This week on Jeju: A to Z, Todd Thacker has the second in a series of segments profiling a part of Jeju’s cultural and agricultural heritage. Jeju’s unique stone walls have for centuries protected islander’s homes, fields -- and as we’ll see today, gravesites. Sandam are the square edifices that enclose the grave mounds of traditional family plots, and they have both practical and symbolic uses.

From the air, the island’s farmland looks like a jigsaw puzzle -- much of it family-owned for generations. In the Korean tradition of honoring one’s ancestors, up until quite recently one’s deceased elders were buried on or near these homesteads.

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Rectangular walls protecting family burial mounds

Sandam are the rectangular walls built around these burial mounds. In keeping with Jeju’s stone culture, they are built without mortar, and made with rocks readily found in the area.

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Keep cattle out, protect against fire

Not unlike the Batdam walls which surround the islander’s fields, Sandam have a practical function. They keep cattle away, and serve as a firewall if a wildfire sweeps through the area.

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Small break in the wall allows access to the grave

There is an interesting structural feature to the Sandam. Since it surrounds hallowed ground, a narrow break is purposefully built into the wall -- a simun (시문) or “door of the gods”. It is located on the right if the occupant is a man, and on the left if the departed is a woman.

This symbolic door is how family members gain access to the burial mound, rather than stepping over the walls themselves.

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Reference: Koreana, Summer 2001

In autumn, it is traditional for family members to gather from far and wide and visit these burial mounds to help trim the grass, clean up leaves in and around the Sandam, and then have a small ceremony to honor their elders. This tradition -- called Beolcho (벌초) -- is very strong on Jeju.

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Todd Thacker

Centuries of islanders spent their entire lives working these plots and raising families there. Thus it is most fitting that they are laid to rest nearby, surrounded and protected by stone walls which in life served them so well.

Todd Thacker KCTV