전통씻김굿 현장은 연행자들의 즉흥과 신명을 일구는 시공간

Abstract

Ssitgimgut, meaning a "cleansing ritual," is targeted to the dead. Although this ritual used to be practiced by tanggol--usually internationally introduced as "shamans"--in Jeolla province, it remained intact only in Jindo Island, a corner of that region where social change is comparatively slow at the time of my field research in the early 1980s. As opposed to typical shamans who communicate with gods or spirits through ecstasy, tanggol is a religious leader who becomes a shaman by inheritance and a kind of priest who works in his or her own diocese. Such religious practices were regarded not as a religion per ce but as shaman-centered customs. The tanggols have their own diocese and deal with everyday religious events in their individual diocese. The suffix, (-)gut is a term for shaman rituals, the largest kind. It was divided largely into the ones for the prosperity of the living and the other for purifying the dead. When the practices had been documented enough to draw the basic structures and system, I ultimately was able to draw four kinds of unique characteristics of the ritual music, that is diversity, individuality & excellency, improvisation, and dynamics. I conclude that the basic structures and system of the ritual music functioned as a framework for performers to improvise their music every time at the ritual. As the Korean society has been rapidly modernized and popularized since the 1980, ssitgimgut has now been rarely practiced in Jindo. Meanwhile the ritual was designated as an intangible treasure, and its status and identity had gradually changed into a stage product of legacy. The performance as a whole was rarely performed, instead, only excerpts or edited eye-catching versions were offered. The latter part of this paper paid serious attention to view the ritual as the musical performance reality and to revive the value as a living tradition by re-imagining it as a music venue of collective improvisation.