• Korean Journal of Heritage: History & Science
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• v.55 no.3
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• pp.132-150
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• 2022

Designated as a national intangible cultural asset, the fish weir is a traditional fishing method and was a leading fishing tool in Korean coastal fishery. As the littoral sea area fishing vessel fishery developed since the 1970s, traditional fishing methods including fish weirs began to decline. The fish weir has been passed down in the form of tools such as fish weirs, stone weirs, and bamboo weirs. In Namhae-gun and Sacheon City in Gyeongsangnam-do, anchovies are caught using bamboo weirs. A basic bamboo weir consists of a fish trap(balgong), a space where fish gather together, and a V- or U-shaped wooden fence(halgaji) that helps fish come inside the fish trap. Its fishing method is to catch fish that have come to the coast during high tide alongside those are stuck inside fish traps(balgong) with nets or scoop nets. This paper examined the process of passing down traditional fishing methods through a comparative analysis of the bamboo weir structures and fishing methods in the Namhae and Sacheon regions. First, the historical process of assembling the current bamboo weir structure was analyzed. The bamboo weir, a fishing tool, appears to have combined the features of past weirs and fish weirs based on the Jijok Strait and Samcheonpo Strait. Next, this paper examined the structure and fishing method of the two types of bamboo weirs made with a circular or square fish trap(balgong) where fish gather. Through this analysis, this study examined the lives of fishermen who have adapted to their natural environment and actively utilized obtainable resources(materials), and then changed the traditional fishing method of bamboo weirs and developed them into an appropriate technology. Lastly, a new value attributed to anchovies caught using bamboo weirs was analyzed. This new value extracted from better bamboo weir anchovies works as a mechanism to uphold the tradition of anchovy-catching bamboo-weir fishing, which produces a smaller amount of anchovies compared to other methods of anchovy fishing. In this way, bamboo weir fishing has been passed down as a result of its differentiated aspect of producing better anchovies than those produced with other fishing methods, as well as the historical aspect of it being a traditional fishing method.