Rusalka And Gui-Sin Essay

Even though both Rusalka and Cho-Nue Gui-Sin might help people, they have mainly negative images on them. Many regions conducted some forms of actions to avoid harms from those spirits. Although Rusalka was believed to live near the water because they cannot be survived without having a wet hair, people believed that in a certain period of time, which were varying from regions to regions, they were believed to come to visit their villages. While Rusalka might provide moistures to their land and crops, they might damage to crops because they might trample on the field and stole young agricultural crops from people. Since people believed that Rusalka might cause harm to their farms and kill people, they conducted some forms of ritual ceremonies to expel Rusalka. During the Rusalka week, which was in early summer, people believed that
Rusalka would visit their villages and caused harm to people. Therefore, people made some rules to protect themselves against Rusalka. For instance, they were trying to avoid doing some actions that were considered as dangerous during the Rusalka week. During that time, people did not do the laundry washing or weave fabrics or swimming to avoid risks that were made from Rusalki. (Warner) Like Rusalka was considered as a dangerous spirit in the Slavic culture, Cho-Nue Gui-Sin was considered as a dangerous spirit in the Korea culture. They were afraid of a dead maiden became Cho-Nue Gui-Sin. Therefore, people conducted the unusual form of funerals when maidens were dead. In some areas, they were wearing men’s clothes or buried with dolls with a big penis so they could feel the men. At the same time, they were buried with a wicker tray. People believed that they needed to count the holes of the wicker tray before they reach the ground. At the same time, they are buried near the cross street. Since many people walk on the cross street, they were disrupted by people to count the holes of the wicker tray. In addition to that, they were buried upside down, so they could not reach the ground. Sometimes their coffins were covered with horns so they could not touch their coffin so they could not open coffin. (Son)
At the same time, people conducted some ritual actions to eliminate the risks permanently. They conducted various forms of ritual acts, including a mock funeral or ritual ceremonies to expel Rusalki from their villages. Here is one example of the ritual ceremony. During the Rusalka week, young women of villages dressed like Rusalka and behaved like Rusalka while other people in the village made loud noise and chased them. After the chasing, people believed that Rusalka were not in their village anymore. In addition to that, people conducted various of ritual acts to expel Rusalka, and one of them was the mock funeral. In some areas, people conducted the mock funeral for Rusalka with dolls. In that area, people made dolls that looked like Russalka. Those fabric dolls had realistic face components, and their coffin was decorated with flowers. People threw the coffin to the water at the end of the funeral process. In some areas, dolls were burned up or destroyed by people at the end. Rusalka was considered as the un-cleaned death in Slavic folktale, and water was considered as the source of the purifications. Therefore, people threw uncleaned death to the source of the purification. (Warner) Cho-Nue Gui-Sin was considered as the most dangerous ghost in Korea culture.
On the other hand, there was a way to solve the problem. Cho-Nue Gui-Sin were believed to not cause any damage to people if they resolve their resentments, so people sometimes conducted the wedding ceremony for the Cho-Nue Gui-Sin with Mon-dal Gui-Sin, a male version of Cho-Nue Gui-Sin. (Kim) Processes of the ceremony were different from regions to regions and religions to religions. Normally, wedding ceremonies were conducted by monks or shamans for dead couples. On the other hand, sometimes it was conducted for a dead person and a living person. Even though this kind of wedding ceremonies are rarely happened these days, some people still conduct the wedding ceremonies for the death people. In the folk beliefs of Korea, getting married was becoming more important after their death. In the folk religions of Korea, people worshiped for their ancestors. At the same time, a person who was dead without getting married could not be their ancestors. Therefore, even after the death, importance of marriage was not disappeared, but the importance was remained.
(Lee) Marriage is considered as the one of the biggest life turning point. Even though importance was weakening with time period, it is still considered as the big life-time event. In many cultures, getting married was a person’s crucial point. When people cannot get married at the certain point of age, it was a huge problem because marriage was considered as the mandatory turning point to become a real adult. In Korea, because marriage was crucially important, people were expected to get married even if a person was dead. Also, in many cultures around the world, people share some ideas about death, which was un-avoidable but mysterious and frightful event. Although they might take different actions, and stories were different, their basic ideas were similar. They imply the importance of marriage and afraid of un-known event, which was the death. Since getting married was considered as the one of the most important life time event, people who died young without getting married were believed to bear a lot of grudges. Because people believed that they harbor a grudge against people, they were believed to damage other people. Therefore, people conducted various forms of the actions to avoid harms from spirits. Those ideas were displayed in folktales in similar ways. Rusalka in Slavic folklore and Cho-Nue Gui-Sin in Korea folktale have a lot of similarities within it. They were spirits of young girls that were dead from some reasons. At the same time, they were both believed to harm other people because of their deep grudge. Although degree of danger and forms of harassment were different, they harm people because of their grudges. At the same time, they were believed to help other people. On the other hand, they were mainly source of the terror. Therefore, people made several rules to avoid harms. They set the rules for the funeral, and they prohibited some actions to avoid risks. At the same time, they conducted several acts to eliminate the source of terror. They created some actions with ritual meanings in it. They believed that they can be freed from the source of terror with their actions. At the same time, they created some actions to escape from terror permanently. For instance, people conducted some spiritual acts to defeat spirits. Although actions were happened with different forms, their basic idea was trying to eliminate the source of terror. Although forms and stories are different from cultures to cultures and stories to stories, their basic ideas of the human mind seem to be shared over the regions, and their ideas are absorbed into the stories.