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영어

The Narye ceremony, where various mask dances are inserted, is always considered important whenever there is a discussion of Korean history of the mask play. Unlike other ceremonies that intend to drive ghosts away, Narye came from China and was usually performed in the palace at the end of the year.
This paper focuses on the effect of Korean Narye ceremonies, and on the formation of the civil mask plays that are handed down in many regions of Korea now. This study is accomplished by carefully examining the times in which the ceremonies were performed and passed on, their content and the leading groups who participated.
Korean Narye gradually overcame the position of being a religious ceremony held at the end of the year and slowly became the Nahee. Various entertaining recreations have been added. It was abolished as a national ceremony in the 17th century during the Chosun dynasty.
Therefore our Narye is mostly a royal ceremony, and any records of civil Narye ceremonies can only be found in some areas during the 19th century. Most of the civil Narye were actually led by the local government and the dwellers that lived there participated in the ceremony. In many cases, it is included in the customs of the January Full Moon day (January 15th of the lunar calendar). Its distribution is centered in the Kyungsang Province. For such reasons, ceremonial characteristics of Narye gradually weakened and folk beliefs were added and entertainment varied.
Comparing the content of Narye with the extant mask plays, we can find that the dance of the divinities of 5 directions partly remained in the extant mask plays of Kyungsang Province. But we cannot really see this as an inherent aspect of Narye ceremony because it was originally a folk belief.
On the other hand, a person related to a Buddhist monk appears on the stage of Narye but the character is not varied, specific or general, as it is today. Also Somae, who is the divinity of the guardian of the door, shows up too, but there is a certain difference in the character from that of today. There is an animal dance related to the 12 zodiac signs in Nayre, but there is no animal dance other than the dance of the lion in the extant mask dances.
There is also a simple farce in Narye that is critical to reality; thus it included criticism for those who ruled society and the lot of the poor everyday life of common people. Such criticism stands at the center of the extant mask plays. But as Narye was performed in the palace, such criticism was limited. Therefore, as we compare it through content, Narye shows much difference from the extant mask plays.
Also the groups of special clowns who participated in Narye were called upon for special national ceremonies, but the government didn't provide them with any security for life. So they had to join in the general feasts of normal citizens for material support, develop various methods of entertainment and strengthen their criticism toward their environment (reality).
These people traveled around the centers of the districts or markets, and played a certain role in the formation of the extant mask plays. However, as the extant mask plays were transmitted in their regions, various methods of entertainment were dispensed with and they were reformed into farce~centered mask plays with the taste of satire and humor. Thus, it is hard to find evidence that many clowns who participated in Narye ceremonies were the ones who transmitted and developed the mask plays in the regions they settled. The mask plays of Hahoe, Yechon, and Jain areas in Kyungsang Province and in Kangnung in Kangwon Province are combined forms of the exorcism mask play called Goodtalnori, where the exorcism ceremony is combined with the mask play, and they were developed spontaneously.
As a conclusion, we can say that the effect of Korean Narye on the extant mask play was quite restricted. Narye, where an exorcising ceremony was combined with various kinds of entertainment, is quite different from the mask play that is performed now. We can only find some relation in the parts where they criticize reality. Instead we can rather say that the characteristics of the regional Deadong Nori are the ceremonial features of the inhabitants in order to wish for abundance and peace. The critical features of the common group who criticized helpless nobles and conventional monks formed the extant mask plays.