『默齋日記』를 통해서 본 16세기 奴婢의 죽음과 喪葬禮

Abstract

People in the Joseon era perceived that the cause of a disease was action of aek (misfortune) or ghosts and attempted to overcome the illness by evading, soothing, or driving it out. This was expressed by pijeop (an ill person adjourns to another place and convalesces) intending to evade misfortune through taboo about a certain place. Like this, the concept of attempting to avoid an illness was similarly applied to death as well. At the time, people recognized that death within one's family was most ideal and even death in a relative's home was considered as dying away from home. However, the owners of servants sent their servant to byeongmak (a house isolating a person contracting a contagious disease) and had the servant face death outside of their house and this is considered an expression of perception intending to maintain a certain distance from death. Meanwhile, servants as well wished their last procedure of life to be made within their family and anjang (comfortably holding a funeral) in their homeland thereafter. Such wish of theirs was expressed as a funeral form of chojang (covering the body with straw and burying it temporarily). Nonetheless, the owners of servants preferred burial to chojang as a funeral method. Mostly the owner of a servant provided a coffin and jangji (a land for funeral and burial of the body) for his or her funeral and it was done within a very short time. The specific form of the funeral was not verified but it is estimated that their funeral as well had a certain form.