a courtier thus bereaved is for that time withdrawn from Court."

For the common people, funerals were much smaller and simpler affairs, but judging from the accounts, were perhaps more heartfelt than those of their affluent peers. Some Westerners described hearing the plaintive cries of real mourners ― family members ― as they accompanied their deceased love one through the streets.

According to George G. Gilmore, an American working in Seoul as a teacher in the late 1880s and early 1890s:

"When a death occurs in any family, the neighbors have no excuse for being ignorant of the fact. The women and girls and boys mourn in shrill and penetrating tones that reverberate through the night air with frightful distinctness."

Generally female relatives did not accompany the bier through the streets. Instead, they remained behind and burned the clothing of the deceased ― usually in the street in front of the house.

A tomb of the privileged. Circa 1900s. Robert Neff Collection

If the deceased was very poor, he was simply placed on crude bier of paper and reed hoops. There was no coffin for him, he was merely wrapped in straw and conveyed through the streets by two porters. The porters, not overly eager to face the darkness outside the city walls, lingered at one of the inns or taverns, leaving the body resting on the ground as they ate their breakfast or drank a couple of cups of alcohol. Only after they were sated did they complete their task by taking the body a short distance outside the city and burying it in a shallow grave. The entire funeral costs between two and three dollars.

In his book, Gilmore wrote: "One of the ghastliest sights I witnessed in Korea was a dog taking his dinner from the foot of a corpse buried almost on top of the earth. The spring thaw had caused the mound to crumble away, and so had exposed the body. A raven stood only a few feet away, evidently waiting till the dog had sated himself and had left the feast."

Evidently, two or three dollars does not pay for "a more careful consideration than the living" or "a most pleasing of sites." It merely provides the deceased's family with the self-deceiving comfort of knowing their loved one is resting in peace.

Robert Neff has authored and co-authored several books including, Letters from Joseon, Korea Through Western Eyes and Brief Encounters.