“What is the text?: Authority and authenticity in muga.”

“What is the text? Authority and authenticity in muga.” This question is the essential issue which I intend to elaborate in this article. One of the main issues to consider in translation work is the identification of the author. In the case of muga, the identification of the author or authors is not always easy and obvious. It requires a wider angle of perspective on authorship. Identification of the author can neither be ignored because s/he is a person in power, who retains the authority of the transmission of muga, nor be underestimated because s/he is in possession of the authority of the authenticity of muga even when its meaning differs from person to person (mudang, spiritual daughter, amateur or “minjung ethnographer”, scholar) and changes according to the context or to varieties present in religious language. Thus, the particular issue which I intend to explore in this article is the multiple figure of the author, while identifying the procedures of decontextualization of muga from its context and of its recontextualization in another context. In other words, by analyzing the modality followed by the author/s in the procedure of decontextualizing and recontextualizing pieces of muga within and outside the ritual, this article focuses on how this influences the text which is intended to have a wider significance. Translation of a muga will be defined in accordance with the new meanings of authority, authenticity and text. The ethnographic material on which the research is based is drawn from years of fieldwork and books and articles I have written on the subject.