Page:Letters of a Javanese princess, by Raden Adjeng Kartini, 1921.djvu/198

LETTERS OF A JAVANESE PRINCESS prayers); the blessing of heaven was asked upon the approaching marriage.

At that meal, only men were present, our women guests, even the Regent's wives who had come to sister's wedding, ate at home with us.

Early the next morning, there was a stir in the koboepatin. It looked quite gay, with its decorations of greens and flags. Outside on the highway, there was bustle and noise. The tricolour waved merrily among the rustling young cocoanut trees that bordered the road which led to the house of the bridegroom. In the green covered pasehuisen, two little houses on the aloen-aloen before the kaboepatin, the gamelan played lustily.

We were on the back gallery, where stood baskets of kanangas, tjempakas, and melaties. Women's hands were arranging the flowers into garlands, or suspending them on little swings, or tearing the blossoms from the leaves, so that they could be strewn in the way of the bridal pair wherever they might go. The kaboepatin was filled with gamelan music and the perfume of flowers. Busy people walked to and fro. In our room, the toilet of the bride was begun. Her forehead had been painted dark before; now it was decorated with little golden figures.

Sister lay down during the operation. Behind the figures there were two borders fastened to the hair — a dark one behind the gold; into this, jewelled knobs were stuck. With other brides the borderwork is made of their own hair; but for sister we had a false piece set in, because the elaborate process is painful, and the poor child had just recovered from a fever.

Above the border-work came a golden diadem, and her hair at the back of the head was dressed like a half -moon and filled with flowers; from that, a veil of melati with a border of flowers fell, and reached —176—