<論説>植民地朝鮮における出産風習と産婆養成政策

Abstract

本稿では植民地朝鮮における産婆政策と風習のせめぎ合いを解明する前段階として、朝鮮伝統の出産風習のあり様を復元し、植民地朝鮮の衛生政策としての産婆制度の展開と特徴を明らかにする。朝鮮においても伝統的に｢産救安｣などと呼ばれた家族･親戚の女性もしくは近隣の老婆を雇い、助産を任した風習があった。しかし、メディアでは朝鮮人の出産風習と迷信とを一体化して、朝鮮の風習を野蛮なものと位置づけていた。それに加えて当時の日本の専門家たちは朝鮮の出産風習を未開なものとして際立たせ、日本人が悲惨な朝鮮人を救わなければならないという構造を作った。そして、朝鮮人を救うため、日本人産婆の派遣もしくは朝鮮で産婆養成の必要を唱えた。このような土台の上に実行された植民地朝鮮の産婆制度は、産婆養成から始まり、また｢速成助産婦科｣を設置し、短期間で産婆を養成して地方へ派遣を図るという特徴があった。

The aim of this paper is to be a first step in clarifying the conflict between the midwifery policy and customs in colonial Korea by investigating the restoration of the traditional birth customs in Korea and the development and characteristics of the midwifery system established as a hygiene policy in colonial Korea. The midwifery policy of Japan was transplanted to colonial Korea in 1914. For colonization to succeed, it was necessary not only to send people but also to transplant the culture of the home country to make the lives of colonists easier. As a result, new facilities, occupations, and other infrastructure were constructed in the colony. However, it is obvious that the colonized people did not accept aspects of the transplanted culture obediently, and there were conflicts between transplanted culture and native customs. The problem is that the structure of the colonized people's thinking, that is, their customs, which would be considered primitive hygiene before the enforcement of the new hygiene system, has not previously been noted in the history of hygiene research. Previous researchers have focused only on the result--the fact that the midwifery system of colonial Korea could not be established--consequently their arguments dwelt on how to explain the reason for that failure. Therefore, most previous studies either examined the process of enforcement and the impositions of the colonial authorities and how the colonized resisted them or made conclusions based on concepts like "compressed modernity." Furthermore, an issue plaguing these studies is that they simplified actual events and led to the exclusion of the colonized from their place in history. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to clarify actual events by examining what existed before the midwifery system was carried out and what the goals of the midwifery system were.

In this paper, the following four more specific questions were addressed to meet those goals. First, whether there were midwives in Korea in the first place, and what kind of childbirth customs existed in Korea. Second, to what extent the Governor-General recognized Korean birth customs when enforcing the modern midwifery policy in Korea. Third, what was the intent of the policy of the colonial authorities and how they used the information on the Korean birth customs to justify their intent. Fourth, what was the state of the midwifery training system that was implemented before the issue of "Midwifery Regulations" in Korea. The conclusions drawn from the above questions are as follows. First, in Korea, it was customary to hire a family member, female relative, or an old woman in the neighborhood, who was traditionally called a san-gu-an 産救安, and entrust midwifery to her. However, in the media, Korean birth customs were written off as superstitions and positioned as barbaric. In addition, Japanese experts at the time highlighted Korean childbirth customs as undeveloped and creating a situation that required the Japanese to save the miserable Koreans. They also used this paradigm to argue that Japan had to dispatch Japanese midwives and needed to train midwives in Korea in order to save Koreans from their "misery." On the other hand, one of most important features of the midwifery system implemented in colonial Korea was the establishment of a rapid training course. The midwifery training system, which began in the era the Residency-General, was launched not only in Gyeongseong in Korea in 1913 but also in several local medical institutions called jahye-iwon 慈恵医院. The colonial authorities also set up an "intensive midwifery training course" at the jahye-iwon to speed up the training. The main goals of this "intensive midwifery training course" were to train military police and police officers' families as "midwives" in a short period of five months and to dispatch them to rural areas. However, no matter how urgent this training was, the main purpose was the transplantation of Japanese people. Based on the above results, the midwifery system of colonial Korea can be seen as a policy that reiterated the rhetoric that Japanese had a responsibility to civilize colonial Korea and as one designed to benefit the Japanese who were transplanted in Korea rather than one to improve the hygienic environment of Korea.