**5. Conclusions**

Having found ways to harmoniously coexist with the indigenous shamanic religions, Confucianism and Buddhism have been able to persuade many people, who used to solely rely on the indigenous religion, to accept their new ideas and practices. Confucianism did so in the 19th century and Buddhism since the early 20th century. That the indigenous religion and the two old, foreign religions have similar views on death and spirits has made it rather easy for the followers of the indigenous religion to convert to Confucianism and Buddhism. Furthermore, the communal and domestic rituals of each tradition can be conveniently replaced with one another's. Thanks to these similarities, the two religions could coexist with the indigenous religion without much di fficulty. But Confucianism and

Buddhism have not regarded it as providing the proper way of keeping the order of the universe or attaining salvation. The two religions articulated their superiority over other religions in Jeju.

It is true that many elements of the preexisting religious tradition were unacceptable to the Christian worldview and vice versa. It is not only because Christianity came into Korea later than the two other imported religions, but also because the three religions share similar worldviews and a loosely unified ritual system. Thus, the two religious systems, namely Christianity and the three traditional religions, have rejected each other, marking a limit to the tradition of peaceful coexistence that has been characteristic for the island's religious communities. The Christian method of proselytizing the indigenous residents involved encouraging people to give up traditional local customs and accept the Christian worldview. However, Christianity has also tried to find and exploit the interface between itself and other religions. One way that this method has been carried out is through the missionaries' appropriation of the traditional Confucian worldview which resembles the Christian one. The Catholics gradually and successfully reduced their own antipathy against indigenous religious elements, by approving of domestic rituals and emphasizing the grandeur of their funeral ritual. Even though Protestants have been slow in accepting and appreciating traditional views and rituals, many of them nowadays agree that they should respect the religious sentiment of Jeju people and develop ritual processes that can appeal to them. It should be noted that this e ffort of Christianity to find ideas and practices that it can appreciate and accept has also been made for the purpose of proselytization. Though both Catholics and Protestants try to make themselves look familiar to the Jeju local people by emphasizing the similarities, both of them hold fast to the belief that only they can o ffer the right understanding of the world and the e ffective way for the salvation of human beings.

Therefore, religions of Jeju that try to make themselves look familiar to people often appreciate other religions and accept other religions' elements that may harmonize with their own ideas and practices. We can see that the outside religions have tacitly and indirectly appreciated certain elements of the indigenous religion. In order to attract the local population, which was strongly attached to this indigenous religion, the imported religions in Jeju have recognized at least some "partial truth" in shamanism and have appropriated it for the rhetoric of coexistence. Moreover, in one way or another, they have recognized the importance of some rituals of preexisting religions which were not easily separable from the people. Confucianism and Buddhism have accepted some ritual processes of shamanic religion into their own; Catholicism has approved of some traditional rituals which it used to reject and criticize harshly; even some Protestants have tried to accommodate or imitate traditional rituals. In short, religions of Jeju compare themselves with other religions, emphasize some elements of others that they can approve, and try to make themselves look familiar to the people they try to attract. Simultaneously, each religion di fferentiates itself from others and asserts its superiority over others, though it appreciates some partial value or truth of other religions. They have asserted that other religions' partial truth and limited value show the sharp contrast with the complete truth and value of their own, and that only they can provide the proper way of keeping the order of the universe or attaining salvation of human beings. This common rhetoric that my religion is similar but superior to other religions has been repeatedly emphasized in Jeju, in order to persuade people outside the religion to accept or at least approve it without compunction and at once to reinforce the insiders' conviction to stay in it.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding. **ConflictsofInterest:**Theauthordeclaresnoconflictofinterest.
