IIo PROCEEDINGS COTTESWOLD CLUB 1905 
the Buddhist Temples are so hidden away that it is only 
on leaving the high road and entering the beautiful valleys 
among the mountains that their existence at all is realised. 
Shamanism has no Temples or buildings of beauty. Now 
and again, on the top of a mountain-pass, a humble 
hut, with one or two attendants, is met with, but the 
buildings are almost as simple as the offerings, which 
consist of a rag, a straw shoe, a wisp of straw, a straw 
rope, a stone, or some other trifle, which, through being 
offered, has attained a sanctity entirely apart from its 
value, and in strong contradistinction to its market worth. 
Of Confucianism and Buddhism there is little to remark 
that does not equally apply to China. Confucianism and 
the worship of ancestors have existed in Korea since its 
earliest historic times. Buddhism was introduced through 
China in the fourth century, and has suffered many perse- 
cutions, which explain the secluded sites selected for 
its Temples. Shamanism has existed probably since the 
earliest ages, and seems to have suffered little change, for 
the simplicity of its rites hardly admits of change. 
Shamanism, as the more interesting and most dis- 
tinctively Korean of the three religions, is the one of 
which I propose to say the most. In a paper by the 
Rev. G. H. James, which appears in the Korea Branch 
of the Royal Antiquarian Society, 1901, there is more 
detail furnished than I have met with elsewhere, and much 
matter which has been learnt long since the date when I 
left the country, when foreign intercourse was’ still too 
recent to allow of any intimate acquaintance with the 
subject. 
Even now Mr James does not attempt to classify 
the gods further than to throw them into various groups, 
such as those of the village, the house, the land, and the 
mountain. Among the first are found five Generals, who 
rule different quarters of the sky, and their lieutenants, 
