신라 가배(嘉排)와 여성 축제

Abstract

The Chuseok holiday of Korea originated from the Ga'bae(嘉排) holiday ofthe ancient Shilla dynasty. But there might be some problems in directlyconnecting the Chinese Jungchu(中秋) holiday, which was essentially a holyservice for the moon, with the Shilla Ga'bae holiday. Ga'bae celebration first appeared during Shilla king Yu'ri-wang's reign. Foran entire month, under the lead of two female members from the royal family,who also served as female priests, civilian females were specially recruited fromthe Six Bu units, in order to support the royal priests. Two teams were formed,and continued "weaving"(the 'Jeok'ma' ceremony) in a form of a contest, andafter the competition was ended they would present such products to the holyspirits through a memorial service, which was called the 'Bu'jeong-je(部庭祭)'service. We believe the Ga'bae celebration was a festival that followed such task andservice. The participants consisted of the royal females who led the two teams,and the civilian females from the Six Bu units who formed two groups andcompeted with each other. We can say that the Ga'bae festival was in fact afemale festival. The place for this event, which was referred to as"Dae'bu'ji-jeong(大部之庭)" was not an ordinary space. It was a place for aholy religious activity, and also a sacred place for the Bu'jeong-je service. But according to the 'Memorial Services' chapter of Samguk Sagi , theBu'jeong-je service was not considered as a Confucian-style memorial serviceheld at the Dynastic shrine or the founder king's mausoleum. And it seems itwas also different from other Shilla-specific services too. It could have been aservice that belonged to the category of Miscellaneous Services("Jab-sa, 雜祀"). If it was indeed a traditional, folklore-based service, then it must have beena customary ritual designed to serve the objective of the royal family through aspiritual act of communicating with God. So, a Shaman priest(巫覡) with aspecialized talent in the area would have led the services sometimes as well. Not only the two royal family females who led the contest and the service, butalso the other females who were drafted from the Six Bu units, might havebeen selected to become part of a larger priest group. They must have taken on a variety of roles, but mostly they would have been ordered to weave textile products which were to be used in theBu'jeong-je service, or to make clothes for the holy spirits(神衣) and enshrinethem. Interestingly, the object to be receiving the service, and the subject whowas arranging the holy memorial service, usually were regarded as one, as itwas the general perception that the holy spirit would come down andsuperimpose itself upon the priest who was offering the service. In otherwords, the holy spirit overseeing the task of weaving was a female god, and afemale priest serving that female God was literally offering the results ofweaving.