Topknots and Crockery Hats

Long, long ago in China, even centuries before the great Confucius was

born, there lived a wise and learned man named Kija. He was the chief

counselor at court, and all honored him for his justice and goodness.

He was always kind to boys and girls.

But when a great war broke out and a new line of rulers came into

power, Kija declined to serve the king of the country and resolved to

emigrate to the far East. There he would teach the savage people

manners and refinement.

The new king was sorry to have Kija go, for he respected his character

and wisdom. However he allowed five thousand of the best people, most

of them Kija’s followers, to accompany their master among the Eastern

savages. Many of the common folks wept when they saw the emigrants

leave China the flowery country to go into the Eastern wilderness and

journey to an unknown region, full of dark swamps and thick forests.

Kija was going where there were no roads, farms, or houses, and the

woods were full of wild beasts, especially big bears and terrible

tigers that liked to feed on human beings. It was even said that there

were flying serpents that had wings and leopards that stood up holding

lightning in their paws.

Over the great plains of Manchuria, Kija and his army of people, little

folks and big ones, marched ever toward the rising sun, until they

crossed the Duck Green River, which we call the Yalu. After a few days

more, they came to the Great Eastern River (Ta Tong). There the land

was very beautiful and Kija resolved to settle and build a city. From

the tinted clouds at sunrise, rosy, golden, flushed with every shade of

red, and lovely with changing colors the new country had been named

Cho-sen, or Land of Morning Radiance. As the sun rose and raced toward

the west, where his homeland lay, Kija welcomed the good omen as a

double blessing. He saw in the calm of his first day in his adopted

country a threefold pledge of continued good-will between the new

kingdom and the old empire, Heaven’s favoring sign of his loyalty to

the Chinese Emperor, and the surety of good-will from the spirit of the

Ever White Mountain.

Having laid out for his colony a city which was to be the capital of

his kingdom, Kija began to build a wall. He named the city Ping Yang,

which means Northern Castle.

“But now that we have safely arrived as after a voyage, the city shall

be shaped like a boat,” said Kija. “Within its walls no wells shall be

dug, lest this, like boring holes, should make the boat sink. Then

also, on the outside, to the west, shall stand the rock pillar to which

the boat city shall be forever moored.”

Kija was ably assisted by his wise men, who were skilled in literature,

poetry, music, medicine and philosophy. Together they published eight

great laws for the kingdom:

1. Agriculture for the men.

2. Weaving for the women.

3. Punishment of thieves.

4. Murderers to be beheaded.

5. All land to be divided into nine squares, the central one

to be tilled in common for the benefit of the State.

6. Simple life for all.

7. The law of marriage.

8. Wicked people to be made slaves.

Kija laid out roads, established measures and distances and ordained

the rules of politeness. He taught the savage people how to build good

houses, each with roofs of thatch or tile and a kang, or warming place,

by means of flues running under the floors. There was a fire at one end

and a chimney at the other, so that the smoke came out of the ground

half-way up the house wall. Twice a day, at morning and sunset, the

people fed with fuel the furnaces or cooking place in the kitchen. Then

the flames, heat and smoke passed through the flues, warming the rooms.

Thus the houses were made cozy and comfortable. Every day one can see

the morning and the evening cloud of the kang smoke hanging over the

city. It is in these flues and around the cooking pots that Tokgabi,

the merry scamp, plays his most mischievous tricks. He is a sooty

fellow and loves nothing better than to amuse or plague mortal men.

The people of the land were very rough and savage in these early times

and being constantly given to hard fighting, murder was common. So Kija

found that he must devise some way to make them peaceable. At first he

tried gentle methods. He saw that the rude fellows wore their hair

long, letting their locks stream out over their backs and that they

were often unkempt and slovenly to the last degree. Besides they hated

combs and did not like to get washed.

