Page:History of Corea, ancient and modern; with description of manners and customs, language and geography (1879).djvu/348

 ■i^MBK^-JBOiP 320 COBEAN SOCIAL CUSTOMS. The graves are on hill-sides, are dug out, and the coffin is placed below the level of the ground, and a very slight mound of earth distinguishes the spot from the empty ground as in western graveyards ; being thus unlike the great mounds covering the shallow Chinese grave. These graves are ornamented at great cost. A small temple is built, where the deceased is mourned ; the front of the grave is paved with cut flag-stones, which are often guarded by upright stones carved into human and other figures. The geomancer has to fix the site and bearings of the grave, and according to his decision it faces any point of the compass. The box borne at the head of the procession is carried back to the house, where it is retained. Before it, worship is made for three years ; after which time it is cast outside, and the days of mourning are ended with its disappearance. For a mother, one year is the period of mourning if she dies before her husband, three if after. If the son has no son, it is believed that the buried father is in an unlucky spot or position. The grave is opened at great expense, and the coffin also, to see that the colour of the body is not black, the most unlucky of all ; and a new grave is dug according to geomancy. No expense is spared; as much as j^lOOO being paid, when the man can afford it, to get a lucky grave. Mourning. The preceding is an account of Corean mourning, taken down from one who was recently a principal actor. It is sufficiently full for the ordinary reader ; but the full translation of a Corean book of ritual, written in Chinese, containing all the Corean mourning ritual, is given below, as it is interesting for comparison with Chinese, from whose ancient, but not most ancient, ritual it is taken. It is entitled the *' Funeral Bites of Adults" — every adult being a married person. Dying. When death seems at hand, a new suit of clothes must be held in readiness, with fresh cotton wadding and a coverlid. A board