미륵이 된 무녀

Abstract

This paper deals with the case of female living Buddhas (Saengbul 生佛, messianic Maitreya) in Hwanghae-do province in 1758. I will review this historical case, and reevaluate the relationship between Maitreya and Shamanism through detailed analyses of historical records related to the event. Firstly, this article investigates Shamans who gave up their own religious roles in order to follow female living Buddhas. Shamans, who usually provided religious services to their followers, gave up their own religious practices and ritual specialty by discarding their Shamanic paraphernalia (swords and rattles) at once, and immediately began to believe in female living Buddhas. Secondly, this article proves that women who were revered as living Buddhas had already had Shamans careers in the past. Women who were not socially free in the pre-modern period became messianic women based on their religious experiences of Shamanism.