Land of Morning Calm mourns: Part 1

• Published date: 26 February 2023
• Publication title: The Korea Times

In the 19th century, Korea was often referred to as the "Land of the Morning Calm" but it was far from accurate ? especially at night when it became a realm of loud mourning.

In the early 1890s, George G. Gilmore, one of the first American teachers in Korea, wrote:

"When a death occurs in any [Korean] 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."

He was not the only one to write about the mournful wailing. At the end of the cholera epidemic in 1895, Sally Sill (the wife of the American Minister to Korea) described in her journal the nights in Seoul: "[Cholera] seems to be abating, and the wailing of the mourners grows less. It is a weird kind of sound and we are glad enough not to hear so much of it."

Death was not always sudden and unexpected. When a person was at death's doorstep, they were often dressed in their finest clothing. Once they passed, the clothing of the deceased was removed by one of the family members, generally, their wife or mother, who at night, while mourning loudly, burned the clothing ? usually in the street in front of the house. By doing this, the deceased would be assured of having presentable clothing in the afterlife.

A funeral procession in the late 19th or early 20th century. Robert Neff Collection

A strange image of the passage of death ? a dead pony, a curious dog and an elderly man smoking next to a "funeral coffin." Robert Neff Collection

At first, Gilmore was somewhat surprised when he encountered these women in the streets performing this last dutiful act for their loved ones, but, because he witnessed it so often, he soon became jaded and tried to quickly and respectfully pass by them. He may have become jaded but they were always surprised by his presence and quickly fled the vicinity ? their mourning cries dying in the distance.

When Henry Loomis, an American missionary, visited Korea in the fall of 1885, he also felt compelled to describe Koreans mourning the loss of a loved one:

"I passed a house where a person had died, and the body was being prepared for burial. It was first covered with straw and then wrapped about very tightly with ropes. While the preparations were going on, two young men stood by and were uttering the most wild and extravagant expressions of grief. I was told that these persons were probably hired for this purpose…"

Horace N. Allen witnessed more...