This post is part of The Writer's International Culture Share, in which writers discuss their personal experience with world cultures: Rochita Loenen-Ruiz discusses engagement and wedding feasts in the Ifugao province of the Philippines.
Engagement and Wedding feasts in Ifugao by Rochita Loenen-Ruiz
In Ifugao, courtship begins with a show of informal interest between a man and a woman. If a man is interested in pursuing a formal relationship with the woman, his first step is to approach the elders of the woman’s family. Not just her parents but also her elders.
While there may be some unspoken agreement (as tends to be the case in this modern age) the woman’s family will still ask the woman for her reply to the man after the man has presented his case and asked for the permission to court her formally.
If the woman says “no” before the elders, this means the man has been turned down. If she says “yes” to the man’s declaration, then it means that they will have to arrange for a formal engagement ceremony. This ceremony is negotiated by the mediator and usually takes place some months after the woman has given her “yes” to the man’s declaration.
To the Ifugao, this formal courtship is the man’s statement of his seriousness and his intent to marry.
If the woman says yes then the following things take place:
1. The man has to bring a mediator who will speak on his behalf. In my brother’s case, we had a family friend who was a former Mumbaki (native priest). This man agreed to negotiate and act as go-between for elders of the woman’s clan and my brother.
2. The mediator is very important because it is he who negotiates the date for the engagement ceremony which must take place before the entire clan. This engagement ceremony is called the moma.
3. The mediator also negotiates the number of pigs the prospective groom must bring to the moma. In my brother’s case, he was asked to bring two pigs of a good size.
4. During the engagement ceremony itself, only the groom, the mediator and members of the woman’s clan are present. Sometimes a member of the groom’s family will be allowed to attend, but basically the ceremony is held for the woman’s clan.
These are symbolic elements used during the engagement ceremony:
Rice
Betelnut
Salt
Dried Meat
In some cases, the engagement ceremony is as far as it goes. Marriage is a very costly endeavour and unlike marriages in cities like Manila that are westernized, there is no such thing as rsvp when you get married in Ifugao.
In Ifugao, the wedding feast is a community endeavour with the entire community pitching in and everyone working together to prepare the food and to provide for the wedding feast.
Tradition dictates that marriage should take place a year after the engagement ceremony. Terms are set before the engagement. In the case of my youngest brother, his wife-to-be expressed her desire to continue on with her intention to obtain her degree in medicine. In this, her family as well as my brother agreed to support her.
Terms were also set with regards to what the family desires the man to provide for the marriage ceremony. The normal demand is for the groom to provide ten to twelve good-sized pigs for the wedding feast.
Some couples chose to elope or to get married in the Western way to evade the high costs. Some get married in the city as getting married in the mountains costs a lot. One of our friends who got married spent half a million pesos for her wedding. This included the cost of a wedding performed in the Christianized way as well as the cost of a marriage feast conducted in the Ifugao way.
There is a reason why ten to twelve pigs are asked for. A marriage is meant to be celebrated with the entire village and it is meant to symbolize a sharing of joy as well as a sharing of abundance. It is not simply an endeavour of the groom. The bride’s family and her community contribute towards the feast as well. Some will bring rice for the marriage feast, others will bring salt and herbs needed for cooking, and others will bring vegetables as well as other delicious treats.
During the wedding feast itself, there is no telling the exact number of guests who will come as the feast is open for guests who are considered family, friends, and members of community as well as the extended community.
Rochita was the first Filipina writer to be accepted into the Clarion West Writer’s Workshop. She attended the workshop in 2009 as the recipient of the Octavia Butler Scholarship. At present, Rochita resides in the Netherlands, but this could change in the future. Her short fiction has been published in The Philippines as well as outside of The Philippines. She has a livejournal at http://rcloenen-ruiz.livejournal.com
Showing posts with label weddings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label weddings. Show all posts
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Monday, May 17, 2010
Robot Marries Couple
I ran across this article today thanks to my friend Lee Gimenez on Facebook (thanks, Lee!). Apparently a Japanese couple has been married by a robot called the iFairy, which was designed to give museum tours and just needed a bit of new software to perform this new function. It's complete with video...
http://mashable.com/2010/05/17/robot-priest-marriage/
Of course, from a pragmatics and speech acts point of view this is rather fascinating. I had an earlier post about weddings and the speech acts associated with them, but one of the critical ingredients here is that the speech acts that make the marriage real have to be performed by an authorized person - usually a priest or someone representing the laws of the state.
