서남해와 영산강의 문화 특질 및 교류-의향, 예향, 그리고 미향의발원에 대하여-

Abstract

A great number of people who have taken the sea as their siteof life have accumulated their own way of living and store of marine knowledge. Jang Bogo and Lee Sunsin achieved great works by using the store of marine knowledge that the populace who lead their life in the southwestern sea in the Korean Peninsula had acquired. The marine knowledge that the populacestored up for their living was applied for international trade by Jang Bogo and for naval battles by Lee Sunsin. Since the prehistoric age, the Yeongsan River has not only acted as a mediator between the sea and the land but also contributed to the accumulation of a special regional culture while irrigating the open fields. The extensive region from the basins of waterfalls in Damyang County, the source of the Yeongsan River, to Samhak Island in Mokpo City, the estuary of the river, characteristically transmits numerous legends based on the idea of sex worship that encourages affluence and fecundity. The Honam region is called the birthplace of justice, the birthplace of art or the birthplace of flavor. Such culture images are ascribed to the natural and geographical features of the southwest of the Korean Peninsula. Agricultural and marine products are gained from the southwest region of the peninsula where the Yeongsan River flows through the plains of honey and milk and where the eighty percentage of the tidal flats in Korea are situated, so the products have served as the bases of livelihood that lead to create the special Honam culture. The realities of the populace's marine life accumulated in the plains and coastal waters in the southwest of Korea must be now investigated and arranged as a cultural archetype and can be applied as infinite cultural resources in the days ahead.