Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/492

486 friends who attend are expected to bring presents generally to the bride, such as purses, handkerchiefs, fans, shoes, stockings, etc. These presents are termed “additions to the (bride’s) trunks”. The feast consists of many courses, and is generally a combination of the Manchu and Chinese forms of entertainment. The feast given at the bride’s house takes place on the day on which the trousseau is sent; at this feast friends and relations attend. On the second day there is also a feast at the bride’s house, the guests being limited to near relatives. The latter feast takes place before the bride starts for the bridegroom’s house.

The trousseau is sent to the bridegroom’s house at noon, accompanied by representatives of the bride, six, eight, or ten, and is met half-way by an equal number of representatives of the bridegroom and a band of musicians.

On the evening of the first day the marriage couch is carefully placed by two women, employed by the bridegroom’s family, who must have a father and mother-in-law, husband, and children living. The bridal chair is despatched for the bride with a band of musicians before the marriage couch is placed. It is occupied by the bridegroom’s mother or aunt, who goes to meet the bride. When she returns she occupies an ordinary sedan. Sometimes the bridal sedan is occupied by a child of ten years old, whose presence is supposed to be an omen of a numerous progeny of male children. The procession to the bride’s house also consists of six, eight, and four male friends or relations of the bridegroom. Each of them takes with him several cust wrapped in red paper, and sometimes tea, or both. They also have a handful of cust, called “the heavens full of stars”—symbolical of wealth and prosperity. When the bridal sedan arrives at the bride’s home, the mother of the bridegroom is invited to enter the house. She enters, and the doors are closed, the remainder of the procession staying outside. Children in the bride’s house then demand the packets of cust wrapped in paper, which are handed to them through the crevices of the door, and the bride’s friends