Koryŏ and the Empire of the Hunt

This chapter first provides an overview of the hunt in Eurasian before turning to Northeast Asia. From the earliest times, the hunt provided kings and elites with means to solidify authority over their realms, but it disappeared from the sources as an activity conducted at the court as Buddhism and Confucianism became more powerful forces for governance. Under Mongol control from the 1230s through the 1360s, the balance of political power tipped in favour of kings and the hunt when elite interaction with beasts of the wild emerged as important indicators of governance and status. Another element of this story is the ritual sacrifice of animals. Based on Chinese ritual texts and indigenous shamanistic practices, the meat of deer, swine, hare and other game were offered in ceremonial rites to Confucius and royal ancestors attesting to the early centrality of animals. The chapter concludes by exploring the 1290 invasion by renegade Mongol leader Qadan and his followers which exposed tensions between the bureaucracy and the re-emergence of a Northeast Asian regional political identity. The latter involved a lifestyle based on uxoriocality, where the wife’s household defines authority, and was demonstrated by the hunt, which resulted in different patterns of governance and identity.