The History of Korea (vol. 1 of 2)Hulbert, Homer B. (Homer Bezaleel)
History
The History of Korea (vol. 1 of 2)
Hulbert, Homer B. (Homer Bezaleel)
Korea -- History
This was the Tan-gun, “The Lord of the Pak-tal Tree.” He is also, but
less widely, known as Wang-gŭm. At that time Korea and the territory
immediately north was peopled by the “nine wild tribes” commonly called
the _Ku-i_. Tradition names them respectively the Kyŭn, Pang, Whang,
Făk, Chŭk, Hyŭn, P‘ung, Yang and U. These, we are told, were the
aborigines, and were fond of drinking, dancing and singing. They dressed
in a fabric of woven grass and their food was the natural fruits of the
earth, such as nuts, roots, fruits and berries. In summer they lived
beneath the trees and in winter they lived in a rudely covered hole in
the ground. When the Tan-gun became their king he taught them the
relation of king and subject, the rite of marriage, the art of cooking
and the science of house building. He taught them to bind up the hair by
tying a cloth about the head. He taught them to cut down trees and till
fields.
The Tan-gun made P‘yŭng-yang the capital of his kingdom and there,
tradition says, he reigned until the coming of Ki-ja, 1122 B.C. If any
credence can be given this tradition it will be by supposing that the
word Tan-gun refers to a line of native chieftains who may have
antedated the coming of Ki-ja.
It is said that, upon the arrival of Ki-ja, the Tan-gun retired to
Ku-wŭl San (in pure Korean A-sa-dal) in the present town of Mun-wha,
Whang-hă Province, where he resumed his spirit form and disappeared
forever from the earth. His wife was a woman of Pi-sŏ-ap, whose location
is unknown. As to the size of the Tan-gun’s kingdom, it is generally
believed that it extended from the vicinity of the present town of
Mun-gyŭng on the south to the Heuk-yong River on the north, and from the
Japan Sea on the east to Yo-ha (now Sŭng-gyŭng) on the west.
As to the events of the Tan-gun’s reign even tradition tells us very
little. We learn that in 2265 B.C. the Tan-gun first offered sacrifice
at Hyŭl-gu on the island of Kang-wha. For this purpose he built an altar
on Mari San which remains to this day. We read that when the great
Ha-u-si (The Great Yü), who drained off the waters which covered the
interior of China, called to his court at To-san all the vassal kings,
the Tan-gun sent his son, Pu-ru, as an envoy. This was supposed to be in
2187 B.C. Another work affirms that when Ki-ja came to Korea Pu-ru fled
northward and founded the kingdom of North Pu-yŭ, which at a later date
moved to Ka-yŭp-wŭn, and became Eastern Pu-yŭ. These stories show such
enormous discrepancies in dates that they are alike incredible, and yet
it may be that the latter story has some basis in fact, at any rate it
gives us our only clue to the founding of the Kingdom of Pu-yŭ.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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