Yeongsan Juldarigi (Tug-of-war of Yeongsan)

Yeongsan Juldarigi is a folk game passed down in Yeongsan-myeon, Changnyeong-gun, Gyeongsangnam-do, and today it is performed as part of the March First Culture Festival. The tug-of-war divides the village into east and west sides who compete against each other; the east and west sides symbolise men and women respectively, and it is said that a good harvest will come if the west side, symbolising women in the sense of production, wins. The tug-of-war is also called juljjam, and in the Yeongsan region is also known as "juldaenggigi" or "galjeon" (葛戰, "arrowroot-vine battle"), a term said to come from an old story that the rope was made longer than the mountain's arrowroot vines before it was pulled. Tug-of-war is regarded as one of the agricultural rites widely practised, mainly around Daeboreum (the fifteenth day of the first lunar month), in regions south of the central provinces where rice farming predominates. The rope is 40–50m long, and the main rope can be more than 1m in diameter — so large that a person sitting astride it cannot touch the ground with both feet. Because the rope is too thick to grip directly, several thinner auxiliary ropes (gyeotjul, also called beotjul) are tied at intervals along its length to make it easier to pull. At each end, about ten thin ropes called kkongjijul are attached so that many people can hold on. The east and west sides each make their own rope and join them together on the day of the tug-of-war, inserting a large wooden peg called a binyeomok so that the join will not come apart or snap under the strain of many pullers. When the leader standing atop the rope gives the signal, the tug-of-war begins, and each village's farmers' band stirs up excitement with a fast rhythm. Though Yeongsan Juldarigi has grown smaller in scale in modern times, it remains significant as an agricultural ritual game rooted in dragon-and-snake (yongsa) belief, in which the mock coupling of the female and male ropes is used to divine the year's harvest or to pray for abundance — a folk community game and local festival in which the whole village takes part.

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Where it is

Region

Changnyeong, Gyeongnam

Designation

National Intangible Heritage · 국가무형유산