"Hwach'uk, Paekchong, Yangsuch'ok ... These ethnonyms (and also some others: Such'ok Kwangdae, Chaein, and so on) refer to members of the little-known but significant (in terms of both numbers and economic impact) social minority that... more
"Hwach'uk, Paekchong, Yangsuch'ok ... These ethnonyms (and also some others: Such'ok Kwangdae, Chaein, and so on) refer to members of the little-known but significant (in terms of both numbers and economic impact) social minority that comprised distinctive "outcaste" communities throughout much of Korean social history. Distinctive Korean outcaste communities are no longer extant. Their stigma initially derived from a proclivity to pursue rude and peripatetic lifestyles at a time when the majonty Korean culture was becoming settled, agricultural, and Buddhist; it was then fixed by a rigid social system into an inherited occupational trait-complex that centered on butchering cattle."
In Levison, David and Paul Hockings (eds), 1993
Related: "Gypsy Studies in the Far East" (1980); "Service Nomads" (1986); "Patterns of Genesis Among Peripatetics: Notes from the Korean Archipelago" (1987)
