The rich resources of Korean myths and Shamanistic beliefs have been kept alive on Cheju Island, the biggest southern island of Korea. When a Shinbang(shaman) performs a religious ritual, his songs narrate creation myths and biographical tales of gods. We often find a primordial cosmology in such religious ritual.
Cheju Shinbang set up an altar inside the house of clients who ask their protection. In front of the house, they errect three pillars jointed at the top in a pyramid form. Thus the sanctuary includes the altar inside the house and the three pillars.
The central pillar among these three pillars might be considered both a Shaman pillar and a cosmic pillar. The gods make a cosmic journey through this pillar which constitutes the central point of the universe. This pillar of the gods´ road is divided into two parts marked with the leaves: upper heaven and lower heaven. Upper heaven is the space for the gods and lower heaven is intermediary space between gods and humans.
The cosmic pillar of Cheju is therefore a bipartite pillar. A long ornamental flag hanging on the pillar shows that the lower heaven is vertically divided into three parts. The fact that the lower heaven is divided into three parts suggests that upper heaven can also be divided into three. The cosmic pillar Cheju is therefore divided into an upper and a lower part and each of these two parts is divided into three.
This means that a cosmology itself is formed of a bipartite gross constituent with a tripartite lesser constituent.
The reader of Cheju myth will find many doublets, the number three, and repetition in threes; these are stylistic traits very characteristic of Cheju myth. These stylistic traits should be regarded as the structural and organizing principle of Cheju myth. For instance, the cosmology implied in the creation myth illustrates the binary opposition―confusion/order, darkness/light, indiscrimination/separation, over-much/adequate―through three steps.
The doublet, the number three and repitition in threes parallel Cheju myth cosmology´s bipartite gross structure with its tripartite lesser structure.
Cheju myth, Cheju Shaman ritual and the cosmology is built on the doublet and the number three. It is obvious that this three is a number, but the doublet cannot be identified with the number two.
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