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A Study on the Two Layers of Death and its Ritual Meaning in a Shamanistic Myth of Hamgyeong-do Province “Degam-gut”

  • The Research of the Korean Classic
  • 2019, (44), pp.5-29
  • DOI : ​​​10.20516/classic.​2019.44​.5
  • Publisher : The Research Of The Korean Classic
  • Research Area : Humanities > Korean Language and Literature > Korean Literature > Korean classic prose
  • Received : January 5, 2019
  • Accepted : February 19, 2019
  • Published : February 28, 2019

shin, horim 1

1안동대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this article is to explore two layers of death and its ritual meaning of “Degam-gut”, the shamanistic myth in Hamgyeong-do province. “Degam-gut” is performed not for the dead but for an ancestor in order to lay his(or her) spirit to rest. It is possible to find out the ritual meaning of “Degam-gut” by juxtaposing the narrative layer with performing layer. In “Degam-gut”, a ‘lack’ which leads the whole narrative is described of incomplete death of Jim Miryeon who is a defeated general died in the battlefield. The spatial structure is composed of two oppositive parts like ‘inside of Duman river/over the Duman river’, ‘life/death’, ‘complete/ incomplete’, ‘son/father’ and so on. Jim Daleon, a son of Jim Miryeon crosses the board of segmented space for his ‘revenge’. He finally succeeds to hold a funeral of his father. However, the problem is about the contagion of death which engenders a vicious circle of the violence. Jim Daleon’s suicide should be interpreted by this. He becomes a scapegoat burdening whole possibilities of harmful violence so that he consummates the myth of self-sacrifice in order to vent his father’s spite. When we juxtapose the narrative layer with performing layer of “Degam-gut”, the narrative of Jim Daleon’s revenge is a metaphor of the process that takes a good fortune of god of Degam without any harm by mourning an ancestor. A cultural geographical feature of Hamgyeong-do province could be summarized by two. One is there are usually lots of ancestors who cannot come back from the battlefield, and another is the god of Degam is regarded as an ancestor. Though “Dagam-gut” is not for the dead, it has its own ritual function, mourning an ancestor who did not die normally and bringing a god of Dagam without any danger into the ritual space of Mangmut-gut.

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