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jeju island
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Jeju Chilmeoridang YeongdeunggutJeju Yeongdeunggut is a shamanic ritual performed during the second lunar month to greet and see off the goddess Yeongdeung. Yeongdeung, the goddess of wind, is typically recognized in the form of Yeongdeunghalmang (Grandmother Yeongdeung). In winter, when the cold wind blows from the northwest, she brings prosperity to the land and sea. It was the custom for the Yeongdeung Welcoming Ritual to be performed to celebrate her arrival and the Yeongdeung Farewell Ritual to be performed fifteen days later to mark her departure.Year2021NationSouth Korea
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Jeju Fire Festival Reenacts Old Pastoral TraditionsThe twenty-second Jeju Fire Festival will run for four days from 7 to 10 March 2019 at places across Jeju, including Jeju City Hall Square and Saebyeol Oreum in Aewol-eup.\n\nThis year, the festival has the theme “Light up the world with wildfire and dreams.” The first day will begin with a torch lighting ritual at Samseonghyeol. The torch will be conveyed along a route from Samseonghyeol to the KAL intersection, Gwangyang intersection, and Jeju City Hall Square. In addition to the torch ceremony, various events will be held at the city hall, including writing wishes on paper and a music concert.\n\nThe second day will see a number of programs taking place, including a prayer ritual for the prosperity and development of the Jeju city, a sheaf making contest, and diverse cultural and media art performances staged by delegates from other countries. There also will be a large full moon ceremony where visitors can wish upon the moon, which will be followed by putting the torch to a field, a torchlight parade, and a sheaf burning event.\n\nOn the third day, various traditional cultures of the island will attract visitors. One of them is majoje, a ritual of praying for the health of horses, which is representative of the pastoral culture of the island. Others include neokdungbegi, the traditional yutnori (board game) of Jeju, and deumdol-deulgi (stone lifting), a coming of age ceremony of the residents. A forum on how to develop the festival is scheduled as well. In addition, there will be a burning of a pig sheaf to hail the year of the pig according to the Chinese zodiac. Then, the oreum will be set alight, which is the highlight of the festival, to pray for good fortune in the new year.\n\nEven during the 1970s, farming households in Jeju raised a couple of cows to plow the land and carry the harvest from the fields to their homes or village market. In the off-season, farmers in each town took turns to manage the fields for their livestock. They set the pastures alight to get rid of old grass and harmful pests between late winter and early spring, so their livestock could graze fresh quality grass. The fields were set alight all over the hilly areas, and it created a spectacular sight. The Jeju Fire Festival is a modern interpretation of the ancient pastoral traditions of the island.\n\nPhoto : Jeju Fire Festival ⓒ Jeju CityYear2019NationSouth Korea
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A Look into Jeju: Living in Harmony with NatureJeju is a volcanic island filled with stones. Previous eruptions have produced volcanic bombs (large volcanic rocks) scattered around, covering the whole island. This is why it is difficult to cultivate crops in Jeju. Since the thirteenth century, the people of Jeju have been making stone walls to secure farmlands. The total length of stone walls is estimated at 22,100 km. These stone walls look like they are heaped up randomly. However, Jeju people’s wisdom is time-tested, unassumingly sturdy, hidden in those walls. Because the island is prone to strong winds all throughout the year, taking note of typhoons in the summer, they built the stone walls like roughly-heaped stones with holes to let the wind pass through, weakening the possibility of structural collapse.\n\nTamna is Jeju’s old name. The beginning of Tamna is illustrated by Samseong myth. Legend has it that three demigods emerged from holes in the ground. The ground is called samseonghyeol, which is still considered as a sacred place. The emergence from the ground shows difference in cultural archetype from the birth myth of the mainland involving the egg from the heavens. There are 18,000 gods and goddesses in Jeju. Jeju people believe that god lives in everything. Such belief is shaped by Jeju’s naturally difficult tendencies. As people in Jeju battle with endless wind and water shortage due to the island’s barren volcanic environment, they rely on gods to adapt to the roughness of Jeju.\n\nThere are Bonhyangdang Shrines, the house of gods protecting people’s livelihoods. simbangs (shaman in Jeju dialect) act as intermediary between Jeju people and gods. They perform yeongdeunggut in the second lunar month for haenyeo (female divers) and fishermen who depend on the sea for a living. The Yeongdeung is the goddess of the wind, who can raise the waves, which is why she is deemed important for the safety of people pursuing the sea. Jeju Chilmeoridang Yeongdeunggut, the representative yeongdeunggut in Jeju, was listed as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity of UNESCO in 2009. There are many other rituals for gods and goddesses of the sea, which are held in roughly 30 areas in Jeju during the same month. There are many stories related to goddesses in Jeju. Different from goddesses in other countries, Jeju goddesses neither depend on nor