The mengdu (Jeju and ), also called the three mengdu () and the three mengdu of the sun and moon (), are a set of three kinds of brass ritual devices—a pair of knives, a bell, and divination implements—which are the symbols of shamanic priesthood in the Korean shamanism of southern Jeju Island. Although similar ritual devices are found in mainland Korea, the religious reverence accorded to the mengdu is unique to Jeju.
The origin myth of the mengdu is found in the Chogong bon-puri, a major shamanic narrative in Jeju religion. According to this narrative, the original mengdu were possessed by the eponymous Mengdu triplets, the three deities who were the first to practice shamanic ritual on earth. The stylistic features of mengdu refer back to important events in the miraculous conception and lives of these gods. The implements play a critical role in ritual; both the knives and the divination implements are used to divine the will of the gods, and the bell is used to invite them into the ritual ground.
Every set of mengdu is believed to incarnate the spirits both of the heroes of the Chogong bon-puri, and of the historical human shamans who previously owned the particular set. These spirits are called the "mengdu ancestors", and are thought to intervene during rituals to help the current holder accurately ascertain the will of the gods. The mengdu are conventionally passed down from one generation to another, with the previous holder becoming the newest mengdu ancestor. The implements and the ancestors that embody them are the objects of regular worship and also feature prominently in the initiation rituals of Jeju shamanism.
Traditional Jeju religion is nowadays in decline, and there is currently a glut of mengdu sets within the traditional priesthood. At the same time, many ritual practitioners who are not trained and initiated in the traditional manner are now making their own mengdu.
Origin myth
The mengdu are closely associated with the Chogong bon-puri, a shamanic narrative whose recitation forms the tenth ritual of the Great Gut, the most sacred sequence of rituals in Jeju shamanism. The Chogong bon-puri is the origin myth of Jeju shamanic religion as a whole, to the point that shamans honor the myth as the "root of the gods" and respond that "it was done that way in the Chogong bon-puri" when asked about the origin of a certain ritual."신뿌리"; <초공본풀이>에서 그러했기 때문이라는 답" It is therefore to be expected that objects as important as the mengdu should be explained by it. As with most works of oral literature, multiple versions of the narrative exist. The summary given below is based on the version recited by the high-ranking shaman An Sa-in (1912–1990) with a focus on the details relevant to the mengdu.
Jimjin'guk and Imjeong'guk, a rich couple, are nearing fifty but still have no children. A Buddhist priest visits from the Hwanggeum Temple and tells them to make offerings in his temple for a hundred days. They do so, and a girl is miraculously born. They name her Noga-danpung-agissi. When the girl is fifteen, both of her parents leave temporarily. They imprison her behind two doors with seventy-eight and forty-eight locks each and tell the family servant to feed her through a hole, so that she cannot leave the house while they are absent.
The Buddhist priest of the Hwanggeum Temple learns of the great beauty of Noga-danpung-agissi and visits the house to ask for alms. When the girl points out that she cannot leave the house, the priest takes out a bell and rings it three times, which breaks every lock. When she comes out wearing a veil of chastity, he strokes her head three times and leaves. Noga-danpung-agissi then becomes pregnant. When her parents return, they decide to kill her to restore the family's honor. When the family servant insists that she be killed instead, the parents relent and decide to expel both instead. Her father gives Noga-danpung-agissi a golden fan as she leaves.
The two decide to go to the Hwanggeum Temple, encountering various obstacles and crossing many strange bridges on the way. The servant explains the etymology of the bridges, connecting each name to the process of Noga-danpung-agissi's expulsion from the family. They eventually reach the temple and meet the priest, who banishes her to the land of the goddess of childbirth. Alone there, she gives birth to triplets who tear out of her two armpits and her breasts. Having bathed them in a brass tub, she names the three boys Sin-mengdu, Bon-mengdu, and Sara-salchuk Sam-mengdu.
The family lives an impoverished life. At the age of eight, the three brothers become manservants of three thousand evil-minded Confucian scholars who are preparing for the civil service examinations. Seven years later, the Confucian scholars go to Seoul to pass the examinations and take the triplets with them. The scholars leave the triplets stranded atop a pear tree on the way, but they are rescued by a local nobleman who is forewarned by a dream of dragons ensnared on the tree. They reach Seoul and are the only people to pass the examinations. Outraged, the scholars imprison Noga-danpung-agissi in the "palace of Indra of the three thousand heavens"."삼천천제석궁" This is generally understood as a metaphor for the scholars killing her, with other versions explicitly mentioning a murder.
The triplets visit their father, who makes them abandon their old lives and become shamans in order to save their mother. He asks his sons what they saw first when they came to the temple, and they respond that they saw heaven, earth, and the gate. The priest accordingly gives them the first cheonmun, or divination discs, with the Chinese characters 天 "heaven", 地 "earth", and 門 "gate" inscribed. The triplets hold the first shamanic rituals as their father has ordered them to do, aided by Neosameneo-doryeong, the young god of shamanic music. The rituals successfully resurrect their mother. The triplets then summon a master smith from the East Sea to forge the first mengdu implements. In some versions, this smith's mengdu are unsound, and the triplets' father summons a celestial smith named Jeon'gyeongnok to forge good-quality mengdu. In any case, the triplets store them in a palace where their mother and Neosameneo-doryeong will keep watch over them. They then ascend into the afterlife to become divine judges of the dead, wielding the sacred shamanic knives that they will use to bring justice to the scholars.
