Yanggudolsallyeongjige Folk Game

Jige nori is a folk game using the jige, Korea's traditional A-frame carrying rack. In mountainous farming and mountain villages without proper roads, the jige was an essential means of transport. In the Yanggu region of Gangwon State, people played games with the jige to forget the hardship and monotony of labour and to find enjoyment. Yanggudolsallyeongjige Folk Game consists of the jige-walking contest, an individual match, and the bier game, a team event. In the jige-walking contest, each player climbs onto the two legs of a jige, grips its frame, and walks forward to knock over an opponent. In the bier game, players split into teams, lash several jige together to form a bier, carry it on their shoulders while singing a plaintive bier song and swaying it about, then push against the opposing team's bier to topple it. Once the contest is decided, the losing team carries the winning team's jige loads. The bier game also includes hoedaji nori, a playful re-enactment of the custom of tamping down the burial pit at a funeral, in which players sing the hoedaji song and beat time with their jige staffs. An interesting feature is that during hoedaji nori, a person who has been unfilial, unbrotherly, or uncooperative in village affairs is singled out as the subject of the game; after being teased through a round of play, he is said to mend his ways, carrying a moral message of repentance and reform. Yanggudolsallyeongjige Folk Game is a distinctive mountain folk game that combines traditional funeral rites with the jige, and it is found nowhere else in the mountain areas of Gangwon State.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Yanggu, Gangwon

Designation

Provincial Intangible Heritage · 시도무형유산