Grave crimes: When the dead cannot rest in peace

Graves near Goyang in March 2020. Robert Neff Collection

By Robert Neff

In the late 19th century, finding a place for the dead to rest in peace often led to conflict and sometimes death.

In February 1898, The Independent ― a newspaper in Seoul ― published a shocking allegation of a mass-murder caused by a dispute over a grave site.

According to the article, when Cho Byoung-sik was governor of Chungcheong Province, he consulted a geomancer to find an auspicious location for a tomb. The geomancer pointed out a spot and claimed that "if anyone should bury his parents' bones on that site he and his posterity would hold the highest offices in the government."

The ambitious Cho needed no further incentive and was determined to procure the land. But there was one small problem ― a house stood on the site.

The Oh family lived in the house and, despite Cho's offer to buy the land, refused to leave. Cho used his position to declare the patriarch of the Oh family as "the most undutiful son in the province and his whole family as immoral."

It was Cho's responsibility to ensure his subjects were good and upstanding citizens; punishments, including death, were tools of enforcement.

A corpse wrapped in straw left out near the city walls in the late 19th century. Courtesy of Diane Nars Collection

He sent "a company of the governor's bodyguard to the town where the [Oh] family lived, destroying every house in the village and killing eight persons and injuring six." With most of the Oh family exterminated, the governor confiscated the land and built a vault on it for his future use.

Time passed and, when Cho was no longer governor, the two surviving members of the Oh family appealed to the courts for justice. They were awarded $10,000 and the property was returned to them. But their victory was short-lived.

Cho was soon made the Minister of Law and promptly had the present governor of Chungcheong Province imprison them and compel them to turn the land back over to Cho.

The two men complied but were left to suffer from the cold and hunger in the provincial prison at Gongju. The editor of the paper quipped that the people of Korea were lucky that Cho was later removed from his position as Minister of Law.

Not many years later, Horace N. Allen, the American minister to Korea, described Cho as:

"An old man of remarkable history. Has been on all sides of the political fence. Is good at times and apparently a patriot, then he will turn up quite the opposite. Has ideas and courage, very feeble with age. A true Korean, however."

Not all could afford land to bury their loved ones, so they buried them illegally ― too close to royal graves or the city walls.

Before 1895, the punishment for burying a body within 10 li (three kilometers) of the city was up to three years' banishment and 100 lashes across the shins. Surprisingly, several people were willing to take their chances. In July 1897, The Independent reported:

"The Police Department has discovered a number of private graves near the city walls, and by the order of the Chief Commissioner of Police, the graves have been removed to the outside of the ten li limit"

Sometimes it wasn't government officials, noblemen or the police disturbing the peace of the dead ― it was the guardians of the afterlife.

In the spring of 1897, residents of Yangsan, in Gyeongsang Province, petitioned the Home Department for relief from the priests of Tongdosa.

According to the petitioners, the priests ― who numbered in the hundreds ― had dug up all the graves within three kilometers of the temple. The bones were then mixed together and thrown into "the gutters and rice fields."

When the people complained, they were told by the priests that their acts were sanctioned by the king. The people hoped the department would investigate and, if the acts were not sanctioned by the king, severely punish the priests for the outrageous deed.

For the common people, appealing for justice often didn't work, so they had to use what was available to them ― their wits.

As mentioned earlier, it was often difficult to find and keep ideal places to bury one's loved ones ― especially if one's social status was at the bottom of society.

According to the accounts of the old French missionaries, a powerful nobleman whose mother had recently died found an ideal spot for her tomb but it was already occupied by the grave of a butcher's father. The butcher knew he was powerless to stop the nobleman through physical or judicial strength, so instead he used the differences in their social status.

The butcher ingratiated himself with the nobleman and helped in the burial ceremonies. The nobleman was quite pleased with his efforts and, as a reward, appointed the butcher the guardian of the tomb and allowed his father to remain buried in the area.

As was the custom of a filial son, every day the nobleman visited his mother's tomb, and was greeted by the loyal guardian/butcher. However, one day ― not long after the funeral ― the nobleman arrived at the tomb and discovered the butcher had planted a hedge between the nobleman's mother's tomb and the butcher's father's grave.

The nobleman was curious and asked the butcher to explain the act. The butcher at first refused to answer but eventually confessed that one night he witnessed his father's corpse rise from his grave and lumber over to the tomb of the nobleman's mother and …….., the embarrassment of the witnessed act left him unable to describe it any further. Looking at the nobleman, he continued: "In the morning I planted this hedge to prevent such a scandalous profanation."

The shocked and embarrassed nobleman said nothing and left. However, later that evening, he sent his men to the site and had them dig up his mother's coffin and move it to another site ― far away from the butcher's lecherous ancestor.