황해도 무신도의 종교적 성격과 기능-무신도의 표현방식과 기능 및 제작자와 이용자의 행위를 중심으로-

Abstract

We can find clues to understand shamanism through Musindo (paintings of shamanistic gods). While a folk religion does not have scripture or documents, we can gain important knowledge about it through its paintings, in addition to the songs and myths in its oral tradition. We can understand shamanism through its religious symbols and meanings embedded in the painting, through the functions that the painting (which represents the face of the god) serves, through the believers of shamanism who deify the painting, and through the ways the painter employs to represent the shamanist god which exists in the imagination of the shaman. Objects in the painting symbolize the nature and role of the god. A Musindo contains the essence of East Asian thinking which takes a unified view of the people's wishes, the harmony between nature and man, and the human and divine worlds. The painters of Musindo must keep their bodies and minds properly. A shaman who employ a Musindo decides whether it should be used or not depending on the message from the god. After obtaining a painting which has been ordered, the shaman puts it on a table and reports it to the god. A ritual (which is intended to report to the gods that the painting has arrived and to welcome it) is offered on a desirable day. For the shaman in Hwanghae Do, the Musindo embodies the god in a concrete form as “the face of the god”. It functions as a medium which the shaman looks at in order to communicate to the god and ask the god’s wishes while praying or offering a ritual. The Musindo of Hwanghae Do concretizes the invisible world of the god in the visible body of the painting, and reflects the will of the god to fulfill humans’ wishes with the vocational functions of the god. Musindo lets us to understand that shamanism has a conceptual system which indicate the god’s wishes for happiness in human life and fulfillment of human desires.