belong to gods. This is a characteristic shown by Grandmother Seolmundae, the giant who created the island by carrying soil in her skirts; Grandmother Samseung, the goddess of babies; and Jacheongbi, the goddess of farming. Jeju women have high self-esteem unlike those in patriarchal East Asian societies following Confucian teachings. They also participate in the economy more actively than their counterparts in other regions in Korea. Jeju haenyeo is a representative example of women’s participation in the economy. In 2016, the Culture of Jeju Haenyeo was inscribed on the Representative the List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO during the eleventh Session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It shows matriarchal characteristics of Jeju. In Jeju where the soil is not fit for rice farming, many women became divers to find food from the sea and learned how to cooperate with each other.\n\nDespite the unique challenges in the island, Jeju people have used nature without destroying it, depending on 18,000 gods and neighbors. Such characteristics form the core of the Jeju culture.\n\nPhoto : Jeju haenyeo (female divers) crossing low stone walls to get to the sea © Jeju Haenyeo MuseumYear2017NationSouth Korea
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THE DIVING SKILLS AND TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE OF HAENYEO, KOREAN WOMEN DIVERSHaenyeo are women divers who presently live only in Korea and Japan where the women from Korea live on Jeju Island, representing the island’s traditional occupations for living. From the viewpoint of marine cultural historians, haenyeo has contributed to the active transmission of diving skills and ecological knowledge including the efficient use of the tide as well as to the establishment of unique haenyeo culture which covers diving suites, tools, folk songs, and shamanic rituals. Haenyeo culture is basically concerned with diving skills that enable women to gather marine products from deep in the sea without the support of any mechanical equipment, it is folk knowledge which has been accumulated through past haenyeo work experience, and the cultural phenomena derived from the sustainability of their livelihood through these means that keeps this heritage alive.Year2011NationSouth Korea
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Wishing Abundance to the Goddess of Wind: Jeju Chilmeoridang YeongdeunggutIn traditional society, Jeju has blossomed an original and attractive culture based on its natural feature of being a volcanic island located between the Korean Peninsula and the South Sea. Every year in February of the lunar calendar, “Gut,” one of Korea’s seasonal customs, is held throughout Jeju to pray for the peace, good harvest, and good catch of the sea. Haenyeo (local female divers) and shipowners prepare food offering for the gods, and shamans serve as a bridge between gods and people, offering ancestral rites to the spirits of nature, such as the wind goddess, sea god, and mountain god. “Jeju Chilmeoridang Yeongdeunggut” is Jeju’s representative intangible cultural heritage that captures what the sea meant to the lives of the former islanders.\n\nJeju Chilmeoridang Yeongdeunggut is based on the myth of Yeongdeung God, the goddess of wind (otherwise called the “yeongdeung halmang,” meaning Grandmother Yeongdeung), along with various guardian deities of the village, the dragon king and ancestrial gods. Yeongdeung God is a foreign goddess that appears in a myth in Jeju. She returns on the first day of the second lunar month and controls the weather while staying in Jeju, she sprays seeds of grain to be harvested the next year on the ground and seeds of seaweed and seafood on the sea. The goddess is also a threat to people’s lives by stirring the sea, but also a god of abundance that helps seaweed grow well by circulating seawater. This myth reflects the islanders’ perception of the sea, which is both a source of life and a dangerous place.\n\nRecords of Jeju Chilmeoridang Yeongdeunggut can be found in “Shinjeung Dongguk Yeoji Seungram”, “Tamraji”, and “Dongguk Sesigi”. Above all, however, the reason Yeongdeunggut could be transmitted for a long time was that the residents were the true owners of the heritage. While preparing food for rituals with marine resources collected from the sea, which is part of their lives, haenyeo and shipowners inherited the tradition as a subject of Jeju Chilmeoridang Yeongdeunggut along with a shaman leading the gut. The ritual was passed down in the lives of Jeju residents for a long time. Shaman Ahn Sa-in was designated as the ICH holder in 1980, allowing more people to learn the value and importance of the heritage.\n\nJeju Chilmeoridang Yeongdeunggut is a unique tradition that can only be seen in Jeju Island, where rituals for mountain gods and rituals for Yeongdeung are combined with one shamanic ritual called Yeongdeunggut. On every February 1st of the lunar calendar, Chilmeoridang in the village, where Yeongdeung-gut is held, welcomes Yeongdeungsin with a welcoming festival. The villagers offer offerings to the god of Yeongdeung, the guardian deity of the village, and the sea god to pray for the abundant year and the well-being of the village, and on February 14, they hold a farewell ceremony to send back various gods safely. Jeju Chilmeoridang Yeongdeunggut, which has been handed down as a folk ritual that reflects the natural view and belief of Jeju people over many years, has been recognized for its academic value as the only haenyeo-gut in Korea that shows a unique combination of haenyeo beliefs and folk beliefs. In 2009, it was inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.