Some time later, the daughter of a state councillor falls seriously ill every ten years: at the age of seven, seventeen, twenty-seven and so forth. At the age of seventy-seven, she realizes that she is sick with sinbyeong, a disease sent down by the gods and cured only by initiation into shamanism. However, there are no ritual devices that she can use. She goes to the palace where the ritual implements are kept and prays to the triplets, who give her the sacred objects necessary for the shamanic initiation rite. The councilor's daughter is the first truly human shaman, and her receiving the ritual objects represents the first generational transfer of shamanic knowledge.
Physical description and ritual use
Jeju shamans refer to three types of ritual instruments made of brass—knives, a bell, and divination implements—as the mengdu, referring back to the recurrent element in the triplets' names.
Knives
Jeju shamans carry a pair of sacred knives, fashioned after the knives that the triplets take when they ascend to heaven to punish the Confucian scholars. Shamans refer to the knives as sin-kal seonsaeng Siwang daebeonji, literally "godly knife the master, daebeonji of the Siwang". The Siwang are the divine judges of the dead that the triplets become, but the meaning of daebeonji is unclear. The knives are among the most important ritual items of Jeju shamanism, and folklorist Kim Heonsun notes that "Jeju shamans' faith in the knives is nearly absolute.""신칼에 대한 심방의 신앙심은 거의 절대적이다."
The knife has two major parts: the brass knife itself, consisting of a blade ( long, wide) and a handle ( long); and the "skirt" (chima) of the knife, consisting of strands ( long) cut from usually eight but sometimes twelve pages of Korean paper, which are connected to the end of the handle by a string with three knots. Every part of the knife is interpreted by reference to the Chogong bon-puri myth, although shamans disagree on the details of the interpretations. The blade is shaped with one flat and one rounded side, representing the flat back and rounded belly of the pregnant Noga-danpung-agissi. Serpentine patterns are often etched on the blade, but what these symbolize are disputed by shamans, ranging from the dragons that the nobleman sees in his dream to a snake that the triplets encounter while serving the scholars. The part of the blade which tapers to meet the handle is called the "bridge of caution" (josim-dari) and stands for the difficult roads by which the girl and her servant cautiously make their way to the Hwanggeum Temple. The spiral marks on the handle symbolize the fingermarks that Noga-danpung-agissi leaves on her wrists after wringing them, either out of despair at her imprisonment or out of panic once she realizes she is pregnant. The hole in the handle represents the hole by which the imprisoned girl is fed, and the three knots on the string tied to it are the triplets themselves. The skirt is either Noga-danpung-agissi's skirt, or the veil that she wears while meeting the priest. There are sometimes six strands of string beneath the paper skirt. These stand for the Mengdu triplets and Neosame-neodoryeong, who in some versions appear as triplets and not a single god.
There is rarely a reason to replace the brass blade and handle, but the paper skirt requires regular replacement. In the case of eight-page skirts, five pages' worth of paper is replaced at the beginning of every new ritual. The strands remaining from the previous ceremony are called the underskirt (sok-chima), and the new strands are called the outer skirt (geot-chima). Strands may be replaced in the middle of a ceremony as well if they have become too ragged. Discarded strands are ritually burned by an apprentice shaman.
Ritual uses
The most important function of the knives is to divine the will of the gods. The shaman regularly throws the knives onto the ground during rituals, and the gods are believed to communicate through their relative position. There are six possible positions that the knives can take; these are referred to as "bridges". In the Chogong bon-puri narrative, Noga-danpung-agissi crosses physical bridges with the same names.
The two most inauspicious configurations are jakdo-dari, the straw-cutter's bridge, and kal-seon-dari, the bridge of the raised swords. In both, the rounded side of the blade falls outward. Jakdo-dari is when the knives are crossed, and kal-seon-dari is when they do not. The former symbolizes Noga-danpung-agissi's parents' initial decision to kill her with a straw-cutting machine, and is believed to presage unpreventable misfortune. The latter represents her parents' decision to stab her with swords instead, and means that misfortune is impending but may be forestalled with the correct rituals for the gods.
The rounded sides facing each other is termed ae-san-dari, the forlorn bridge. It symbolizes Noga-danpung-agissi facing her parents as they see each other for the final time, and signifies a sad event in the future. When the rounded sides face away, the resulting configuration is deung-jin-dari, the bridge of turned backs, showing the daughter and her parents turning their backs to each other. It portends a departure or discord. When either position appears when the shaman is inviting the gods into the human world, it means that the gods are unwilling to descend. When they appear when the shaman is sending the gods back to their abode, they are taken as an auspicious sign meaning that the gods are willing to leave.