Jeoseung Saja- Korean SpiritSpirit"Messenger of Death"

The Messengers in Black

The Jeoseung Saja dress as Joseon officials: black durumagi, tall gat, the formal attire of men who carry authority they did not choose. They serve Yeomra and the Ten Kings, and their duty is to escort the dead from the living world to the courts below. Their chief is Gangrim, the mortal who earned command of the death reapers by descending to the underworld and dragging a false king from his throne, as told in the Chasa Bonpuri of Jeju shamanic tradition.

They do not kill. They arrive only after the Saengsambu, the Book of Life and Death, has recorded that a person's time is finished. The summons bears the dying person's name. The reapers carry rope to bind the soul and lead it down.

The Summons

Korean folk tales are thick with people who try to dodge the Jeoseung Saja. A man lays out a feast for the reapers at his door, hoping a full stomach will soften their resolve. A family hides their dying patriarch in a grain chest, a cave, a room with no entrance. A rich man offers everything he owns. The reapers eat the food, find the hidden man, ignore the gold. They always come back. They always finish the job.

Once the soul is taken, the Jeoseung Saja walk it through the underworld to the courts of the Ten Kings, where Yeomra presides over the fifth and central judgment. The journey is solemn. The reapers are not cruel and not kind. They are officials completing a task, and the task is the oldest one there is.