Now, it appears this couple worked for the same company where robots were being designed, so there's a certain logic to their decision. Couples often tailor their weddings to fit their own needs, whether those be of one religion or another (or more than one - I've been to a Jewish Buddhist wedding before), or whether the trappings be those of a historical period, a garden fantasy setting or a science fictional world. On the other hand, the role of the celebrant is right at the center of what goes on at a wedding: the uttering of words that create a real change in reality for the couple being married. I can only assume that in this case, the people involved were willing to approve the robot as an authorized celebrant - for otherwise, the marriage would be considered invalid.
That's an interesting twist on the cultural significance of marriage!
http://mashable.com/2010/05/17/robot-priest-marriage/
Of course, from a pragmatics and speech acts point of view this is rather fascinating. I had an earlier post about weddings and the speech acts associated with them, but one of the critical ingredients here is that the speech acts that make the marriage real have to be performed by an authorized person - usually a priest or someone representing the laws of the state.
Now, it appears this couple worked for the same company where robots were being designed, so there's a certain logic to their decision. Couples often tailor their weddings to fit their own needs, whether those be of one religion or another (or more than one - I've been to a Jewish Buddhist wedding before), or whether the trappings be those of a historical period, a garden fantasy setting or a science fictional world. On the other hand, the role of the celebrant is right at the center of what goes on at a wedding: the uttering of words that create a real change in reality for the couple being married. I can only assume that in this case, the people involved were willing to approve the robot as an authorized celebrant - for otherwise, the marriage would be considered invalid.
That's an interesting twist on the cultural significance of marriage!
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Weddings, speech acts and symbolism
My kids participated in a wedding over last weekend. It was great fun, we got dressed up, and they got the honor of walking down the aisle. They took it so seriously, and they did a lovely job.
Weddings are fascinating from an anthropological and linguistic point of view, too. They represent a complete change of state, but not one that can be physically measured. The change is entirely intangible, but changes everything about the way society treats the married couple. The way they are referred to by others, the way they speak to one another, the kinds of expectations that are held for them by family and friends, the kinds of rights granted to them by law, etc.
At the center of the ceremony is a sequence of speech acts. I may write more about them in another post, but for now if you're curious, you can go look them up, along with John Searle, a pragmaticist who worked with them quite a bit. Effectively, speech acts (also called illocutionary acts) are actions that are done by being said: requests, invitations, refusals. By saying it, you've done it. The speech acts of marrying include the vows: "I do," "I, XXX, take you, YYY...etc." and the pronouncement of the marriage by the celebrant. "I now pronounce you husband and wife."
The entire change of state, and all of the changes of behavior that follow, hinge upon this sequence of acts. As a result of this, there have been a good many story plots that depend for their suspense upon this sequence of speech acts, particularly upon the arrival of the good guy to save the girl before the critical sequence of speech acts is finished. A speech act of great import, like marrying, must also be associated with certain conditions of time, place, and person. The person making the pronouncement of marriage must be ordained with this power by the church and/or the state, or the whole act falls through (insert more story plots here). The bride and groom must meet certain requirements, such as not being currently married to anyone else, or not having anyone in the congregation object at the point in the ceremony where that is possible, or, depending on where you're getting married, being one male and one female (insert many more story plots here).
