조선시대 다모의 실체에 관한 小考

Abstract

The task of studying the true nature of Damo, a police system within a certain period of a certain era, which could be considered as the earlier form of the female police nowadays, constitutes an opportunity to reveal the traditionality and the continuity of the female police. With the strict separation between male and female present then, the female-related crimes couldn’t be assigned to males and consequently, the responsibility was assumed by Ui-nyeo in the early Josun dynasty era and Damo in midand late Josun dynasty. In the early Josun dynasty era, the girls above the age of 13 had been selected among the public slaves, trained with required educations and authorized to perform medical practices as Ui-nyeos. However, not all of the selected ones could directly become Ui-nyeos; they had to pass the monthly tests to be qualified and if they failed to fully comprehend the books more than three times, they were reassigned to Heymin-seo as Damos. Accordingly, the name of Damo certainly originated from this. In the early Josun dynasty, Ui-nyeos’ major duties were to cure the King or the Queen or to assist doctors, but they were occasionally assigned the tasks of crime investigations and other duties. However, as the service of Ui-nyeo became closer to that of Gi-saeng around the later Josun dynasty, assigning the tasks of the police to them was increasingly regarded as taboo and since the middle of Josun dynasty, Damo had substituted for Ui-nyeo in the exercise of the police power. Damo in the mid- and later Josun dynasty mainly performed the investigation tasks, which constituted a difference from Ui-nyeo. Furthermore, it is notable that the system of Damo was somewhat nationally more settled in that Damos were not only assigned to the central government offices including Podocheing under Byoungjo, the Ministry of war, but also gradually to the local government offices. But the system of Damo dissipated into history along with the name of Podochung as Kyungmoochung, the new police affairs office, was established within Hanseongbu, the bureau whose jurisdiction was the old Seoul, under Kapohkyungjang, the Police Reform in 31st year of King Kojong’s regime(1894). While the job of Damo in Josun dynasty was rather socially disdained, it may well be seen that it holds a huge importance in that it served as a detective that takes full charge of female crime in Josun dynasty.