\n\nDespite the development of negative views on folk beliefs due to modernization, Chilmeoridang Yeongdeunggut has become an important cultural festival that fosters unity and bond among community members and a ritual that captures the lives of ancestors who shared the flow of nature. Surrounded by the sea on all sides and in the wind blowing rapidly, Jeju Islanders did not simply fear and fight the winds, but recognized them as beings that brought the blessing of abundant resources. As the voices about the environment are increasing, it is believed that this view of nature of Jeju Islanders can be a guide to living a “sustainable life” in a modern society.\n\nphoto : Jeju Island shamanic ritual to Yeongdeung, god of wind, which became a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2009. © Korea Open Government License Type 1, SourceYear2022NationSouth Korea
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A Look into Jeju: Jeju and World Natural HeritageJeju Island or Jeju Do was formed from volcanic eruptions that lasted from 1.8 million to a few thousand years ago. The island has a diverse and unique volcanic landform, earning its nickname as “a museum of volcanoes.” It is a repository of biological resources, as it is home to 2,000 plant and 5,000 animal species on Mt. Halla and in other areas. Jeju’s environmental value was globally acknowledged when it was listed as a UNESCO World Natural Heritage Site in 2007. The island is now “a treasure island of environmental assets” for the whole world to appreciate and protect.\n\nUNESCO designates places of “Outstanding Universal Value” as World Heritage. The 2007 listing for Jeju Island was the first such site in Korea and is listed under the official title “Jeju Volcanic Island and Lava Tubes.” Among four natural criteria for selection (scenic value, geological features, biodiversity, and ecological value), Jeju was acknowledged for its significant scenic value (vii) and significant geological value (viii). The designated sites are Hallasan Natural Reserve, Seongsan Ilchulbong Tuff Cone, and the Geomun Oreum Lava Tube System, covering a total area of 188.45 square kilometers (Core Zone 94.75, Buffer Zone 93.70), accounting for about 10 percent of the island.\n\nMt. Halla\nMt. Halla is the symbol of Jeju Island and the central peak of a shield volcano rising 1,950 meters above sea level. It was designated as Natural Monument No.182 in 1966 and a national park in 1970. The mountain has various volcanic landforms, including the Baengnokdam Crater Lake at the summit, the steep cliffs of Yeongsil Giam, many oreums, and a network of lava tubes. Mt. Halla is a habitat for various species. In particular, the forest of the Korean fir (Abies koreana), at an altitude of 1,400 meters, or higher is uniquely valuable as the only pure forest in the world.\n\nSeongsan Ilchulbong Tuff Cone\nSeongsan Ilchulbong Tuff Cone was formed when hot magma rose to the surface and interacted explosively with water 5,000 years ago. This 180-meter-high tuff cone has a crater about 600 meters in diameter, and as a result of thousands of years of erosion, it has the shape of crown. For such reasons, Seongsan Ilchulbong Tuff Cone has a well-preserved volcanic edifice since the hydromagmatic volcanic eruption, clearly displaying the sedimentary layers of volcanic ash. For a long time, it has been the first of the ten most famous scenic views at sunrise, drawing millions of tourists every year.\n\nGeomun Oreum Lava Tube System\nGeomun Oreum Lava Tube System refers to a series of lava tubes that were formed by the flow of lava from a small volcano called Geomun Oreum to the beach in the northeast direction (for about 14km). Among the caves, Bengdwigul, Manjanggul, Gimnyeonggul, Yongcheondonggul, and Dangcheomuldonggul were designated as World Natural Heritage Sites. The caves have significant scientific value due to the excellent preservation of its internal structure and topographical features, given its age of formation hundreds of thousands of years ago. In particular, Yongcheondonggul and Dangcheomuldonggul are recognized as the most beautiful lava tubes in the world, as they boast a magnificent view with carbonate speleothems, which are common in limestone caves.\n\nphoto : Four seasons of Hallasan ©Jeju World Natural Heritage CenterYear2017NationSouth Korea
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2. Groundwater, Water of Life, on Jeju Volcanic Island, Korea: Hydrogeologic Features and Groundwater Management HistoryJeju Island, the largest island located south of the Korean Peninsula, is famous for striking natural features created by volcanic activity. Jeju has gained international recognition as \na treasure trove of environmental assets through achievement of UNESCO’s coveted triple crown “Biosphere Reserve,” “World Natural Heritage,” and “Global Geopark.” Among the various natural assets in Jeju, groundwater is the most valuable resource due to the distinctive hydrogeological features of the island. Even though Jeju Island receives the highest quantity of rainfall in Korea, there is no ephemeral stream that flows all year long on the island because of the highly permeable volcanic rock and soil. Due to the lack of surface water, Jeju is highly dependent upon groundwater. Owing to the hydrogeology of Jeju Island, which differs from the mainland, groundwater recharge and sustainable \nyield is of supreme importance. This is why groundwater is recognized as the “Water of Life” on Jeju.Year2022NationSouth Korea