Eopsin: The Korean Household Spirit of Granary and Fortune

Who is Eopsin?

Eop (業) is a household spirit that, according to traditional belief, settles unseen in one corner of a home and watches over the family's fortune. People also called it Eop-wang ("eop king"), Eop-daegam (a respectful title for a lord) or Eopjugari, and when it was joined with the house's chief god Seongju it became Eopseongjo. The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture describes eop as a household god who governs the luck of the home's wealth. Whether the name came from the Buddhist idea of karma (eop) or is simply a Korean word written in Chinese characters is not clear.

The defining feature of eop is that it shows itself as an animal. The most typical form is a snake, the eop-gureongi. Weasels and toads were also commonly regarded as eop. More rarely people spoke of cattle, pigs, chickens, dogs, cats and even a human being as eop. Where grain was stored, a snake or weasel that hunted rats protected the harvest, so the belief that such creatures guarded the family's wealth matched what farm families had actually seen. This page presents eop belief as traditional culture; it does not claim that any ritual brings money.

Origins and legends

On the Korean mainland there is no long epic sung about eop. What survives are folktales. In one common type a big snake leaves the storehouse and the household's fortunes sink afterward. In another a family that treats a passing toad kindly grows rich. The stories tie the coming and going of the eop to the rise and fall of a house, and versions turn up in many regions.

The place where a spirit of the same kind has the clearest mythology is Jeju Island. There the snake god who protects wealth is called Chilseong, and his story is sung as the Chilseong bonpuri. In it the late-born only daughter of a noble couple becomes pregnant by a monk's child, is driven from home, and is set adrift in a stone chest. The chest reaches the shore at Hamdeok, and eight snakes come out of it. Divers who first mistreated the snakes fall ill, then grow prosperous once they honor the snakes with a gut. The snakes then move into the house of a magistrate in Jeju town and raise it to great wealth.

At the end of the tale the seven daughters scatter into roles such as a harvest grandmother and a storehouse keeper, while the youngest becomes Bat-chilseong, the spirit of the empty plot behind the house, and the mother becomes An-chilseong of the grain storeroom called gopang. The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture treats mainland eop and Jeju Chilseong as one family of snake gods who govern wealth.

How eop was honored: the jar and the eopgari

Eop usually had no fixed body; people simply believed it was somewhere around. When a shape was given, two forms were common. One was the eop jar (eop-hangari): a jar of rice kept in the storehouse or pantry. The other was the eopgari or eopjujeori, a cone of woven straw set up behind the house, which looks almost the same as the teojuggari used for the site spirit Teoju.

There was no fixed day for a large rite for eop. When a family held a gosa, the small offering ceremony to household gods, a little rice cake and liquor were set out at the eop's place beside those for Seongju, Jowang and Teoju. Honoring eop meant less an elaborate ritual than a way of living: keep the storehouse clean, do not waste grain, and do not harm the animals that live with the family.

Taboos and customs

The central taboo of eop belief is simple: do not make the eop leave. Like Seongju, the eop was thought to depart a house where something unclean or improper had happened, and when it left the family would fall. So when a large snake was seen indoors people said "the eop has come out," refused to harm it, and took care that it would not wander away. That is why so many households let a snake live in the roof or in a gap in the wall.

If a family saw the eop leaving they worried that misfortune was coming, and they might hold a gosa to ask it to stay. By contrast, when a toad or weasel came into the house it was welcomed as a sign that good luck was entering. Children were firmly told never to throw stones at the toad in the yard. These taboos also had a practical effect. In an age when rats ate the grain, the rule that you must not hurt the animals that catch rats was everyday wisdom folded into belief.

Regional differences

On the mainland the eop is generally symbolized by a snake, weasel or toad and honored as a jar or eopgari in the granary or back yard. In central Korea it was sometimes counted together with Teoju among the daegam, the "lord" spirits of the house, and called Eop-daegam. In parts of Yeongnam, such as around Andong, some households kept a dragon jar (yong-danji) to pray for plenty in a similar spirit.

On Jeju the same spirit became far larger under the name Chilseong. It is divided into An-chilseong, honored in the gopang grain storeroom, and Bat-chilseong, honored behind the house with five kinds of grain seed placed in a tile and covered with thatch, called a chilseong-nul. In some villages, such as Seongeup in Seogwipo, Chilseong is also honored as a village shrine god. One caution: on Jeju the word chilseong can also mean the Big Dipper (Chilseong, the seven stars). The snake god Chilseong and the Big Dipper's Chilwon Seongun are different objects of belief that merely share a name.

Traces in modern life: eopdungi

The best-known word that eop belief left behind is eopdungi. When a family took in a baby left at its door, it was said that the child was an eop that had brought good fortune, hence eopdungi. Today the word is used affectionately for a youngest or much-loved child.

The phrase "the eop has gone out" was also used when a household's fortunes suddenly dropped. The custom of driving off a toad or snake in the house has faded, but the habit of leaving a little rice in the jar and carrying a bit of rice along when moving house, so that the jar never runs empty, still carries the feeling that a home's wealth should be protected.

Eop and the life of the storehouse

It is hard to separate eop belief from the storehouse itself. A farm family's granary held the year's food and next year's seed, and an empty storehouse meant the household was in trouble. For that reason the door was not left open, and the key was often kept by the senior woman of the house. A proverb says, "Kindness comes out of the storehouse," meaning that only a full granary lets you share with neighbors.

The unseen keeper of this place was the eop. The snake and weasel that caught rats and the toad that ate insects guarded the granary and yard, and people gave those animals the name eop out of respect. Whenever a family moved to a new home, bringing along some rice from the old jar was a quiet way of carrying the old household's good fortune forward. In the end eop belief is a way of expressing in the language of faith the household culture of a farming people: handle grain with care, live alongside the animals of the home, and look after what you have. To say "do not let the eop leave" was another way of saying "manage your household wisely." Setting out rice cake for eop at the gosa in the tenth lunar month, after the harvest had filled the granary, expressed the wish that the storehouse would stay full for a long time.

Spirits to read about together

Eop is easiest to understand next to the other household gods. Seongju guards the house itself, Teoju the ground it stands on, and Jowang the kitchen fire, while eop looks after the wealth stored inside.