594 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



fortune toller and clairvoyant he is consulted for all imaginable rela- 

 tions of life— whether, for instance, an offender will escape punishment, 

 or a deservmg man will be rewarded, what will happen during the 

 day, the week, the month, and up to the point of death; what was 

 one's condition m a former state of existence ; how to recover a lost 

 article; what is the condition of a distant friend or relation; whether 

 a tree may be cut down or not (because of the spuit's mhabiting it) ; 

 whether a dream that one has had augui-s good or evil; when one is 

 to marry in order to secure happmess; when a son will be born; 

 whethera woman should give birth to a child m her own house or go 

 to some other place until the child is born, and the like. 



For obtauimg his answers the Pansu employs three systems of 

 divination: (1) Dice boxes {san-tong, "number box"); (2) corns (ton- 

 iun, "money divmation"), and (3) Chinese characters (cTmUc-chum, 

 ' ' book divmation " ) 



For the dice-box divination, also called tortoise divination, because 

 the box was formerly in shape of a tortoise,' a box contaming eight 

 small metal rods or bamboo splmters, having in order from one to 

 eight notches. The Pansu makes three throws of one rod or splmter 

 each, and from the combination of the notches on them he works out 

 the answer to the question. In the money divmation three coins out 

 of four which he holds in his hand are thrown in the same manner as 

 in the preceding method, and the combmation of the characters on 

 them yield the supposed answer; while for the book divination (the 

 highest form), he learns the hour, day, month, and year of the birth of 

 the inquirer, and from the Chinese characters which depict these four 

 dates ho determines the answer. The responses are given in an 

 enigmatic poetical formula which is capable of a double meanmg, 

 like the Delphic oracles of yore. 



The performance of exorcism by a Pansu is described in The Korea 

 Review ^ as follows : 



The Pansu comes into the presence of the afflicted and food is laid out as for a feast. 

 The Pansu invites the various spirits to come and feast, such as the house spirit, the 

 kitchen spirit, the door spirit. He orders them to go and invite to the feast the evil 

 spirit that has caused the disease, and if he will not come, to call upon the master 

 spirit to compel him to come. When he arrives the Pansu bids him eat and then leave 

 the place and cease to torment the patient. If he consents, the fight is over, but he 

 probably will not submit so easily, in which case the Pansu gets out the book, ' ' Thoughts 

 on the works of the Jade Emperor in Heaven," and chants a stave or two. The mystic 

 power of the book paralyses the imp, and he is seized and imprisoned in a stone bottle 

 and securely corked down. In some cases he is able to buret the bottle, and then he 

 will be invited again to a feast and subdued by the book. He is then put into a bot- 

 tle, but this time the cork is made of peach wood which has a peculiar power over 



1 " The tortoise is the center of a great circle of pleasing superstitions, and hence is one of a set of symbols 

 oftenest employed in Corean art. The practice of divination is mostly associated with tortoise shell, the 

 figuring of a tortoise's back having a mystic signification."— W. E. Griffis, Corea, the Hermit Nation, p. 303. 



2 Pp. 3S7-38S; also see I. B. Bishop, Korea and Her Neighbors, p. 405. 



