In the representation of local deities the artist asserts his patriotism and displays his own taste. In the various countries overrun by Buddhism, the indigenous heroes, sages, and gods have been renamed and accepted by the Buddhists as avatars or incarnations of Buddha to these countries before the advent of the teachers of “the true religion.” There are also saints and subordinate magnates in the Buddhist gallery of worshipped worthies, with whose effigies the artist does not scruple to take certain liberties. One can easily recognize an idol of Chinese, Corean, Siamese, or Japanese manufacture, though all bear the same name. The god of war in Chō-sen holds the double-bladed sword, with its tasselled cord, and wears the Chino-Corean armor and helmet. In the aureole round the head are three fiery revolving thunder-clouds. On the battle-flags captured by the American forces in 1871 were painted or embroidered the protecting deities of those who fought under them. One of these, whether representing a Buddha, as seems most probable, or, as is possible, some local hero—perhaps Dan Kun or Ki Tsze—deified, rides on one of the curious little ponies, stunted and piebald, of Ham-kiung, with which, even in ancient times, one could ride under a fruit tree. Evidently it would have been safer for Absalom in Corea than in woody Palestine. The tutelary god on the stunted piebald horse is dressed in the peculiar winged head-dress and frilled collar which travellers on Ham-kiung soil noticed fifteen centuries ago. His armor is in scales, or wrought in the “wave-pattern” characteristic of Corean art. His shoes and saddle are of the Chinese type. He rides among the conventional clouds, which in the native technique, are different from those of either China or Japan. Evidently the Buddha and saints of Shaka Muni are portrayed by the native artist according to the strict canons of orthodoxy, while in dealing with indigenous deities, artistic licence and local color have free play. Most of the artists and sculptors of temple work are priests or monks. The principal idols are of brass, bronze, or gilded wood, the inferior sorts are of stone. The priests dress just like the Japanese bonzes. They attend the sick or dying, but have little to do with the burial of the dead, owing to the prevalence of the Pung-sui superstition, to which a Corean in life and in death is a bond-slave. This all-powerful disease of the intellect is the great corrupter of Corean Buddhism, many of its grossest ideas being grafted into, or flourishing as parasites on a once pure faith.