To a modern visitor, a traditional Korean house, a hanok, looks peaceful and simple: a wooden hall with a wide floor, warm-floored rooms, a kitchen a step down, a row of big brown storage jars in the yard and an outhouse tucked away at the back. To the families who once lived there, it was crowded. Every part of the house had its own god. One guarded the house itself from the main roof beam. One lived at the kitchen hearth. One watched over the ground the house stood on, one brought the family its wealth, one stood at the gate, and one, notoriously short-tempered, lurked in the outhouse.
These are the gasin (가신), the household gods, and the Encyclopedia of Korean Culture describes their worship as one of the oldest and most intimate forms of Korean religion.
A religion of mothers and grandmothers
The encyclopedia draws a sharp contrast. Confucian ancestor rites were led by men, and were formal, ideological and carefully reasoned. Household god worship was led by the women of the house, above all the mother, and it was simple, practical and quiet. There were no founders, no scriptures and no temples. Instead, on birthdays, memorial days and holidays, the housewife set aside a little of the food she had prepared and offered it to each god in turn before the family ate, asking for peace in the house, a good harvest and healthy children.
Each god usually had a physical “body”, often nothing more than a jar or gourd of rice, a folded sheet of mulberry paper or a bundle of straw, kept in its own part of the house. Sometimes a god had no object at all and was honoured only in the heart. The encyclopedia notes that this way of worship has now almost disappeared. But for centuries it was part of everyday Korean family life.
Seongju, the god of the house
The most important household god was Seongju (성주), the guardian of the house itself. Because every home had one, the encyclopedia says, Seongju was the god you were most likely to find in any household. He was honoured in the daecheong, the central wooden hall, or in the main room if there was no hall. Families kept a jar there filled with barley or rice, swapped with the seasons in spring and autumn, or folded a large sheet of mulberry paper and fixed it to the main roof beam or above the door of the main room.
Seongju was welcomed with special ceremony whenever a family began a new chapter: when the ridge beam of a new house was raised, when a house was finished, or when the family moved. In shamans’ gut, the Seongju geori, the episode for the house god, is an essential part of the ritual in central Korea, and shamans sing long songs telling how Seongju came to be.
Jowang, the kitchen goddess
The kitchen belonged to Jowang (조왕), originally a god of fire, who became, in Korea, especially the goddess of the housewife. In Honam and parts of Chungcheong, the encyclopedia explains, women set a small bowl on a ledge above the cooking pots and filled it with fresh, clean water at dawn, every day or every few days, rubbing their hands together as they prayed. Their prayers were mostly for the safety of their children, and the encyclopedia describes the custom as something like a simple symbol of a mother’s love. Elsewhere, when Jowang needed honouring, a woman might simply turn the heavy iron lid of the rice pot upside down and lay food on it.
Even in modern cities, the encyclopedia notes, people kept up customs that grew from Jowang. When moving house, families would carry fire into the new home first, and friends visiting the new home would bring matches.
The spirit of the ground and the god of wealth
Beneath the house lay the territory of Teoju (터주), the god of the house site. In central and northern Korea, families kept a pottery jar of rice or unhusked grain for Teoju in the back yard, often near the storage jars, and covered it with a little cone-shaped straw hat called a jujeori.
Close to Teoju lived Eop (업), the god of the family’s wealth. Eop was believed to take the shape of an animal living quietly in the house, such as a snake or a weasel, and the encyclopedia records the belief that if the Eop ever left, the family’s fortunes would collapse. In central Korea, Eop was honoured in the back yard under a straw cone, and in Honam some families believed that an eared snake guarded the house.
On Jeju Island, a shaman’s myth explains where the snake gods of the house came from. The only daughter of a rich family, abandoned after she became pregnant, turned into a snake and became An-chilseong, the god of the storehouse, while her youngest daughter crept under a roof tile beneath the straw cone in the back yard and became Bat-chilseong, the god of the yard.
The gate god and the outhouse goddess
At the threshold stood the munsin, the gate god, who kept evil spirits out. The Samguk Yusa tells how people in Silla pasted pictures of Cheoyong, a mysterious figure linked to the Dragon King, on their gates to drive away a demon of disease, and early Joseon writers describe new-year pictures on gates of Cheoyong, of the demon-queller Zhong Kui, and of cockerels and tigers.
Then there was the outhouse, home of the cheuksin (측신), the toilet goddess. All over Korea, the encyclopedia says, she was imagined as a young goddess with a terrible temper. If you went into the outhouse without first clearing your throat to warn her, she would be offended and send misfortune, and it was said that even a gut could hardly lift it. Repairing an outhouse carelessly was considered especially dangerous. The encyclopedia suggests a practical reason for her fearsome reputation. In a traditional house the outhouse stood far from the main building, in a dark corner of the yard, and going there at night was frightening enough already.
A family quarrel on Jeju
Jeju’s shamans tie several household gods together in one dramatic myth, the Munjeon bonpuri. Nam Seonbi, the head of a household, becomes the god of the gate. His wife, murdered by his wicked concubine, becomes Jowang Halmang, the kitchen goddess, and the concubine becomes the toilet goddess. The couple’s seven sons bring their mother back to life and punish the concubine, and the youngest son, the hero of the tale, becomes the god of the front door of the hall.
Because the kitchen goddess and the toilet goddess are bitter enemies, the encyclopedia explains, Jeju people took great care that nothing, not even a wisp of straw, should pass between the kitchen and the outhouse. It was a myth that taught good hygiene.
Gods who go to heaven
Jeju also keeps a custom called Singugan, a period of about a week before the start of spring in the lunar calendar. During this time, people believed, Jowang and the other household gods all go up to heaven to report to the Jade Emperor. With the gods away, it was safe to repair the house or move, things that would normally risk angering them, and families also settled the year’s debts.
Meet Samsin Halmeoni, the household goddess of birth →
Quick facts
The gasin are the gods of the traditional Korean home, honoured mostly by women with small offerings of food on family occasions. Seongju guards the house from the main hall or roof beam, Jowang is the kitchen goddess honoured with a bowl of fresh water, Teoju guards the house site, Eop brings wealth and may live as a snake or weasel, a gate god keeps evil out, and the touchy toilet goddess must be warned with a cough. Samsin, the goddess of birth, and the ancestors were honoured in the house too.