Volume 3 — Translated from the Études Religieuses, Historiques et Littéraires. EAST-INDIAN WEDDINGS. LETTER FROM FATHER GUCHEN OF THE MADURA MISSION.

A very days ago I blessed a marriage in which great pomp was displayed, and I will describe the festival to you, that you may have an idea of what takes place on such occasions, for the same ceremonial is always scrupulously observed. Indeed, every action of an Indian's life from the cradle to the grave is irrevocably ordered by custom.

The solemnity I am speaking of now is called here, "a grand marriage." My Christians are generally too poor to have to do with any but "little marriages," which are performed very quietly, though with some attendant circumstances that perhaps deserve a slight notice.

A remarkable peculiarity, and one that belongs to both kinds of marriage, is that the bride and bridegroom do not know each other, do not even see or speak to each other, until it is too late to draw back. This is the decision of custom, and has its good and bad side, like many other things in this world. "Why have you come here?" I asked the other day of a little girl hardly twelve years old, who was led into church. "My father said I was to be married, so I came," she replied. A few hours later arrived the young man, pale, exhausted, and writhing in the grasp of pangs unutterable. Begging me to serve him first in the quality of physician, he told me his story: "I had just done dinner and was going out to my palm-trees, when my father told me to go to the church, and be married; so I took my bath of oil immediately, which interfered with my digestion and caused my illness."

The bath of oil is a necessary preliminary on these occasions. That over, the bridegroom arrays himself in his finest garments. Two cloths, about one foot three inches wide, and four or five times as long, ornamented with a fringe, compose his costume; one covers his loins and the other is wrapped around him; a red kerchief is rolled about his head, and three pendants, nearly two inches long, and wide in proportion, adorn each ear. If he is too poor to own these jewels, he borrows them of his neighbors, and thus apparelled, goes to the church and presents himself before the sonami, (missionary.)

The maiden also lavishes oil or butter upon her toilette, but on the wedding day, she is so completely swathed in the ten or eleven yards of cloth that form her raiment, that neither her jewels nor her face can be distinguished. Not only is she invisible, but she is supposed to see nothing herself, and when she wishes to change her place, the person who accompanies her, often a poor old woman hardly able to stand leads her by clasping her round the waist. I have sometimes beheld the singular spectacle of a score of little girls from twelve to fifteen years of age, muffled in cloth and crouched against the wall of the church, repeating their prayers to satiety as they waited for me to come and hear them recite.

They pass their examination; both bride and bridegroom know faultlessly the pater, ave, credo, the commandments of God and the church, the act of contrition, the confiteor, etc.; they {636} recite the seven chapters, that is to say the little catechism, quite well; I hear their confessions, and the next morning at mass I bless their union, following in every respect the rubrics of the church, so that there is nothing especial to notice excepting that the married pair have no wedding-ring. In its place they have a golden jewel, rather clumsy in form, through which passes a cord intended to be fastened round the bride's neck. This jewel is called tali. It is the sign of matrimonial union, and every married woman wears one; when her husband dies, the relations assemble, and remove the tali from the widow's neck by breaking the cord.

But pardon me for carrying you without transition from a wedding to a funeral--let us leave the graveyard and return to the church. Having blessed the tali, applying to it the prayer indicated in the ritual for the blessing of the ring, I return it to the young man who presents it to the maiden; she receives it on her out-stretched hands, and her companion, or if the latter is too old, any other woman present, fastens it about her neck. Mass is celebrated; the bride and bridegroom receive communion and the benediction, and then withdraw. The bride remains hooded through the whole of the festive day; on the next day after she shows her face, and the husband can for the first time behold her features: a young man of my acquaintance learned twenty-four hours after marriage, that his wife had but one eye.

I forgot to mention another custom, which is quite generally observed, and seems to me charming. The bridegroom buys a nuptial cloth, which is blessed by the priest at the same time with the tali, and in this the bride arrays herself, when the marriage ceremonial is ended. She wears this cloth during the days of festivity, but the husband gives her no other garments, and the parents continue to furnish their daughter's wardrobe until she brings her first child into the world.

But it is time I arrived at the ceremonies of the grand marriage that I blessed on the eleventh of this month.

The young man belonged to Anacarei, and the maiden to Santancoulam, a little town where we have a Christian settlement. As she had been baptized only two years before, she still numbered many pagans among her circle, a fact which made me willingly accede to the desire of her parents that the marriage should be celebrated in the presence of her family.

Even before dawn, two bands of musicians, making their instruments resound in noble emulation of each other, announced to the whole town that on that day there was to be a grand festival in the Catholic Church. On their side, with one accord, the Christians devoted themselves to the preparation of the church and altar; the only outlay in decoration was upon flowers, but of those there were enough to load a coach. At last all was ready, and wearing the alb and stole, I went forward to receive the consent of the betrothed, who were accompanied by their relations and friends. They joined their right hands, and I pronounced over them the sacramental words, after which the tali was blessed and given first to the bridegroom and by turn to the bride, but without being fastened about her neck, as that ceremony was to take place afterward at home. I began mass. In the lectern, two chanters were shaking the walls of the church with a clamor most delightful to Indian ears, for singing is valued here in proportion to the volume of voice brought to bear upon it. Indeed never before at Santancoulam had anything so admirable been heard.

