Page:Face to Face With the Mexicans.djvu/418

412 The bridegroom appears in pantaloons and short jacket of cashmere, white embroidered shirt, red sash, raw hide or deerskin shoes, and a highly decorated, broad-brimmed hat. Followed by his family, padrinos (those who are to give him away), witnesses, and those who have been invited, he proceeds to the house of the bride, where he is overwhelmed with attentions from the family.

The dress of the bride consists of a blue skirt with red sash, and a chemise with a deep yoke and sleeves elaborately embroidered with bright-colored beads, a red silk handkerchief with points crossed in front, and held by a fancy pin. The handkerchief serves to cover the neck and breast, leaving the arms free. She also wears many strings of beads, and silver hoop ear-rings of extraordinary size. Her hair is worn in two braids, laid back and forth on the back of her head, the ends tied with red ribbons. She wears babuchas, a kind of slipper made either of deerskin trimmed with beads or of gay cloth. The toilet is completed with a white woolen mantle, cut in scallops trimmed with blue, and hanging from the plaited hair.

After they have proceeded to the church and have been married according to the usual religious ceremony, they go to the house of the bride, accompanied by the greater part of the inhabitants of the village where the marriage has taken place, followed by sky-rockets, music, and shouts from the boys. In the house there is a large room decorated with wreaths, flowers, and tissue-paper ornaments, with palm-leaf mats and wooden benches running around the room. Here the wedding feast takes place, presided over by the bride and the madrina (the one who gave her away), who sit on the mats at one end of the room, while the bridegroom and his padrino, and other guests, occupy the wooden benches. There they receive the congratulations of relatives and friends. But before the dinner, the bride removes her wedding finery, and puts on a house dress, and grinds all the corn that will be necessary to make the tortillas for the repast.

When the dinner, which generally takes place about six o'clock, is over, the dance begins, accompanied in its motions by songs which, though agreeable, are somewhat melancholy. The older guests