Baridegi, also known as Bari Gongju, Princess Bari, is the heroine of a Korean shamanic narrative epic rather than a figure of ancient myth or scripture, documented by ethnographers as central to shamanic funeral practice. As a seventh daughter born to a king who wanted a son, she is cast out at birth, and years later, when both her parents fall gravely ill, she is the only one of their children willing to undertake the perilous journey to the western afterlife to bring back the water of life that alone can save them. Ethnographers have recorded well over a hundred regional versions of her story across Korea, and it is recited above all in jinogwi gut, the shamanic rite performed to guide the recently dead safely into the afterlife, where Baridegi's own journey between the world of the living and the world of the dead makes her the model for the mudang's own role as an intermediary between the two.
History & Origin
Documented by ethnographers as a shamanic epic transmitted through ritual performance rather than a historical figure or a text with a single author: cast out at birth as an unwanted seventh daughter, she alone answers her dying parents' need years later, crossing into the western afterlife to obtain the water of life, and her success in that crossing is what later shamans invoke as the precedent for their own ability to move between the living and the dead.
Facts
Attestation
Veneration TodayActively venerated in a living tradition 1 Cult
Attributes and IconographyIn the shamanic painting tradition that accompanies jinogwi gut, Baridegi is conventionally shown as a princess in white or royal ritual dress carrying the flower of rebirth and the water of life she brought back from the western afterlife, the two objects that identify her across regional versions of her painted image. 2 Attributions
Mythic AssociationIn the Korean shamanic epic, Baridegi is a seventh daughter cast out at birth who undertakes the perilous journey to the western afterlife to bring back the water of life and save her parents, a journey that makes her the model for the mudang's own role as intermediary between the living and the dead. 1 Origins
Origin of the NameBaridegi and the alternative Bari Gongju both center on bari, documented by Korean folklorists as meaning the abandoned or thrown-away child, naming the central fact of her birth story rather than a place or a lineage. 1 Function
Domain / Function Domain / Function Belief
TheologyAnimist: persons and powers in land, water and living things 1 A heroine of Korean shamanic narrative documented by ethnographers as central to funeral ritual practice, matching the animist reading already carried by Sanshin for the Korean shaman pantheon. Cross-Tradition Connections
Sources
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