A Traditional “Introduction”
Recently we attended an “Introduction” for one of our female office staff members. The “Introduction” is an engagement/marriage celebration in which the groom and his family are introduced to the bride’s family. An “Introduction” was traditionally the marriage ceremony. So according to custom they are married, but since they are Christians they will not live together until the church wedding which will be at a later date and involves more cost.
Our invitation said the starting time was 2 pm. However, when we arrived at 2:15 the decorations were still going up, and the groom’s family did not arrive until 3:30. The celebration was held in the lawn of the bride’s family. It was a large lawn and on one side was a huge white tent where the bride’s family and friends sat and on the other side of the lawn was another huge white tent where the groom’s family and friends sat.
The groom’s entourage must all arrive together. When they did arrive, before they could enter, there was some back-and-forth between the bride’s MC and the groom’s MC. “Why are you coming? What do you want? Are you friends? You can’t come in before you are identified, etc., etc.” There were probably about 100 in the entourage and they all were given small flowers to identify themselves. They came in but were not allowed to sit until they were given permission.
There was more back and forth talk and then 5 elders (men) from the groom’s side and 5 from the bride’s side went into the house to negotiate the bride price while the rest of us sat and waited. During that time there were some jokes told and snacks and drinks handed out. Eventually, the groom was invited in and told of the settlement—then there were cheers! They all came out and the bride’s family presented two goats to the groom’s family to show there were no hard feelings. And there were greetings between the closer family members. Oh yes, there were also jokes about us as foreigners being there–the bride brought an international delegation, like observers for an election!
Now, the groom had to identify the bride! (Of course, he knew her but this is custom.) Several groups of young women—and older ones—came out and would dance around a bit and then all kneel in a line while the groom decided if any of these was his bride. Three of our service workers were in one of the groups. This went on for some time with a lot of joking and fun. Eventually, a group of four came out covered by a sheet. One of them was the bride—fairly easy to tell since she had on a different dress than the others! The bride was identified correctly and there was great rejoicing! About this time it began raining! So we all just sat for about an hour until it let up.
Then there was an exchange of rings and cutting and feeding of the cake. In addition the groom’s family presented lots of gifts. Besides regular sized gifts, they had driven a pickup truck with a load of living room furniture! We were told the activities were somewhat shortened because of the rain. When the rain let up we were served a big buffet. By this time it was close to 10 pm. Then the dancing started. We joined in for a short time but soon “danced” our way out the gate.
It was fascinating to us how much sitting and waiting there was, and everyone just took it in stride. We got there soon after 2, but the “action” really didn’t get started until about 6 and then we soon were again just sitting waiting out the rain. No problem to anyone! In fact rain in this part of the world is always considered a blessing, and comments were made that the couple should expect to have twins because of it. We Westerners would have been much happier if the dancing could have started sooner. That was fun!
September 16th, 2011 at 12:48 am
Your experience was similar to ours (including the rain) but the event you attended was much more formal than the one we did. Ours didn’t have any dancing, or cake and such. I’ll post about the event we went to within a few days. Thanks for sharing!