<1>This thesis is written to help have a better understanding of the "insular culture and tradition" preserved by the communities in and around Saemangeum including the life of islanders of Gaeyado, which has long been regarded as a remote place despi ...
<1>This thesis is written to help have a better understanding of the "insular culture and tradition" preserved by the communities in and around Saemangeum including the life of islanders of Gaeyado, which has long been regarded as a remote place despite its geographical proximity to the lower reaches of the Geumgang River. The subject of the thesis came from the criticism against the traditional view that only the Gogunsan Islands are directly related with Seamangeum. One may find in this thesis that I didn't pay due attention to the ecological features of Saemangeum, but the truth is that I didn't want to deal with it here largely because I believed that the topic needs a separate discussion. The main topic of this thesis is the culture and tradition preserved in the island communities in and around the bay of Saemangeum, and I will try to discuss it in relation with the characteristic features of local culture including the worship of village tutelaries and fishing in the intertidal region.
<2>This study is focused on the common elements in several traditional funeral rites preserved in the Jindo area, such as Ssitgimgut ("cleansing exorcism"), Dasiraegi ("consolation song"), Yunnori ("yutgame") and Manga ("funeral song") which have been regarded as belonging to different categories, and the perception of death by Jindo islanders. In the main discussion I tried to explicatethe context between ritual and entertainment from the viewpoint that these folk performances are all-inclusive ritual theater. I found that all of these performances consist of two partsone dealing with the body of the deceased and the other their spirit. I also found that the first part can be divided into two stages and the second into three stages,which are announcing a death, making a conflict and then, finally, conflict solution. I noted that each performance is comparable with a festival which hasits own plot conceived from the process of the traditional shamanic rites, and that the island's funeral rites can be interpreted in relation with the composition of a festival. I tried to interpret Yeongdonmari ("spirit wrapping") in Ssitgimgut, which isalso a Gyeokjageuk ("lattice play"), as a metaphor aspiring to rebirth. Similarly, I divided Dasiraegi into two, one in the narrower meaning and the other in the wider meaning, and concluded that the funeral rite itself contains in it the elementsof Dasiraegi. Finally, I tried to bring Yunnori, a folk game often played at a mourning gathering, into the category of funeral rites, explaining it as a Chilseongpan Nori ("seven-star panel game").
<3>This thesis is written to shed light on the cultural significance of the legend of Choe Chi-won and the Korean maritime culture related with it, and contribute to today's effort to promote historical maritime heroes as a local cultural asset. The legend of Choe Chi-won is widespread along the southwestern coastal area of the Korean Peninsula, from the islands of Gogunsando in Jeonbuk to the islands in Sinan-gun in Jeonnam. I concluded that the widespread distribution of the legend in the southwestern region is related with the waterways linking it with the outside world and the introduction of the idea that the three teachings, Confucianism, Buddhism and Daoism, are united in one. I believe that many will readily agree to the first factor as it is directly related with the worship of sea deities although some may express doubt about the second, particularly concerning its relationship with Daoism. Similar legends and folk tales including those about Seo Bok (or Xu Fu) and the Three Sacred Mountains show, however, that they represented the people's strong will to get over difficulties of their time and develop them into a religious aspiration. The philosophy of Choe Chi-won was extensively studied in relation with Korea's three major religions in the past and exploited for various practical, artistic and religious purposes, including the code