# The passing of Korea/Chapter 32

CHAPTER XXXII
FUNERAL PROCESSION GEOMANCY
The body of the dead is partially embalmed, and laid in an artificially cooled room, where it remains five months, the legal interval within which the royal dead cannot be interred. A few days after the announcement of the death all the high officials meet before the great gate of the palace, and, seated on their mats, lament the departure of the illustrious deceased. Then the preparations begin. Money pours in from the provinces, the guilds are informed what services will be required of them, the geomancers are sent out to find a propitious site for the tomb, and thousands of men are set to work making the various paraphernalia that will be needed to bring the occasion off with sufficient eclat.
As the day for the grand procession draws near, people begin to flock in from the country to see the sight, and every inn is full to overflowing. All the government departments are intent upon nothing else, and ordinary business is at a standstill. Several days before the great event, there are trial processions in which the participants are trained for the performance of their ​Various functions. In order to witness the pageant to best advantage, one must secure in advance the upper story of one of the Very few two-story buildings on the Great Bell Street, which tuns through the centre of the town.
At midnight a small company of foreigners sallied out and made their way down through the crowded streets to the building that they had preempted. A perfect sea of lanterns showed the innumerable throng hurrying to their places of observation. Soon after we had secured our places a sudden hush in the surging, screaming crowd told us that the vanguard of the procession was. at hand. The people pressed to the sides of the street and stood perfectly quiet. This great thoroughfare is about one hundred feet wide, and gives ample opportunity for the full display of such a pageant. Looking far up the street to the left, we could see the advance runners of the funeral cortège moving slowly down between two solid walls of hushed humanity. First came a number of torch-bearers, whose duty it was to light the great brush torches that are planted at intervals all down the avenue. These torches are as thick as a man's body and ten feet high; and as they flickered, crackled and then sent up a spire of lurid, smoky flame, they seemed to turn everything blood-red, and made the advancing ranks of the procession look more like a company of fiends than of human beings.
The main body of the procession was flanked on either side by a line of soldiers who carried in lieu of muskets silk flags embroidered with Chinese characters. Some of them bore long paddles, with which they were supposed to keep the crowd back if it pressed too close. The first division of the procession itself was composed of thirteen large sedan chairs draped in red, blue and green brocaded silks, and borne on the shoulders of a dozen carriers whose liveries were pink and white. These chairs are supposed to carry the thirteen historians whose duty it is to write the achievements of the deceased. The absolute silence with which these figures glide by adds much to the weirdness and solemnity of the occasion. The road is not paved, and their ​shoes are soft, sandal-like arrangements that make no noise. Next come a number of banners of Oriental richness, borne aloft on bamboo poles, each surmounted by a handsome bunch of peacock feathers. From the cross-bar hangs the banner itself, ten feet long by four feet wide. The central panel is of white brocaded silk, on which are sewed Chinese characters in black and red. The border is of another colour of silk, and is deeply serrated at the edge. From the ends of the cross-bars hang lanterns and bells. The pole is covered with red felt, on which are gilt figures of men, birds and dragons. Each of the great guilds of Seoul is required to furnish one of these costly trinkets. They represent an expenditure of about one hundred and fifty dollars each. Next come a crowd of gaudily dressed bearers, carrying aloft on poles long scrolls of white paper on which are written eulogies of the dead by the most famous scholars of the land. They are substitutes for an obituary address. Behind these comes the chair of state which the deceased was wont to ride, a sumptuous affair borne high above the heads of a score of sturdy fellows. It is draped and canopied with costliest silks, and is bedizened on every side with bangles, knots and tassels. Before it is borne the royal red umbrella, and behind it, festooned upon a hundred poles or more, is carried the blue cloth fence within which the palace women ride on ponies to the place of burial. It is to protect them from the curious eyes of the crowd. It is not unlikely that this is a remnant of the ancient custom of burying several girls alive in the tomb of a dead king. History records one significant instance in which a king of Silla gave orders that in his case this barbaric custom must be omitted.
The next feature is a pack of hobgoblins or imps with enormous masks over their faces. These masks are three feet broad, and have two pairs of staring eyes and hideous grinning mouths. These are supposed to frighten away all evil spirits and make the pbsequies propitious. Behind these, after an interval, comes the master of ceremonies, mounted upon a splendid white horse, and surrounded by_ liveried attendants and armed troops. The ​pings of the horse reach almost to the ground, and the robes of the rider are of the most gorgeous description. He is a general of the highest rank. He bears in his hand the wand of authority, and for the time being holds the power of life and death. There are two catafalques exactly alike, and no one is supposed to know in which one the body lies. A description of one will suffice for both. It rests upon a heavy framework that is carried on the shoulders of one hundred and eight bearers. Thick transverse poles have heavy padded ropes run fore and aft between them, so that the shoulders of the bearers may not be galled. On the high framework is a structure like a little house, ten feet long, six feet high and five feet broad. The roof and sides of this pavilion are painted and draped with the gaudiest colours. All the tints of the rainbow and several others compete for the supremacy. One man stands on the framework immediately in front of the pavilion, and another stands behind it, facing back. The one in front holds a bell in his hand, and he keeps time so that the men may step together. Ropes a hundred feet long extend forward from the catafalque and also back, and a long line of men hold these, and are supposed to pull forward or back, as it may be necessary to ease the unwieldy thing down a hill or draw it up one.
Imperial "funeral baked meats"
The cost of such a funeral varies with circumstances. If it is a king that is being buried, it may cost half a million dollars, but in case it be a prince or princess it may come within a hundred thousand. In any case it is a severe drain upon the finances of the country, not merely because of the monetary outlay, but because it disorganises everything for the time being, and through adventitious causes brings great loss to the people.
