Life replacement narratives

Life replacement narratives or life extension narratives refer to three Korean shamanic narratives chanted during religious rituals, all from different regional traditions of mythology but with a similar core story: the Menggam bon-puri of the Jeju tradition, the Jangja-puri of the Jeolla tradition, and the Honswi-gut narrative of the South Hamgyong tradition. As oral literature, all three narratives exist in multiple versions. In all three narratives, a man (or men) is forewarned of his impending death and makes offerings to the chasa, the gods of death who kill those whose time is due and take away their souls to the afterlife. The chasa unwittingly accept the offerings before realizing that they have accepted gifts from the man that they were supposed to kill. As they cannot ignore his gifts, they decide to spare his life and take the soul of another human or animal in his place. Other parts of the story differ significantly between the three narratives. In the Menggam bon-puri, the man is a hunter who is warned by a benevolent skull, which also makes him rich. In the Jangja-puri, the man is an unpleasant miser whose warning comes in the form of a dream interpreted by his daughter-in-law. In the Honswi-gut, which is the least studied, the human figures are three brothers who are also warned by a skull. The myths are important in their religious context because they demonstrate the susceptibility of the gods to both gifts and human empathy, and therefore establish the principles and efficacy of shamanic ritual. The importance of the skull in two of the three narratives may reflect an ancient practice of skull worship. The narratives' relationships to folktales, to other shamanic myths, and to a medieval Buddhist tale with a similar story have also been examined. There is no agreement on what term to use to refer to the three narratives as a category. In all three, the central human figure avoids his imminent death by making offerings to the chasa, the gods of death, who spare him and—in most versions—take another soul in his place.