Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/495

Rh and sends a congratulatory invitation to the bride’s family, asking her relations to come to a congratulatory feast. They must be invited six times before they accept. The feast generally takes place before daybreak, at three o’clock in the morning. The guests are met, on arrival at the main entrance, by the bridegroom, who kneels with his back to the house. Three glasses of wine are poured out by the attendant, and handed to the bridegroom, who presents them to his mother-in-law, and then three glasses to each of the other guests, which are not drunk but handed back to the attendants. The guests are next invited into the banqueting-shed, each guest sitting at a separate table, accompanied by two hosts. Tea, wine, and meats are served, but are left untouched, the guests interchanging compliments, until a course of soup is served. Each of the guests presents the attendant with a red packet containing money. After retiring from the banquet, a congratulatory visit is paid by all to the bridal chamber. The bride now, for the first time, uncovers her face, and descends from the bridal couch. After uncovering her face, the bride cuts off the hair hanging over her temples, as a sign that she is now a married woman, and offers tea and tobacco to her guests to show that she is the hostess. The guests then depart, the bridegroom pledging them, as on their arrival, with three glasses of wine.

The bride and bridegroom now partake of the bridal feast, and, when it is over, the bride visits the parents of the bridegroom, and worships the ancestors of the family and the god of the hearth, in the last case holding a bundle of firewood in her arms, as a sign that she knows how to cook. These ceremonies over, the bride and bridegroom “kotow” to the parents of the bridegroom, and the nearest senior relations of the family, in the order of their seniority, who present the happy couple with presents of money wrapped in red paper. The members of the family younger than the happy pair have to “kotow” to them. After all the marriage ceremonies are completed, the bride opens her