amuletsDol hareubang돌하르방

said tol ha-ru-BANG

also: tol harubang · harubang · useongmok 우석목 · ongjungseok 옹중석 · beoksumeori · stone grandfather

A standing figure cut from Jeju's volcanic rock, wearing a round hat, with large eyes, a closed mouth, and one shoulder set higher than the other. Some have big ears; the hands sit in front, on the belly, or round the back. No two are alike. Many carry grooves cut into them for wooden logs — the jeongnang bars, whose position told a passer-by whether the entrance behind was open or shut. They stood at gates, and at the entrances of fortresses, which is to say at the edges of settlements, usually in pairs facing one another.

cited

Jeju language dol 돌 'stone' + hareubang 하르방 'grandfather' — stone grandfather
The name was children's usage and not general until recently; the Jeju Cultural Property Committee made it the official term in 1971 and it took over. Older names, probably regional, include useongmok — reportedly the commonest — museongmok, ongjungseok, beoksumeori, dolyeonggam, sumunjang, janggunseok, dongjaseok and mangjuseok. cited

When

c. 1416 to now, with the firm record at 1754 still carried cited

Period	Joseon to the present
How the date is known	textual — a dated text describes it
Note	1416 is the reported date for six statues in three pairs; the documentary record is the 1754 construction of ongjungseok at Jeju-mok, which some scholars take as the earliest in the present form. The source says the statues possibly began to be made at latest 500 years ago, since the early Joseon period, and that production dates for most surviving examples are not known with certainty.

Years are stored astronomically — 1 CE is 1, 1 BCE is 0, 500 BCE is −499 — and printed the way a reader says them. How these dates are made.

The thing itself

Form	Standing image
Goes	At the door
Made by	not recorded in this project's source; the 1754 set was built on the order of the head of Jeju-mok
Colour	grey-black
Retired	no — it is kept
Note	Volcanic basalt, for which this project's material list has no key yet, so materials is left empty rather than mis-keyed. The one published measurement is of a souvenir: Song Jong-Won's 1963 replica, 25 cm tall. Sizes of the originals vary and none is quoted here.

What its carriers say it stops

Reported, attributed, not tested here. Each row below is somebody's claim, with their name on it.

Ghosts and hungry spirits citedsaid by the record of the 1754 order at Jeju-mok, made after famines in the reigns of Sukjong and Yeongjo, when vengeful spirits were held to be roaming and tormenting the living
Infertility citedsaid by the folk belief recorded on Jeju: a woman with fertility trouble could take part of a statue's nose, grind it and consume the powder; others hold that touching the nose is enoughthe worn noses on many statues are the physical evidence the source cites for the practice
Harm to a house or a field citedsaid by the statues' position — at gates and at the entrances of fortresses, at the boundaries of settlements, projecting power and security

The story

Nobody knows when the first ones were cut, and the record before 1914 on their number and location is thin. Three theories are in play: that a sea-faring people brought them to Jeju; that they developed out of jangseung or beoksu, the wooden guardian posts set up around mainland Korea; and a third the source leaves unnamed. What is on paper is this. Around 1416 six statues, in three pairs, reportedly stood on the island. By 1754 there were reportedly 48, of which 24 were at Jeju-mok — the town that is now Jeju City — four pairs each at the fortress's west, south and east gates. There is a record that ongjungseok statues were built at Jeju-mok in 1754, and some scholars take that as the earliest appearance of the figures in their present form. The reason given for the 1754 order is specific: after several famines in the reigns of Sukjong and Yeongjo, vengeful spirits were held to be roaming and tormenting the living, and the head of Jeju-mok ordered the statues built.

They were treated badly in the twentieth century. During the Japanese colonial period of 1910 to 1945 they were disregarded and moved around, and that continued through the rapid urban development after liberation. Because they were shifted, they wore, and it became hard to say where any of them came from. Research began in the 1960s; two were moved to the National Folk Museum of Korea in Seoul in 1968.

There are 47 or 48 pre-modern ones left. Twenty-one are in Jeju City, twelve in Seongeup-ri in Seogwipo, twelve across Inseong-ri, Anseong-ri and Boseong-ri, and two in Seoul. Everything else a visitor sees is recent.

The noses are worn down. One folk belief held that a woman with fertility trouble could secretly take a piece of a statue's nose, grind it to powder and swallow it; many statues have worn noses as a result. Others hold that touching the nose is enough.

cited

How it is made and carried

Cut from volcanic basalt, set in pairs at a gate facing each other, sometimes on a stone platform called giseok — the statues at Jeju-seong and Jeongeuihyeon-seong tend to stand on one, those at Daejeonghyeon-seong do not. Grooves take the jeongnang logs. Some people reportedly paid their respects to the statues in passing. No consecration rite is described in this project's source, and none is invented here.

cited

Now

The figure is Jeju's emblem, and the souvenir trade is dated: the first replica was made in 1963 by the sculptor Song Jong-Won, a 25 cm copy of the statue at the south gate of Jeju-mok. Souvenir goods now run from miniatures to full-size recreations. Full-size ones have gone out as diplomatic gifts — to Mikhail Gorbachev at the 1991 Soviet–South Korean summit on Jeju, to Laizhou in China in 2002, and to the city hall of Santa Rosa, California, in 2003. Whether the thing on the shelf and the thing at the gate are the same object is the question this atlas puts and does not answer.

cited