The Study of Charnel Houses at Some Major Cities of Korea and Their Suburban Districts : The Change of the Manner of the Rite and Requiem and The Creation of a New Space for the Life and Death

There are largely two main cultures in a funeral method in Korea. The one is the burial culture developed from the middle period of Joseon. It has been firmly conserved to protect a worth tradition from the practical function of Confucian consciousness such as filial piety and ancestor worship. Distinguished from the burial culture, the cremation culture has been also practiced for unnatural deaths, those of accident, plague, war, suicide, or the death early in life, etc, but since it is generally recognized unwanted, cremated bone would be mostly treated to scatter on a mountain, or a river and sea suchlike water. It was, however, since the last of 1990s that the funeral culture has dramatically started to changed. The rate of cremation has rapidly grown up around Seoul, Pusan, suchlike the major cities of Korea, and the treatment of cremated bone, moreover, continues to be diversified in the method getting over scattering bone only. Among the methodical diversity of cremation culture the charnel house is the highest method in the going rate. The charnel of Korea chiefly running by public management until the early of 1990 was known as like the damp and shady repository where the cremated has been deposited. It was not until the late 1999s that the government and local autonomous governments invested their enormous budge on the facilities of charnel house to popularize the cremation culture and remodel them in the aesthetically contemporary fashion. What\u27s more, the transformation on the facilities of private-management charnel houses from permission to reporting system in 2001 started to get the large number of religious group and private manager to compete for running the business of the charnel. The background as such was brought in the turn of the consciousness on the charnel, and especially in the growth rate of cremation is a rapid shift remarkable around the major cities and suburban districts. The charnel is now emerging as a new style of cemetery in place of the traditional burial. The charnel houses built since the late of 1990s, irrespective of public or private management, have a distinctive difference in a various way. Regarding the aspect of their facility, for example, it comes to be reminded of a luxury hotel or art gallery, and a professional mortician or religious person gets always ready to conduct a ceremony in the houses. They are channeling their energies into the large number of media for advertizing and providing the information. The bereaved could decorate an altar with pictures or keepsake, flowers or ornaments, religious material, memo, etc in memory of the deceased, and frequently look in the charnel not far from their own home. For those reason, the communal space of visitors occurs in the charnel, and would also bring them in the effect of grief-caring. The traditional burial place has been located at the meaningful and memorial place where the bereaved could meet to communicated with and put filial piety into place to the deceased, and show off and strengthen their bond. With spreading a new style of cemetery surrounding the suburban districts of some major cities, the charnel houses come to get a more power than the traditional ones in a role and function while holding a role and function the traditional burial place performed. This thesis pursued a study of the role and function of charnel house emerging as a new cemetery. By investigating actual cases of the charnel houses at some major cities of Korea and their suburban districts, it recognized its new role and function as six special place - 1) ritual place, 2) memorial for , or communal place with the dead, 3) grief-caring place, 4) cultural special place, 5) religious special place, 6) education place. The traditional burial place has been understood to be not only the place buried and dedicated to the deceased but also the mechanism reminded and memorial for respective ancestors, and sometimes to be the monument of the ancestor as well (Honda 1993, 142). It has been, however, said that as an alternative of the traditional cemetery, the charnel house brings into a change to the meaning and function the burial place has been holding with coming into wide as a new style of cemetery in the area of cities. This thesis would like to pursue a study of the process that the charnel house recently emerging as a new style of cemetery has changed in the manner of the rite and requiem by paying attention to its spreading into the major cities and their suburban districts in Korea. It would also like to show the point that a new space for the life and death is being created through the charnel. It would finally like to demonstrate how to change in the way of the meaning and function in accordance with its popularization