GEOMANCY
It will be a sad day when Nature loses all her mystery and when we can project the cathode ray of science into every crack and cranny of this over-classified world, when we shall put, as it were, a revolver to the head of the Sibyl and compel her to rearrange the scattered leaves, when we shall reduce to grammar the leaf language of the Dordonian oak. No one seems satisfied to-day unless he has his eye at a microscope or a telescope. Wordsworth had the present age in mind when he spoke of the man who would "peep and botanise upon his mother's grave." The very children know there is no pot of gold beneath the end of the rainbow and that Santa Claus is a myth. But the Korean is as yet untouched by this passion for classification. He is as full of myth and legend, of fairy lore and goblin fancy, as any minstrel of the middle ages. Nature is full of the mysterious, and for that reason speaks to him in some sort with greater authority than she does to us.
Korean geomancy might be a page torn from some old wizard's book or copied from a Druid's scroll. It forms a distinct profession here, though no guild of geomancers exists. By some unwritten law the ranks of the profession are recruited only from the country, as no Seoul man is eligible. This is because the geomancer is occupied almost exclusively in finding ​propitious grave sites, and so the dwellers in the country are much better qualified than the denizens of the metropolis. It is ordinarily the Rip Van Winkle style of man, who prefers walking over the hills with his dog and pipe rather than doing an honest day's work, that evolves into a geomancer.
The first step in his novitiate is the mastery of the book called "The Great, Important, Celestial Instrument." Having learned the theoretical side, he then begins to take practical lessons under a competent teacher. They wander over the hills together, discussing the merits of the different burial sites and determining their relative values. A man's prospects in life may be blighted by burying his father's body in an unpropitious spot. More agues, sprains, murrains and blights are caused by this than by any or all other causes. When the candidate has been all over his allotted district, and has studied all the available places and has made out a mental list of charges, ranging from several hundred dollars for a first-class site down to a few cents for an indifferent one, he graduates, buys him a yundo, "wheel picture," - in other words, a compass, - and is ready to " hang out his shingle." He has now taken the degree of "Earth Specialist," or, as we might say, the degree of B.E., Bachelor of Earth.
We must imagine him, then, in his office waiting for trade. A young man comes in and states that his father is dead and a suitable burial site must be found at once. The geomancer accompanies the young man to his home, where a substantial meal is set forth, to be washed down with plenty of wine. This forms the retaining fee. He then puts out feelers in all directions to learn about how much the young man is able to pay, and, having made up his mind on this cardinal point, he leads the youth over the hills and discourses on the various sites.
The first question to be asked about any site is whether it has a good "advancing dragon." This is the line or range of hills leading down to the site. The declivity where a long unbroken line of hills drops to the level of the valley is usually a ​good site. But if the line of hills is short, or if the continuity of the range is broken at any point by a deep intersecting valley, if the range is mostly shorn of timber, or if it is rugged and abounding in precipices, the site will be of comparatively little value. The perfect site is rare and hard to find. It is called a "mountain line that curves around and sees its greatgrandfather." Each of the points that form the chain is looked upon as the parent of the next lower one, and so, when the line curves so that from the lowest eminence the highest one is visible, it means that the latest descendant can always look upon his ancestor.
Next in importance is "the prospect." To be perfect it must be toward the south, though the east or west are not bad. It must never be toward the north, for it looks away from the sun and its colour is black. The blue dragon and white tiger must also be attended to. These represent the east and west sides of the grave, where the flanking hills must be of equal length or their influence will be evil. The most dangerous thing is a kyubong, or "spying peak." If from the grave site there can be seen the top of a hill peeping over the top of a nearer one, it means that the descendants of the man buried there are fated to become robbers. A genius, or spirit of evil, crouches behind the nearer hill and keeps its baleful eye upon the last resting-place of the dead.
If everything is right and the pay is guaranteed, the geomancer gets out his "wheel picture," lays it on the ground and determines the exact direction in which the grave must face. If there are other graves in sight, it must not point toward any of them. The remoteness or proximity of other graves exercises an important influence. The operator next lays the "golden well." This is a frame composed of two transverse and two lateral rods in the shape of the Chinese character for well. A mark is made all around inside this parallelogram, and the ground is broken for the grave. The depth to which it must be dug, and the position that the chief mourner must occupy at ​the burial ceremony, must be carefully determined or there will be literally "the devil to pay."
The geomancer's part in the interment may now be said to end, that is, after he has pocketed his fee. But the chances are that he or some other geomancer will be called in at some future time to examine the grave and see that everything is right. Although every precaution has been taken, it frequently happens that the dead man's relatives get into trouble. If so, and if there be no other visible cause for the trouble, it is set down to the fact that something is the matter with the ancestor's grave. The geomancer is called in and, if there is plenty of money in sight, he may decide that something serious is the matter with the grave, or that it requires only slight alterations. There are special formulae for discovering the mysterious cause of the trouble. These are all given in the book which has been mentioned. At the very worst the geomancer may discover that the body has run away! Koreans solemnly aver that such graves have been opened and that invariably the corpse is absent. If so, it must be hunted up instanter; and it may be remarked that this chasing of a long-buried corpse about the country is not the least gruesome part of the geomancer's business, and might well deter nervous or excitable people from entering the profession; but fortunately Koreans have no nerves. It is claimed that a successful geomancer will run his game to earth within twenty-four hours, and when the afflicted relative digs at the indicated spot, he always discovers the object of his search. This search is carried out according to what is called "The Old Grave Magic Rite."