Folkloric customs and practices that have been preserved and handed down among non-official circles in Buan, Jeollabuk-do.
Summary
Folklore refers to the traditional and universal cultures which the majority of people in a particular cultural region share with each other, and to the lifestyle customs that have developed as a response and adaptation to natural, historical, and social environments. The scope and classification of folklore differ depending on the country, cultural region, and researcher. Although there is no standardized reference point, in general, folklore is classified as follows: A. social structure and ceremonial occasions, B. everyday life and the necessities of life, C. folk belief and religion, D. seasonal customs and traditional games, E. folk art and livelihood skills, and F. oral transmission. The definition, category, classification, and types of Buan’s folklore are followed by general practice; however, the explanation here is focused on “folk belief” (C) and “seasonal customs” (D) among the foregoing classifications.
Folklore of the Village Community
The Dangsanje Ritual and Juldarigi (tug-of-war) are the folklore activities that have been most consistently cherished and maintained by the people of the Buan region. According to Buan-gun Magazine, published in 2015, at least thirty-six villages continue to hold the Dangsanje Ritual, which is regarded as a collective folklore activity based on a village community’s folk beliefs. As a village community’s folkloric beliefs and activities are closely connected with its livelihood, the expression of its folklore differs depending on the status of its livelihood. The most important folklore sites of the village community in Buan can be categorized into those of farming communities and those of fishing communities. However, coastal villages on the west coast are mainly composed of agricultural fishing communities as reclamation projects have focused on those areas since the Japanese colonial era. As a result of the continuous reclamation projects carried out in and around Gyehwado Island in the 1960s and Saemangeum in the 1990s in particular, many Buan fishing villages have become farming villages. As farming villages on the west coast mostly engage in an equal mixture of farming and fishing, except for certain island areas and port villages, the characteristics of the Dangsanje Ritual in such areas are almost identical to those of any farming village. Buan’s representative village community folklores belong to the farming village of Dolmosan in Naeyo-ri, Buan-eup and the fishing village of Dae-ri in Wido-myeon, Buan-gun, Jeollabuk-do. The Dangsanje Ritual in Dolmosan, Naeyo-ri exhibits the typical characteristics of a farming community’s belief system. The stone jimdae (pole topped with a stone duck) is a type of village guardian erected to pray for a good harvest and prevent fires in villages where there were many thatched houses in the past. The juldarigi (tug-of-war) is the main event of this village’s Dangsanje Ritual. The jul or rope symbolizes the body of a dragon, which is considered a theriomorph of farming, so people cannot treat it lightly as injury may result if one crosses the rope without permission. After the juldarigi, people carry the rope on a tour around the village. During this event, the villagers perform ecstatic state representing unity with the dragon god. The last event consists in dressing the stone jimdae with the rope according to the belief that it will protect the village throughout the year. The representative folklore site of a Buan fishing community can be found in the village of Daeri, Wido-myeon, where the Wido Ttibaennori (Ttibae Boat Festival of Wido Island) is still held every year. This folklore event is held to pray for a bountiful catch and to prevent misfortune by offering sacrifices, and consists of a gut (shamanistic ritual) and a ttibae (a boat made of tti, Imperata cylindrical) for diverse deities such as the local mountain spirit, dragon king, tutelary deity (wondang), tutelary deity (aegissi), etc. The Ttibaennori, held on the third day of the first month of the year, begins with the Wondangje Ritual. The Wondang is a shrine located on the precipitous Dangjetbong Peak, the village’s main peak, where the twelve gods of the village and the sea are enshrined. The village’s main folklore ritual is the Shaman’s ritual (mudanggut), which is led by a female shaman. Cho Geum-rye (1917-1995, designated as a master of intangible cultural heritage) was a regular shaman before her death, but nowadays a shaman is invited from elsewhere to perform the ritual. After holding the Wondangje Ritual, including the shamanistic rites, the Yongwangje rite and the floating of a ttibae are performed at the dock. A ttibae is made of tti, i.e. straw, bush clover, and pine, and measures about 3 meters in length and 2 meters in width, while seven puppets made of straw play the role of the captain and crewmen of the boat. After finishing the Yonggwangje, the ttibae containing the sacrificial offerings and the village’s misfortunes is pushed out to sea. The Wido Ttibaennori is a typical folk religious event of a fishing village that is held to pray for a bountiful catch and a safe voyage for fishermen by performing shamanistic rites, boatman’s songs, the pungmul gut (shamanistic rite with traditional instruments), and dance, and offering sacrificial food to the guardian deities of the village and the sea.
