Naewat-dang shamanic paintings The Naewat-dang shamanic paintings (Korean: 내왓당 무신도) are ten portraits of village patron gods formerly hung at the Naewat-dang shrine, one of the four state-recognized shamanic temples of Jeju Island, now in South Korea. The shrine was destroyed in the nineteenth century, and the works are currently preserved at Jeju National University as a government-designated Important Folklore Cultural Property. They may be the oldest Korean shamanic paintings currently known.
Although twelve gods were worshipped at Naewat-dang, only ten paintings survive. They are all painted with mineral-based pigments on Korean paper with an ink brush, perhaps by the same painter. They depict six male and four female deities, who are dressed in various headgear, robes, and shoes and usually hold a fan. The attire of the gods can sometimes be linked to their names, or to the shamanic myths told about them. For instance, a god said to come from the Central Asian Western Regions wears an unusual hat that may be based on a turban, while the youngest goddess wears the loose hair of an unmarried woman.
The existence of paintings at Naewat-dang is attested since 1466, when some portraits at the shrine were burnt; these may be the two currently missing works. Whether the paintings present in 1466 survived a large-scale persecution of shamanism in 1702 is unknown, but even if they were destroyed, they were probably quickly repainted once the persecution had ended a year later. Analyses of the gods' attire suggest a date of composition in or before the 17th century.
The works are highly divergent from mainland Korean shamanic paintings, and also unusual in that Jeju Island shamanism usually does not involve paintings. Unlike the human-like gods of mainland portraits, the Naewat-dang deities appear inhuman and grotesque, reminiscent of the hybrid human-tree deities worshipped in some Jeju villages. The paintings also invoke both snake and bird imagery.