무업(巫業) 없는 무당: 개종상황에 놓인 조선의 무당들

Abstract

This article attempts to approach the situation of shamans conversion to other religious community in Joseon Dynasty. The academic study of shamanism seldom pays attention to deconversion or apostasy from shamanic beliefs and practices. It, rather, emphasizes on shamanic initiatory crisis and ordeal, rite of passage, and religious function of the shamanic practitioner. In fact, the dominant academic trend towards the shamanizing processes provides a focus on the changeless and everlasting life of shamans even in the multiple religious society. But we can see numerous shamans who renounced their own religious practices and specialty in premodern Korea. They sometimes gave up their shamanic trade and sold off their paraphernalia(steel rattles and swords) in a hurry at a dirt cheap price, in order to follow Saengbul(Living Buddha) or Mireukbul(Maitreya) living at that time. They were no longer ritual practitioners but rather religious consumers who converted to other charismatic religious movements. This article is just the beginning for the study of Korean shamans conversion situation. We need to collect the historical and ehthnographic detail that can analyze the complexity and dynamics of shamanic conversion situation.