A Study of the <i>Hyangan</i>: Kin Groups and Aristocratic Localism in the Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Korean Countryside

Abstract

¦Articles A Study of the Hyangan: Kin Groups and Aristocratic Localism in the Seventeenth- and EighteenthCentury Korean Countryside FUJIYA KAWASHIMA ?. hyangan in Yi dynasty Koreawas an informal and aristocratic local group that developed in close association with the Confucian state bureaucracy and local elite kin groups. This paper is an attempt to examine the extent to which the hyangan functioned to meet the needs of the state bureaucracy and the local elite kin groups in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Korea. I believe that case studies of the hyangan can shed light on the identity, legitimacy, and structure of the so-called hyangban (chehyang yangban). The term hyangan, literally, means a roster of local residents. Upon the admission of new members, a hyangan was handwritten, sealed, and stored in a locked hall of the hyangch'öng (local gentry bureau) ofthe magistrate amun (yamen) and sometimes hyanggyo (local government school) compounds.1 Persons admitted to the roster This article is based on my paper read at a Conference on Korean Society: a Historical and Anthropological Review, sponsored by the International Cultural Society of Korea in August 1983. The research for this study was supported by grants from the American-Korean Educational Commission (AKEC-Fulbright) and the Faculty Research Committee, Bowling Green State University in 1980-81. I would like to thank Professors Mark Peterson, Yi Chongyöng, Pak Yöngsin, and Dr. Kim Söngjin for their institutional support to me in Korea, and Professors Martina Deuchler and Edward W. Wagner for their valuable comments and criticisms. 1 . Forexample, see Cho Yongsuk, Ch'angnyönghyanganchüngju [Annotated rosterof Ch'angnyöng] (Haman: Sösan södang, 1940), preface (so), 2a. Sometimes hyangan may be found in part or in entirety in the hyanggyoji [Records of provincial schools], such as 4 Journal of Korean Studies served a lifelong tenure unless they violated the rules (hyanggyu or ibüi), and they typically elected various officers to manage their activities and to assist the magistrate's local government. In essence, the rosters were officially approved documents not meant for publication and were kept in guarded secrecy by the members and their descendants for fear of possible abuse and forgery by non-hyangan members. Typically local elite kin groups were people in the countryside whose privilege and exclusive membership by birth and marriage were sanctioned (though tacitly) by the state. They were regarded by the local people as the people of superior blood relative to other social groups because of their documentable and often documented claim of kinship connections with bureaucrats and other prominent men of the present and the past. To be sure, the state bureaucracy and the elite kin groups were two interacting sets of institutions that had contrasting value orientations and organizational behavior. The former emphasized the hierarchy based on merit, achievement, and universal principles, while the latter emphasized the hierarchy based on birth, ascription, and particularistic social customs. The theories and practices of the hyangan seem to indicate that over time the hyangan had remained internally loyal to the state bureaucracy and resistant to change. At the same time it had become an instrument for the local elite kin groups to justify their aristocratic local status by developing and monopolizing local cultural activities. The hyangan was indeed more than a list of local elite residents. It functioned as a leading local organization that contributed to the rise of aristocratic localism and to the local cultural movements that developed in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Korea. The seventeenth-century hyangan represented major if not all yangban lineages of the county villages and became synonymous with a local elite lineage association. Admission to membership was Koksönghyangan [Roster of Koksöng], inKoksönghyanggyoji [Records of Koksöng provincial school] (Koksöng, 1938) 1: 22b-25b. Sometimes original copies are still kept in hyanggyo buildings. I was told by Mr. Won Chongho, an elderly Confucianist in charge of the Namwon hyanggyo that the originals are preserved at the hyanggyo and its nearby Taebang hyangyakso in Namwön. Also in Tansöng, Mr. Kwön Pukgün, in charge of the Tansöng hyanggyo took me to a locked edifice called Hyangandang located adjacent to the hyanggyo...