Page:Chinese Life in the Tibetan Foothills.djvu/30

18 The bridegroom's parents invite his friends for the night before the marriage 花夜 hua yeh; they dress him, put on his ceremonial hat, deck his hair with flowers, put red cloth round his shoulders, and afterwards, in good families, he feasts them. Then he makes obeisance to his parents and worships at the family altar.

When the wedding day has come the groom's friends invoke the family gods and send off the middleman, accompanied by a relative, to bring home the bride, 娶親 ch‘ü ch‘in. They take with them a flowered sedan-chair, a band of flute-players with gongs, flags, and ceremonial umbrellas. They take besides the following articles: two eggs, to comfort the bride's forehead after the pulling out of the hair; two plaits of hair to be used in putting up the bride's hair, to make it look more; a large sheet of red paper to cover the bushel on which she must tread; a large piece of red cloth or silk for a veil; one big and one small comb, said to be used only this once; a bundle of five-coloured silk threads for dressing the bride's hair; a pot of oil for her toilet, a red cord for her hair, cosmetics, colouring for the lips, bandages for the feet, etc. These all go before or with the deputation which fetches the bride. The materials for her dresses or money to buy them are delivered earlier unless other arrangements have been made, but generally the bride's home provides most of her clothing and ornaments.

She takes leave of her ancestors 拜家神 pai chia-shên, by worshipping at the family shrine, and 辭祖宗 tz‘ŭ tsu-tsung, and makes obeisance to her parents. The mistress of ceremonies throws down a bundle of chopsticks 丟筷子 tiu k‘uai-tzŭ before the altar as evidence that the bride renounces her maiden home and will henceforth eat the rice of another.

Then the bride is dressed, on a carpet, and under a canopy of red cloth; the materials just brought from the bridegroom's home being used.

Her toilet finished, and the veil being put over her, a bushel full of unhulled rice is placed in the doorway and covered with red paper, and she is made to tread on it, 出閣踏斗 ch‘u kuo t‘a tou. After this she has to be carried