Page:Letters of a Javanese princess, by Raden Adjeng Kartini, 1921.djvu/205

LETTERS OF A JAVANESE PRINCESS brought him a health to drink; dancing, they advanced to meet eachother, and at the sound of the gong, the young man knelt down to receive the wine-glass from the hand of the older one.

After a health had been brought to him by all the regents present, he left them and went back to sit by the side of his wife. Soon after that the bridal pair left the assembly; the European guests went home, but the feast was kept up till early in the morning. The European gentlemen had danced too, and our Assistant Resident acquitted himself excellently.

Mamma, our friend, sister Roekmini, and I stayed till the last European guest had gone.

The next day there was quiet in the house. In the afternoon the last ceremony took place. That is the first visit of the bridal pair to the parents of the groom. It is called in Javanese ngoendoh mantoe, which, literally translated, means "daughter-in-law plucking!" The daughter-in-law is compared to a flower which her husband's parents will pluck.

For this occasion both bride and groom should again put on their bridal costume; but that would have been much too wearisome, so the groom was dressed as usual and sister wore a kain interwoven with gold, and a silk kabaja ; her hair was dressed in the form of a cap, and on her head was a small sheath in the shape of a cross, which was filled with flowers, and over the whole was a network of melati blossoms, and again the jewelled spirals waved to and fro above her head.

The bridal pair went in a procession, followed by the native chiefs on foot, to the house where the father of the bridegroom lodged. Days and weeks after the wedding the newly married pair are still called bride and bridegroom. The bride is a bride until she becomes a mother. There are women, mothers, who all their lives are called —183—