Jeju people

Modern humans have already lived on Jeju Island since the early Neolithic period (about 10,000 to 8,000 years ago). According to legend, three demi-gods emerged from Samseong,[1] which is said to have been on the northern slopes of Hallasan and became the progenitors of the Jeju people, who founded the Kingdom of Tamna,[2]

Alexander Vovin (2013)[3] notes that the old name for Jeju Island is tammura, which can be analyzed in Japanese as tani mura たにむら (谷村 'valley settlement') or tami mura たみむら (民村 'people's settlement'). Thus, Vovin concludes that Japonic speakers were present on Jeju Island before being replaced by Koreanic speakers sometime before the 15th century.

There is no historical record of the founding or early history of Tamna.

After the establishment of Tamna, in the first century AD, Tamna people started active trade with Baekje and Silla on mainland Korea, Han China and Yayoi period Japan, Southeast Asia, and the Chola dynasty of South India. Later, Tamna became a tributary state of Baekje and Silla.

Tamna briefly reclaimed its independence after the fall of Silla in 935. However, it was subjugated by Goryeo in 938 and officially annexed in 1105. However, the kingdom maintained local autonomy until 1404, when Taejong of Joseon placed it under firm central control and brought the Tamna kingdom to an end. One interesting event that took place during these later years of Tamna was the Sambyeolcho Rebellion,[4] which came to a bloody end on Jeju Island in 1274.

In 1910, Japan annexed Korea, including Jeju, inaugurating a period of hardship and deprivation for the islanders, many of whom were compelled to travel to the mainland or Japan for work. Residents of Jeju were active in the Korean independence movement during the period of Japanese rule.[5]

On April 3, 1948, against a background of an ongoing ideological struggle for control of Korea and a variety of grievances held by islanders against the local authorities, the many communist sympathizers on the island attacked police stations and government offices. The brutal and often indiscriminate suppression of the leftist rebellion resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of both villagers and communist radicals and the imprisonment of thousands more in internment camps.[6] The Uprising has become a symbol of Jeju's independence from the Korean Peninsula.[7]

In 2006, almost 60 years after the Jeju Uprising, the government of South Korea apologized for its role in the killings and promised reparations.[8] In 2019, the South Korean police and defense ministry apologized for the first time over the massacres.[9]

Jeju is the indigenous language of the Jejuans. UNESCO lists it as "critically endangered",[10] with most of its speakers being elderly. The younger generation tends to speak Korean.

In South Korea, the Jeju language is usually labeled as a Korean dialect, despite low levels of mutual intelligibility between Standard Korean.

Korean shamanism is a native religion of Jeju Island, and its teachings are mixed with Confucianism and Buddhism. Jeju Island is also one of the areas in which shamanism is most intact.[11] Other religions practiced on Jeju Island include Buddhism and Christianity.