NO. 2168. OUTFIT OF KOREAN SORCERESS— CASANOWICZ. 593 



rendered, "deceiving crowd," or "bad lot." The office of the Pansu 

 is restricted to blind men, perhaps owmg to the common belief among 

 prunitive peoples that those who have been deprived of physical 

 sight have been given an mner spiritual vision. The Mutang is 

 always a woman, generally from the lower classes and of bad repute, 

 and her calling is considered the very lowest m the social scale. 



While the Pansu is, as it were, born or made by dint of his loss of 

 eyesight, the Mutang enters upon her office in consequence of a 

 "supernatural call," consistmg m the assurance of demoniacal pos- 

 session, the demon being supposed to have become her double and to 

 have superimposed his personality upon hers. The "possession" 

 is often accompanied by hysterical and jmthological symptoms. The 

 spirit may seize any woman, maid or wife, rich or poor, plebeian or 

 patrician, and compel her to serve him, and on receiving the "call of 

 the spirit" a woman will break every tie of custom and relationship, 

 leave home and family to become henceforth a social outcast, so that 

 she is not even allowed to live within the city walls. But notwith- 

 standmg her low social status, her services are m constant demand. 

 "In traveling through the country, the mutang or sorceress is con- 

 stantly to be seen going through the various musical and dancing per- 

 formances m the midst of a crowd in front of a house where there is 

 sickness.' ' * And at th e close of the nineteenth century the fees annually 

 paid in Korea to the sorcerers were estimated at S750,000.2 



RELATION OF THE PANSU AND MUTANG TO THE SPIRITS. 



The Pansu acts as master of the spirits, havmg gained by his potent 

 formulas and ritual an ascendency over them. By his spells he can 

 direct them, drive them out, and even bmy them. The Mutang is 

 supposed to be able to influence them through her friendship with 

 them. She has to pray to them and to coax them to go. By her 

 performances she puts herseh en rapport with the spirits and is able to 

 ascertain their will and to name the ransom for which they will 

 release the victim who is under torment. 



FUNCTIONS OF THE PANSU. 



While m practice the functions of the Pansu and the Mutang largely 

 overlap, so that at times the one may be called to perform the serv- 

 ices of the other, theoretically they hold two disthact fields in the 

 domam of the spirits, correspondmg to their different attitudes to the 

 spirits. 



The services of the Pansu may be comprised under two general 

 heads: (1) Divination (clium), find (2) exorcism (kyung). The former 

 occupies by far the larger part of his energies. In his capacity as 



1 1. B. Bishop, Korea and Her Neighbors, p. 400. 

 2 Encyclopaedia Britannica, ed. 11, vol. 15, p. 911. 



-Proc.N.M.vol.51— 16 3S 



