The New Year's ritual and village social structure

Dix, Griffin

essay

The New Year's ritual and village social structure

religion and ritual in korean society • Berkeley, Calif. • Published In 1987 • Pages: 93-117

By: Dix, Griffin.

Abstract
In this article, Dix examines a little studied villagewide ritual which is common across rural Korea: the annual offering to the village's protective deity--in this specific case, the Mountain Spirit (Sansin)--during the first month of the lunar new year. The first two days of the New Year's ceremony involves a restrained Confucian offering to ancestors and elders. On the third day, a cooked half of a bull's head (cow's head if the Mountain Spirit is female) is offered to the Mountain Spirit at its shrine on the mountainside. That night the other half of the head is offered raw at a shrine at the entrance to the village. The next few days a farmer's band, comprised mostly of young male laborers, go from house to house to play music and dance, in order to exorcise dangerous spirits, a service for which they demand food and drink. Dix argues that the ritual ostensibly serves village solidarity by demarcating status differences in the village and inverting them, if only for a few days. According to Dix, the escapades of the farmer's band is a way for low status laborers to get recognition from the landlord class (YANGBAN) for their year-long contribution to the community, only then is village harmony restored.

Status, role, and prestige

Community structure

Religious beliefs

Prayers and sacrifices

Purification and atonement

Organized ceremonial

Korea