Jeju island.
The island which is abundant in winds, stones, and women. Actually, It is my home island which can be explained with these three things. Among those I am going to explain about stones.
When I look back on old days, I can remember vividly there are so many rocks in everywhere. Rocks, I was quite interested in.
I played with my friends stacking stone walls dividing into two sides and played a war game with throwing stones at each side.
Now a days, young kids who are more interested in video games can't imagine how we played with stones.
Probably, stones has influenced on not only kids but also every aspect of Jeju people's life.
Some people think volcanic soil is fertile but it's far from it. The volcanic land is barren because rain water always penetrates into the ground and doesn't hold on surface. And the barren land has given Jeju people hard life.
Land give us food and the food in Jeju island infers a culture of it. So, you can peep their life through the food.
Upon thinking of Jeju island, what is the first thing come up to you? There are so many but probably one of them it might be a 'stone grandfather' which rigidly stood in front of a gate.
'Harbang' is a local language for 'grandfather'. According to a record, it was called 'Wooseokmok' or 'Beok-su head'. Now, it is called as 'Dol-harbang in general.
There are various views about its origin.
First view is that it came from superstitions. When people believed in shamanism, they created their god figure took after man's penis. Which means it is a kind of phallus stone.
Second view is that it came from Mongolian culture. There is a similiar stone to 'stone grandfather' in Mongolia called 'Hunchollo'. Jeju island had been occupied by Mongolian for 150 years. It might influence on Jeju culture.
Anyway its function was to give people property and prevent from evil spirit. It maintains a close relationship with the lives of the people in Jeju.
There are many abbreviations in Jeju language. For example, We call 'San' for a grave('San-so' in Korean). And a stone wall surrounding a grave is called 'Sandam'('dam' means wall).
One interesting thing is that according to Jeju custom people stack up a stone wall around their ancestor's grave.
When I traveled in other island, I was surprised to see a grave stone walls. It was a round shape stone wall while it is square shape in Jeju island.
Originally, they have stacked up stone walls surround the ancestor's grave to prevent wild animals from coming into or fire spreading on the grave.
Now a days a size of stone wall shows an achievement during their ancestor's life time.
Another peculiar funeral custom in Jeju island is a child stone.
In Jeju island the old always is accompanied by a child. The reason is that there are few schools in those days, so that a child need to have chances to learn. They need each other for learning for children and preventive measures for an emergency situations for the olds.
Generally, funeral and death always show apathy of life, cold and solemn. But Jeju island's funeral shows warm and relax to part their loved ancestors.
Jeju stone mill which is called 'Molgorye' in Jeju word. 'Mol' means a horse, and 'gorye' means grind.
This is one of stone cultures in Jeju island extinguished now a days. It was was operated by a horse or cow power to grind crops in a communal place. Now, it is displayed on a corner of a village only use for welcoming tourists.
There is a funny joke. If horses on the mill don't work diligently, people put a female horse in front and male horse on the other side to chase each. then it works well.
When you travel in Jeju coast lines, you can see stone labyrinths. Fish come in during high tide and couldn't get out in low tide. It is called 'wondam'