Seasonal Customs
Seasonal customs in Korean farming areas are almost identical to each other as they are based on agricultural customs. However, the seasonal customs of fishing communities differ from those of farming areas as their livelihood depends entirely on tides and fisheries. Buan’s seasonal customs, excluding national holidays such as Seollal (Korean New Year’s Day) and Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving Day), are as follows: The Dangsanje Ritual is held on the jeongwol daeboreum (the first full moon of the New Year). Buan’s key folklore events include the Dangsanje Ritual held by each village, and the juldarigi (tug-of-war) performed as part of the Dangsanje Ritual. Recently, however, there has been an increase in the number of villages which hold a “sheaf burning” rather than the actual Dangsanje Ritual. On Hadeuretnal Day, which is the first day of the second lunar month, the villagers roast beans either to eat or to spread around the village boundary in order to repel insects. This day falls on another day called “Yeungdeung Grandma Day,” which is when housewives worship the Yeungdeung Grandma, who is believed to descend to Earth on the first day of the farming season and to ascend to heaven after twenty days. It is said that whoever fails to receive the Yeungdeung Grandma hospitably will be severely punished or get into trouble. In the past, many villages performed a shamanistic ritual against evil spirits, which was usually led by a woman, in order to eradicate contagious diseases on the day. On the third day of the third lunar month, the villagers would go on a picnic with flower pancakes (Hwajeonnori), which was more popular in farming areas than Dano Day (a festival held on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month) because the latter coincides with the rice-planting season, making it impossible for farmers to enjoy the festival. On this day the people of Julpo used to follow the custom of taking a sand bath, while people from the Byeonsan area went to Jikso Falls to enjoy taking the waters. On Yuwol Yudu, or Yuwol Charye, held in the sixth lunar month, people used to take the day off from their agricultural labors, take to the water, make and enjoy pancakes, and pray for a good harvest. They would also share their food (barley rice cakes or wheat-flour dough boiled in soup) with their neighbors on that day. The seventh day of the seventh lunar month, or mid-July on the lunar calendar, is Sulmeginal Day, when people would hold a feast after weeding their rice paddies. If it looked like it would be difficult to finish the harvest before Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving Day), people would reap the rice prematurely (olgisimni) and let it ripen early (olgissal). On Horse Day, which falls in the tenth lunar month, people hold an ancestral rite to express their gratitude to the deities of agriculture, in which they make rice cakes coated with mashed red-beans and place them in front of a wooden rice storage in a yard. The religious events of Buan’s fishing communities are held mainly on fishing boats. In fishing villages, the ship owners hold a boat ritual (baet gosa). In Wido or Sikdo, villagers usually hold a boat ritual by placing a ‘gitson’ or ‘sanssal’ received from the dang (shrine), right after the Dangje ritual. Fishermen who operate a fishing boat in Wido, Gomso, Gyeokpo, and Gyehwado have a custom of holding a boat ritual on certain days, including at the beginning of January, Chuseok, or New Year’s Eve on the lunar calendar. A boat ritual is also performed to Baeseonang (Sodang Aegissi, a tutelary deity of a boat). Although boat rituals used to be part of the general customs in the past (for small and medium boats), they are rarely held nowadays. A boat ritual is also held when a new boat is launched for the first time (jinsu gosa), when a (new) boat sets out on its first fishing trip (chuleo gosa), or when fishermen have a poor or good catch (dang gosa). The dokkaebi gosa ritual was held in fishing villages where the local fishermen believed that dokkaebi (goblin) drove the fish into their nets. Until recently, fishing techniques like dogsal (catching fish inside submerged stone walls) or eosal (weirs) were still used in coastal villages in Buan. There were two dogsal sites in Gyeokpo-ri, Sannae-myeon, Buan-gun, where the dokkaebi gosa was held two to three times a year depending on the tides. For this ritual, buckwheat jelly and buckwheat cakes, which were said to be a goblin’s favorite food, were usually offered. One of the important folk rituals in Buan’s fishing villages is the jogisimni ritual, in which fishermen offer the most substantial croakers (jogi) from their first catch of the year to a tutelary deity or to their ancestors, which is similar to the olgisimni ritual, in which the first gathering of a crop is offered. Today, seasonal customs and religious events associated with fishing are on the decline in the Buan area because modern farming methods don’t match with the farming seasons, agricultural and fishing equipment and techniques have developed considerably, the major established religions have spread widely, and the structure of the house has become massively urbanized. The change in this regard remains to be seen.
