• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.39
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• pp.127-152
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• 2015

This thesis comparatively looks into folklore faiths, expecially child-birth gods related to child-birth customs and aims to find out both nations' faith in child-birth gods and their features. It looks into birth gods protecting delivering mothers and babies by appearing at the delivery sites at time of delivery and child-rearing gods intervening in growth of babies after they are born. In both nations, many gods are believed in for selection of babies, safe delivery and their healthy growth but those appearing at delivery sites are only birth goddesses called Samsinhalmony and Obugami. What make this phenomenon appear in both nations' folklore faiths? Seeing the reason in the fact that common negative concept regarding childbirth exists in both nations' established faiths, the writer comparatively analyzed various cases of delivery-related defilement in both nations' delivery customs. Its result showed that Japan is stronger in delivery-related defilement concept than Korea is. For instance, Japan regard child birth-related defilement more horrible than that related to funeral. Pursuantly, in Japan stricter regulations on childbirth rooms and stricter taboos for babies have been passed down. Besides, in the process of its comparative study on both nations' divine images and appearances, the writer paid attention to the fact that unlike Japan's mountain gods and restroom goddesses appearing at delivery sites, they don't get involved in childbirth in Korea and discussed Japan's theory of reincarnation and its mountain goddess' marginal nature working behind the curtain. I also discussed the phenomenon that both nations' childbirth gods are passed down as Three gods, which means that their faith in childbirth gods has to be seen as a result of the faith in childbirth gods interacting with the faith in Three gods or the Three-gods theory, accordingly I indicated that it is worth re-consideration to see the Three-God Theory as the core of the faith in Samsinhalmoni. Lastly, though in both nations' childbirth faith underlies their fear for divine beings, the faith in childbirth gods, strongly coupled with death heritages, is distributed throughout the nation, which is because Japan's childbirth gods intervening in birth and growth of a new life also actually involve themselves deeply in the sphere of death as well.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.219-225
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• 2022

1950-meter-tall goddess is Seolmundae Grandmother with the head of the 1950m Hallasan Mountain Baengnokdam and the body of the mountain ridgeline. Seolmundae Grandmother in Jeju is a folk belief that has been passed down from generation to generation in Jeju. Unlike inland, Seolmundae Grandmother, which had femininity in the customs of Jeju, which was a matrilineal society, developed into an absolute faith in Jeju, metaphorizing that in some way it was inevitable. Seolmundae Grandmother was the only subject that could mentally solve the biggest problem for Jeju residents, even if they were disconnected from the mainland. In other words, Seolmundae Grandmother was unable to make underwear for Seolmundae Grandmother because it was short of 100 bottles of silk, the god of Hallasan, a huge being and a physical symbol. Therefore, Semyungju Grandmother gave up the bridge connecting the mainland and Jeju. In this paper, focusing on the fact that Mt. Halla, covered with snow in winter, is like a skein of silk thread that we usually use in our daily lives, the etymology of Seolmundae has been changed to Saengmyeongju, - Semyungju, which is a skein of fine silk. As a basis for this, there is a custom of tying a thread of silk in 'Semyungju', a shrine to Semyeongju in Halmangdang, 'Hanmosal' along the coast of Pyoseon-myeon. The silk thread is the core of the Packing DNA gene. The summit of Mt. Halla, Ninety-Nine Valleys, and five hundred generals, found in Seolmundae Grandmother or White Silk, expressed the symbols of Jeju. The Packing DNA gene was found to originate in the Jeongnang