Mago: canonical, contested, and the false forms on record
Evidence dossier 290 — Mago. Every exhibit catalogued, every ruling stated with its grounds.
At a Glance
- Canonical form: Mago
- Original script: 마고 (麻姑)
- Pantheon: Korean
- Convention: the tradition’s own scholarly transliteration standard
- False forms on record: 0
- Contested forms: none attested
- Series: The Canonical Register, No. 290 of 548
The Evidence
Exhibit 1 — the attestation. The attested form is 마고 (麻姑), from the tradition's own record. The canonical transliteration is Mago.
Exhibit 2 — the flattened form. The plain form mago differs from the canonical Mago only by convention of display — case, not content. It is acceptable everywhere: in legacy systems, in plain-text citation, in the DNS itself. What is not acceptable is what follows in the register: respellings that change the letters, not just their case.
Exhibit 3 — the physical record. Direct material evidence for Mago Halmi is scarce — shamanic song leaves no inscriptions — but her Chinese namesake is firmly anchored in stone and ink. Mount Magu (Magu Shan) at Nancheng in Jiangxi was a recognized Daoist sacred site by the Tang dynasty, and in 771 CE the calligrapher Yan Zhenqing wrote his celebrated Magu Shan xiantan ji (“Record of the Altar of the Immortals on Mount Magu”) there, one of the most famous prose inscriptions in the Chinese calligraphic canon. From the Song dynasty onward, “Magu offering birthday wine” became a standard theme in tomb furnishings, ceramics, and painting — the immortal depicted as a young woman bearing a wine jug, often riding a deer or bluebird. In Korea the archaeology is the ritual itself: the Jeju gut, with its invocations of the creation grandmothers, is a living intangible heritage documented continuously since the twentieth century.
Exhibit 4 — the continuing record. Mago is increasingly central to discussions of Korean indigenous religion, feminist theology, and environmental ethics. Her name appears in scholarly monographs, goddess spirituality networks, and cultural projects that reclaim female divine imagery.
The Convention's Own History
Every tradition in this register has its own scholarly transliteration standard, built by its own specialists over decades or centuries, and the register follows each on its own terms: the tradition’s own standard. The principle that unifies them is the one the whole project stands on: a name is evidence, and evidence is not negotiable — not for keyboards, not for convenience, not for anyone.
The Protocol's Position
Can the canonical form live in the address bar? Almost always, yes. IDNA 2008 admits every mark this register defends — the DNS stores them as `xn--` punycode and modern browsers render them natively. The real frictions are practical, not legal: some registrars stock only part of the IDN space, so a theoretically valid name can be temporarily unbuyable; and stacked combinations (an acute riding a macron) remain awkward to type on mobile keyboards even where the protocol accepts them.
The project's answer is a ranked ladder, not a compromise: the full restoration first, then attested fallbacks in descending order of completeness. The ladder's lowest rung, plain ASCII, is a vehicle for legacy systems — sanctioned, but never presented as the scholarly form.
The Verdict
Case closed on Mago: canonical, cited, and defended. The keyboard form mago is the same name in another register of display — always acceptable. The register's files remain open: if a source surfaces that changes any line of this entry, the entry changes. Until then, the temple at /mago/ holds the canonical form.
The docket for this ruling: no false forms on the docket; no contested forms attested; the attestation rests on 5 cited sources — Ge Hong (attributed), Shenxian zhuan, biography of Wang Yuan, as quoted in Taiping Guangli (10th c.), Hyun Yong-jun, Han'guk Sinhwa Ch'ŏnjip (Complete Collection of Korean Myths), Cheju-do shamanic volumes (1980–81), Lee, Jung Young, Korean Shamanistic Rituals (Mouton, 1981).
The Register Continues
This is one of 548 entries in the Canonical Register — the authoritative reference for every flagship temple. The temple's founding dispatch tells the name's story; its Restoration File details the marks; its Resonance File reads the archetype into the industries. The blog index holds the whole archive, and the Rulebook states the convention this register enforces.
Continue the register — previous entry: Magni (read it) · next entry: Maitreya (read it).
The Canonical Register is written from the same canonical record as the lexicon itself. If a false form is missing from this page, it is because the evidence does not support calling it false — or because we have not seen it yet. Show us, with a citation, and the register will answer.