Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 9, 1898.djvu/171

Rh the whole company repeat together the "Dhua Khyr," or prayer for peace and blessing. The Kazi then has presented to him the usual fee, and sometimes, in addition to this, a whole suit of clothes.

The couple, being now united in marriage according to Mohammedan law, are at length permitted to see one another; and accordingly the girl-friends of the bride ask the bridegroom and his best man, or "Saballah," to come behind the " purdah," or screen. He has then a good look at the bride in her gay attire, and she at him in all his array, and crowned with his mitre-shaped tinsel hat or "Seyrah." She then rises from her seat, having a piece of crude sugar in her clasped hand, and places herself on one side of the door, and he goes to the other side. She offers him the clasped hand, and it is for the bridegroom to try and open her hand and secure the sugar, using only one hand in the attempt; should he venture to bring forward the other hand, all the girls playfully would strike him; and so the fun goes on for some time, and he at last is successful in his endeavours. This part of the ceremonies is called the "Goorvach," or "Sugar-getting and giving." After this they all sit down, and the barber's wife is then called and receives a fee. Then banter and playfulness is carried on between the best man and the bridesmaid, and the young girls of the party; this over, the bridegroom and his best man retire from the bride's apartment to give time and opportunity for further fun and frolic. When they return, being called back by the girls, they find the bride seated on a basket, or "Kharrah," and he is told to lift his bride off the "Kharrah," and endeavouring to do so finds a great difficulty, for the girls have tied up in her lap several heavy weights. In the end he succeeds in raising her off the seat, and placing her on one of two stools, or "Peeree," that have been arranged before. She sits on the stool facing east, and he on the other facing west. The barber's wife, or "Neeanee," then brings some small pieces of cotton and