So Kija republished the law of Dan Kun, the spirit of the mountain, who

had two topknots. He ordered that every married man should bind up his

hair into a knot, or chignon, on top of his head. Thus the Korean

topknot was established by law. As for the younger fellows they must

plait their hair and wear it in a braid down their backs. Until a man

got a wife, he was only a boy, and must hold his tongue in presence of

his elders. If caught wearing a topknot before he had a wife, he was

punished severely.

Nevertheless the rough people mistook the good purposes of Kija. They

used the topknot as a handle to catch hold of when fighting in the

streets. The big, burly fellows pulled the smaller men around most

cruelly. Furthermore, they were accustomed to crack each other’s skulls

with clubs, so that many dead men were found in the streets. To stop

these quarrels and murders, Kija invented a hat that would keep

brawlers at least a yard apart.

“I’ll settle their quarrels for them, once and forever,” said Kija.

“I’ll make their fun cost each man a pretty rope of cash. Every time

two bullies fight, they shall have a lot of crockery to pay for.”

So Kija caused big heavy hats to be moulded of clay. These measured

four feet across and were two feet high, weighing many pounds. These he

had baked in ovens until they were hard as stone. They looked like big

porridge bowls turned upside down.

Every fellow who had a bad temper, or was known to quarrel was

compelled to wear a hat of this heavy earthenware. Whenever a crowd of

men-folks got together they looked like a field of moving mushrooms.

When men fought they only cracked their crockery. In this way Kija

easily found out who broke the law so that he could punish them. Then

they had to go to the potter’s and buy new hats. This made it quite an

expensive affair, for a good half year’s wages was required to pay for

a hat.

Kija’s wisdom was justified. The earthenware hats proved to be a good

protection to the sacred topknots and the men liked them. Quarrelsome

fellows stopped pulling hair and smashing heads. It got to be the

custom, instead of punching a man’s face or cracking his skull, to let

off one’s bad temper in scolding and calling names, glaring

frightfully, or rolling one’s eyes,—all of which of course made no

blood flow. The bumpkin who could make the most frightful faces, grind

his teeth most savagely, and look more like a devil than the other

fellow, was reckoned the bravest and the victor.

Before many months, a street quarrel got to be a perfectly silent

battle of ugly faces and terrible gestures. What at first promised to

be a bloody murder usually became a noiseless duel, or a quarrel

between deaf and dumb folks. This furnished violent exercise for eyes

and teeth only, but it passed off like steam out of a kettle. In time a

gentleness like a great calm settled over the land.

The crockery hats became all the fashion. They were very popular. Even

the women wanted to wear them, because they were so useful. When turned

over, they served as wash-bowls and many a good housewife borrowed her

husband’s second-best hat to do the family washing in. They were useful

also for feed troughs and drinking basins for the horses and cattle and

for donkeys to eat their beans.

The women, though not permitted to wear crockery bonnets, were pleased

with the way Kija treated them. He took the clubs of the rough men,

which they no longer needed, and handed them over to the wives and

daughters to use in pounding the clothes on wash days and for ironing.

In this way, the Korean women learned the wonderful art of putting a

fine gloss on the starched clothes of the male members of the family,

especially on the long white coat of the house father. Thus by changing

sticks that had been used as skull-crackers into starch polishers, Kija

changed also ruffians into gentlemen. Ever since, Koreans have been

famous for their politeness.

Happily also, the men grew more refined in their manners and were kind

to their wives and daughters, because they saw such shining clothes.

When hot weather came and the gentlemen complained of the heat, and

fearing that perspiration might spoil their fine clothes, Kija allowed

them to make inside suits of bamboo sticks, as fine as thread or wire.

Thus the Korean gentleman wore his outer clothes on a frame hung from

his shoulders like a hooped skirt. It seemed like taking off one’s

flesh and sitting in his bones thus to wear bamboo underclothes.

By and by, as manners improved, finding garments thus made from the

cane-brake so comfortable, the men gave up their heavy crockery hats.

In place of these they wore “bird cages” made of horsehair over their

topknots, and out-of-doors put on “roofs” of straw, reed, basket-ware,

or shining black lacquered paper, according to their rank in society.

Thus it came to pass that Korea is the land of hats.