After mass the husband and wife withdrew in different directions, and the whole day was spent in festive preparations. In the house of the young girl a great tent was built of the branches and leaves of trees, draped with cloth of various colors. In the middle of this tent, which is called the Pandel, upon a mound a {637} foot and a half in height, and about eight square feet in extent, arose an elegantly decorated pavilion supported on four little columns. It was truly an exhibition of painted cloth and parti-colored paper of every hue and every shade, surpassing the rainbow in brilliancy. There, upon this mound and under this pavillion, the bridegroom was to give the tali to his bride.

In the mean time a palanquin had been constructed elsewhere, even more elegant and magnificent than the pavilion of the Pandel. At ten o'clock in the evening, by the light of thirty or forty blazing torches, the bridegroom entered the palanquin, and, borne upon the shoulders of four men, made the tour of the town, a band of music opening the way and summoning the curious who hastened at the call. After promenading the principal streets with slow steps for two or three hours, they turned toward the bride's home. The young man ascended the mound and seated himself, upon the ground, you understand, for among Indians there are neither chairs nor lounges. But do not be afraid that he soiled his fine clothes--a litter of straw covered the whole surface of the mound. In this country they know no better way of making an apartment presentable, and all Indian parquets are polished after this fashion. The bride came in her turn, her father leading her by the hand. When he had seated her face to face with the young man who had been his son-in-law for twenty-four hours, he declared in a loud, clear voice that he had given his daughter in marriage to so and so, living in such and such a place, that he announced it to her relations and friends, begging them to give their consent. The assistants standing about the mound extended their hands in succession, and touched the tali with the tips of the fingers in token of approval. The catechist intoned the litany of the Blessed Virgin, to which the Christians made the responses, then he gave the tali to the husband, who held it near his wife's neck, and the bride's sister-in-law, standing behind her, took the cord and tied it. The ceremonies and festivities were ended for that night, and every one withdrew to take a little repose.

The next evening there was a grand wedding collation, after which the festival, properly speaking, the grand festival, began. The newly married pair seated themselves in the palanquin, facing each other, but separated by a little curtain. The bride, freed from her veil now, held the curtain with both hands, trying to conceal her face with it. By the light of torches even more numerous than the night before, and to the sound of music quite as vociferous, they went to the church, where all the candles were lighted. The chanters and myself intoned the litany of the Blessed Virgin and the salve regina; the catechist recited a few prayers. I gave the benediction to the assembly with a crucifix, having no statue of the Blessed Virgin, and the ceremony closed with a tamoul chant. The husband and wife re-entered the palanquin, and then began in the streets a veritable triumphal march called here patana-pravesam (entrance into the town,) which ended only when the day began.

What lends to this march a character of beauty and originality is the calliel, a dance accompanied by songs and the clashing of little staves, and performed before the palanquin for the whole length of the march. Do not imagine anything resembling a French ball; here dancing, so called, is a disgrace, and is only permitted to the Bayadères engaged in the service of the pagodas. The calliel is quite another thing. Fancy a dozen well-formed, robust young people, with turbaned heads, and loins girt with a long strip of cloth draped like a scarf, some of them wearing rings of bells upon their arms and legs, and all carrying in each hand a little staff about a foot long, with which they strike the staves of the dancers, whom they meet face to face. On leaving the church, our young dancers begged me to {638} witness their gambols in the presence of the bride and bridegroom, who were looking down upon the assembly from their high palanquin. The clashing cadence of the staves, the monotonous but purely harmonious chant of the dancers, their free, elastic bounds and graceful twirls, the passing and repassing of this troop, who spring forward and draw back, falling and rising as they drop on their knees and rear themselves up again, this whirlwind where all is ordered, timed, and measured---all presents a spectacle that enchants Hindoos and may well delight a Frenchman.

Meanwhile the big drum, tambourine, tam-tam, clarionet, bagpipe, etc, etc., announced with joyous din that the crowd must turn their steps elsewhere, and show to others all this paraphernalia of rejoicing. The palanquin was borne toward the streets. From time to time the march was suspended, the music ceased, and the young dancers resumed and continued for nearly an hour their agile feats of strength.

So the night passed, and the first rays of the sun announced that it was time to end it all. The husband and wife descended from the palanquin to hear mass, and then entered upon real life; the wedding was over. In the evening a car drawn by two magnificent oxen, transported the bride, accompanied by several relatives, to the village of her husband, who escorted the family, mounted upon a pretty white horse.

AMACAREI, Sept 29th, 1865.