Canalblog
Editer l'article Suivre ce blog Administration + Créer mon blog
Publicité
Tales of Tyre-racing, Makis and M'zungus.
23 juillet 2012

Ben and Toirfia

            

mariagesalima1

                    

We went to our Very First Grand Wedding on Friday. Just part of it. Grand Weddings in Mayotte generally take place in the austral winter months, read from June to September.

Weddings here are very ritualised occasions. For months before the wedding, the girl's family must completely furnish a house for her, the boy's family must prepare a suitcase full of clothes and accessories which he will give to the girl on the day. The girl's family also decides on a dowry for the girl, and demands a certain sum of money from the boy's family in order to receive the girl's hand in marriage. This can be anywhere from 1500€ upwards. If the girl doesn't seem "proper" enough for the boy's parents, they can cancel the future wedding at any point, which would bring great dishonour upon the girl and her family. The girl must also be a virgin. This is checked by the boy's mother being present during their first night together. She watches carefully, and if the boy's penis comes out red, she wraps a white scarf around it to soak up the blood and takes said scarf outside to show the waiting families and friends. Otherwise, the girl and her family are dishonoured and the wedding can be cancelled.

During the Grand Wedding, the girl must not leave her house for a full week. She is pampered, dressed and made up every day by her family and friends, lying on her bed. Her dress, jewellery, beauty mask and make-up must change every day, so that any returning visitors or family members may see a different ensemble. To see the bride, the groom and his family must pay to enter the house.

At the end of the week, there is a big ceremony where the groom is paraded to his bride's house. This is the part of the ceremony that everybody is invited to, and as each family member invites as many friends and colleagues as he or she likes, there can be a lot of people there. Starting from the centre of the village, the men parade up the streets with white robes and kofias (Muslim hats) on their heads, to the rhythm of drum-beating. The women follow, wearing their best salouvas and beauty masks. This is where we came in, with a black and gold sparkly salouva for me, a white shirt and black trousers for P (no white robes there yet).

After the big parade, there are several smaller ceremonies. Two of these are M'biwi and Chigoma, the ladies' and men's dances I talked about a couple of weeks ago. We didn't go to those, as they were late at night and on the other side of the island.

     

P1060950 IMGA0706

P1060977 P1060978

P1060963 IMGA0724

          

In the middle of all these people, there is the groom, dressed in rich black felt robes with gold embroidery, a flower necklace and an unlit cigarette in his mouth. He has a male family member on either side, generally a brother or an uncle, dressed the same way. Facing them and walking backwards, there are three girls wearing the same salouva, fanning the men with cotton flags. Behind them, another three girls, also with the same salouva, hold dainty silk umbrellas over the men. And all around, people from the village and various guests. We were in the middle of the parade. P was with two male colleagues, I was with two female colleagues, one of whom was the groom's sister. She was the one who had invited us to the wedding.

     

P1060970

P1060967

        

Once we'd paraded up the streets to the bride's house, we all waited outside while the groom and his followers went in. Meanwhile, the cadi - Muslim equivalent of great village chief - spoke about the two families in shimaoré, mentioning various people and thanking everybody for coming. Some people went up to the house he was in to give him some money. It later turned out that when the cadi mentions you, you must give him a sum of money according to how you are related to the bride or groom. Which means that the cadi can become very rich, just by mentioning every guest by name. The umbrella-carryers waited just outside the bride's door. When it became apparent that nothing more was happening, we wandered back down the street.

      

P1060984 IMGA0723

       

Once we'd reached the bottom of the hill, the men went one way to eat, the women went another. And as the women were the ones who had done the cooking, they were the ones who had the most to eat. The men had tables and chairs, and their food was mainly rice and boiled beef with yoghurt drinks and fizzy drinks. It was gobbled up in twenty to thirty minutes, and then they packed everything away and joined the ladies.

        

IMGA0729

IMGA0728

       

The women didn't have tables and chairs, but we did have pretty tablecloths spread on the floor. We sat in squares of ten to fifteen around these pretty tablecloths, and our food was much more interesting : plain rice and coconut rice, boiled beef, cabbage and coconut, spicy tomatoes, fermented milk (put on coconut rice and eaten with sugar), yoghurts, water and fizzy drinks.

         

IMGA0743 P1070002

P1060990

P1060991 P1060993

          

Near the end of our meal, a lady came round offering us plastic bags. Armiya - my Comoros-born English-teacher colleague - explained that the bag was to put any leftovers in. That way, she said, the bride and groom didn't have to throw a lot of food in the bin, as it went to feed the poorest families in the village. Everybody in the village was invited, and everybody got a plastic bag, so there was no dishonour in filling your plastic bag with rice, soup or whatever, as everybody was treated equally and nobody had to know you were any poorer. They also gave us pretty plastic bags with cakes and a fizzy drink in them as a present.

          

P1070005 P1070012

        

The men joined us at that point, but there were so many women everywhere, they had to stay on the outskirts of the party. The bride was on her way, they said. While we waited, several of the women had m'biwi sticks in their bags, so they played those. A few girls got up and started giving out presents in gold wrapping-paper. These "presents" were salouvas, and were given to specific family members... who had to pay a designated sum for them. On each present, there was a sum of money between 30€ and 100€, which the girl the present was destined for had to pay. There was apparently no choice in the matter.

         

IMGA0748

           

Then the bride arrived. Hidden under a large piece of material, which - surprise surprise - people had to pay to remove. She was accompanied by a maid of honour or assistant, who took all the money people gave her and decided when there was enough money to remove the material and reveal the bride. Then, everybody lined up to give money to the bride. Close family members had to give a large sum of money, visitors and villagers didn't have to give so much. As the groom's sister, Salima - my French-teacher colleague, also the one I did the end-of-year chaos with - had to give 100€. Armiya and I gave 10€. To give the bride the money, we had to dance in front of her for a few seconds, touch her forehead and cheeks with the note, fold it and put it in her mouth, whereupon she turned to her assistant, who took the money from her and put it in a bag. No words were exchanged. I stood out a bit, as I was the only white girl and was doing my best to copy the others to see what I was meant to do, but I was quickly eclipsed by all the others anyway.

       

P1070020

P1070022

            

No big white meringue dress here. She was wearing a pretty sparkly salouva with gold jewellery and high-heeled shoes. Her face was made up in the traditional way, with a drawing made of white dots and lots of eye make-up. Her hands and feet were intricately decorated with henna.

       

P1070021 - Copie

P1070022 - Copie

P1070023

P1070022

P1070020

            

Once she'd arrived and everybody had paid her, people started leaving, so we said our goodbyes and went back home. Past the enormous stack of dishes to be washed.

        

P1070028

         

My general impression was that Grand Weddings here are extremely ritualised affairs. The girl's family can be dishonoured very easily, and Salima told me that said family generally spends the whole duration of the wedding on tenterhooks, looking out for the tiniest thing that might go wrong. Everything has to be done just so, it's an awful lot of work for the girl's family. What I wasn't expecting was the amount of money changing hands during the various ceremonies. In Mahorese society, women are the ones who own the houses and do pretty much everything except have a job. It is therefore the bride who receives all the money during the wedding. When I asked Armiya what she would do with it, she told me the bride and groom would use the money to pay all the debts incurred by the wedding.

          

P1070027

P and I with my English-teacher colleague Armiya.

           

Publicité
Publicité
Commentaires
Publicité
Newsletter
Visiteurs
Depuis la création 39 588
Publicité