Ancestor Worship and Korean Society (review)

¦Book Reviews Ancestor Worship and Korean Society By Roger L. Janelli and Dawnhee Yim Janelli. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1982. 228 pp. The publication ofAncestor Worship and Korean Society marks the coming of age of anthropological studies on Korea. As the Janellis remind us in their introduction, the study of ancestor worship has a long pedigree in the disciplines of social anthropology and folklore. Ancestor cults are not cultural universals; the best-known examples are from African and Chinese ethnography. Classic studies offer speculations on the relationship between the form and content ofan ancestor cult and patterns of social organization and psychological make-up. The Janellis' study addresses this body of theory and promises added insights from another ethnographic context. The topic is also of intrinsic interest to Koreanists, given the tenacity, ideological freighting, and historical significance of ancestor worship in Korean life. In short, this is more than just another village study. By the Janellis' modest claim, they "hope to show how the ancestor cult of one rural kin group is interconnected with that group's social organization, its ideology, and the social experiences of its members" (p. viii). Informants are identified—following the conventions of folklore—and are presented as the articulate interpreters of their own belief system and social structure. Ethnographic examples are clear and telling and bespeak the authors' several years ofassociation with the village they studied. However, to 191 192Book Reviews set the Kwöns of Twisöngdwi in time and space, the Janellis have combed a growing body of ethnography and read widely in Korean social history. The bibliography is splendid. A tribute to theJanellis' perseverance and meticulous scholarship, this study also reflects the incremental work of anthropologists and social historians specializing in Korea. The monograph begins with a social and historical sketch of the Twisöngdwi lineage, a branch of the Andong Kwön. Outside the national arena for several centuries, the Twisöngdwi Kwön wielded sufficient local prestige for a prominent descendant to claim, "We aren't great gentry, but nobody looked down on us either" (p. 14). A description offamily life uses observations from Twisöngdwi to flesh in a synthesis of prior studies. This section contains few surprises but enhances the volume's utility for non-Koreanists and for course syllabi. A discussion of family division and inheritance practices highlights the ways in which Korean custom—sequential and unequal partitioning of family wealth—circumvents the bitter conflicts inherent in Chinese family division, a single partitioning argued out among shareholding brothers. The Janellis overemphasize the likelihood of a Chinese father's retaining authority over an undivided family until his death. Other contrasts between the two systems of domestic organization, however, are effectively mustered to explain significant differences in the two ancestor cults, to account for such phenomena as the relative infrequency of geomancy disputes among close Korean agnates. They note that Korean inheritance practices also diminish the potential for much woman-centered conflict but do not probe the significance of this observation in their later discussion of women and religion. The authors do devote considerable attention to the position of women as necessary background for their interpretation of women's religious orientations, but this section seems unduly influenced by prior stereotypes. For example, to support their discussion of the bride's hardships, they provide several instances of mother-in-law/daughter-in-law conflict, but it is the mother-in-law who routinely gets the worst of it. This table-turning, probably a consequence of changes in the institution of marriage, passes without comment. Having established their social context, the authors present a detailed but always readable discussion of the ancestor cult. "Becoming an Ancestor" describes Korean funeral rites, geomancy, and mourning customs—procedures that transform the dead into "ancestors ." The question "Who are the ancestors?" is intimately connected with notions of propriety, kinship, and obligation. The Janellis ' discussion of ancestors without heirs, concubines, and twice- Book Reviews193 married women reveals some areas of ambiguity and indicates some of the adjustments individual households make to provide for those agnates who do not receive commemoration elsewhere. In Twisöngdwi, the lineage segments who collaborate in performing domestic rituals do not...