Study on ‘Sailing Type’ Human Sacrifice Folk Tales

The purpose of this study is to examine the characteristics of stories related to sailing on the sea among transmitted human sacrifice folk tale types, and grasp the way of thinking of the substratum. The ‘sailing type’ human sacrifice folk tales consist of the narration, ‘occurrence of disaster→need of human sacrifice→execution of human sacrifice→dissolution of disaster’. And the meaning of each section diverges according to the change that a victim experiences. In the structure of the narration showing safety of groups through sacrifice of individuals, the problem of victim’s memories is derived, and in most cases, it does not disappear but remains as a ‘trace’. Through this process, a victim continuously recalls his or her unfair sacrifice and remains on the border that does not belong to the space of humans or that of god. This form of victim reflects the recognition of subjects of transmission that sacrifice cannot be justified. This victim is formed differently through the narrative processing, and one case is to deify a victim via resolution of sorrow. Due to this ontological conversion, a victim becomes the target of suggestion and functions to mediate between god and humans. This ‘victim-god’ replaces negative nature or divinity and guarantees safety of groups. And here, owing to the victim remaining on the border, the world of god and that of humans are well divided and kept stable. Another case is to combine narrations that give heroic features to a victim. This ‘victim-hero’ returns to the world of humans after accomplishing heroic tasks with human powers and authorities. Here, the early divine being is divided into a positive one and negative one, and the latter comes to be terminated by the hero. Through this process, humans come to exist with the divine being without negative attributes. On the base of this acculturation and combination of narrations are imaginations and desires of subjects of transmission to seek to get rid of the negative divinity.