베트남전쟁 시기 “죽음의 국유화”와 영혼결혼식

Abstract

This article argues that ghost marriages were a social and cultural way of mourning the deaths of the veteran during the Vietnam War, and traces how the immaterial, religious practice of ghost marriages was transformed by legal and institutional mechanisms into a symbol that embraced the deaths of the veteran as national deaths. To do so, it analyzes media records such as newspapers, newsreels, and photographs, as well as manifestations in fiction, to discuss the social acceptance of ghost marriages, the crisis of national ritual that they created, and the national response to them. Ghost marriages is an example of a cultural solution to an abnormal death, and the practice of ghost marriages between the dead or between the living and the dead can be found around the world. In South Korea during the Vietnam War, ghost marriages were embraced as a multifaceted cultural practice, including as a means of consoling the spirits of the deceased who had suffered an “abnormal death” and releasing their spirits for a “paradise rebirth,” as a means of establishing their status as “complete” ancestors or ancestor gods by allowing them to go through a “proper” life and death process after death, and as a means of providing comfort to the survivors. According to the traditional symbolic hierarchy of death, the death of a warrior is categorized as an ‘abnormal or bad death’. However, the deaths of Vietnam War veterans who were deployed at the call of the state are categorized as “bad deaths” and as creating “original spirits,” which is contradictory to the state’s position. Because ghost marriages implies another kind of memorialization and release that is not fulfilled by burial alone, the families of many war dead have reenacted individual rituals separate from the official state funeral process, or without accepting it as a “complete” funeral ritual. This crisis of ritual leads to a crisis of meaning, which in turn leads to a crisis of state, and the state needs to institutionalize this crisis of ritual. In 1968, when the procession of the Vietnam War dead was lined up, the ‘Special Marriage Registration Act’ was enacted and implemented. The Act guaranteed the legal status of ghost marriages for war dead. During the Vietnam War, the ghost marriages of those who died in “official duties including combat” were exhibited through mass media such as newspapers, news films, and broadcasts, and were recognized as visible and legitimate through presidential recognition. However, the regime’s plan to maintain its power through the ‘politics of mourning’ by managing and controlling the afterlife proved to be fragile due to its weak financial foundation, uncoordinated management system, and numerous uncontrolled intentions. In doing so, it demonstrated the impossibility of the ‘nationalization of death’.