Of course, if you're working with a setting in the sf/f genre, then elements of this can be changed. If there is a wedding, ask who's involved and how they're qualified to be involved. What the requirements are for participation by a bride and groom, and by a celebrant. What kinds of speech acts might be involved, and whether they would be the same or different - and whether there would be more of them, or fewer. You can also reconsider the details of this change of state in terms of how society recognizes it, and what its impact is on the people involved. Is it a love marriage? Is it most important to the couple or to their families? Or to the society as a whole? What is considered natural and wholesome about it? Is there anything that might be considered unnatural or unwholesome yet not destroy the validity of the marriage speech acts themselves?
Weddings are also full of symbolism of all kinds. The order in which things are done suggests value placed on each participant. A little girl, if she becomes junior bridesmaid, would be first of the bridesmaids to come to the front of the church; but if she becomes the flower girl, she's the last of them, because her job is to strew the path of the bride with flower petals. The flower petals suggest freshness and beauty, and springtime, which is a time of fertility. There's color symbolism in the white dress of the bride. There are the rings, which have no beginning and no end and symbolize the connection between the two people being married.
In the wedding we attended, there were elements added from Filipino culture. The couple had "sponsors," or people they knew who were there to support the marriage. At a certain point in the ceremony, both bride and groom were covered with a veil, then encircled with a white cord symbolizing their connection, and once those had been removed, the celebrant poured a handful of coins into the groom's hands, and he poured them into the bride's (she thereafter handed them to one of the bridesmaids). The coins were to symbolize their good fortune in the future.
In our wedding, there was an Australian element - not in the ceremony, but at the reception where we had one fruitcake and one American style wedding cake. I've seen photos of Indian weddings, and the clothing and other parts of the ceremony are entirely different. Japanese weddings have lots of different parts, and each part has a particular appropriate costume. The Shinto tradition has the bride wearing a beautiful white kimono with a hood that goes over her immaculately styled hair. Japanese brides will often wear an American style wedding dress at a different point in the day as well.
There are the speeches, too. But the best man's humorous speech at the wedding reception in America or Australia isn't at all like the long series of formal speeches in a Japanese wedding, all of which are executed in front of a gold folding screen.
I'm not saying everyone should go out and write wedding stories. But memories of weddings can be relevant in some stories, and wedding symbolism can percolate outward through different cultural practices, and of course as I said above, the way married people are treated differs vastly from the way unmarried people are treated. I hope this post can give you some ideas not only for weddings themselves but for ways to diversify the symbolism in your stories.
I'll end this post by extending my heartiest congratulations to our lovely Sheryl and her new husband Robert. Many thanks for including us in your special day.
Weddings are fascinating from an anthropological and linguistic point of view, too. They represent a complete change of state, but not one that can be physically measured. The change is entirely intangible, but changes everything about the way society treats the married couple. The way they are referred to by others, the way they speak to one another, the kinds of expectations that are held for them by family and friends, the kinds of rights granted to them by law, etc.
At the center of the ceremony is a sequence of speech acts. I may write more about them in another post, but for now if you're curious, you can go look them up, along with John Searle, a pragmaticist who worked with them quite a bit. Effectively, speech acts (also called illocutionary acts) are actions that are done by being said: requests, invitations, refusals. By saying it, you've done it. The speech acts of marrying include the vows: "I do," "I, XXX, take you, YYY...etc." and the pronouncement of the marriage by the celebrant. "I now pronounce you husband and wife."
The entire change of state, and all of the changes of behavior that follow, hinge upon this sequence of acts. As a result of this, there have been a good many story plots that depend for their suspense upon this sequence of speech acts, particularly upon the arrival of the good guy to save the girl before the critical sequence of speech acts is finished. A speech act of great import, like marrying, must also be associated with certain conditions of time, place, and person. The person making the pronouncement of marriage must be ordained with this power by the church and/or the state, or the whole act falls through (insert more story plots here). The bride and groom must meet certain requirements, such as not being currently married to anyone else, or not having anyone in the congregation object at the point in the ceremony where that is possible, or, depending on where you're getting married, being one male and one female (insert many more story plots here).
Of course, if you're working with a setting in the sf/f genre, then elements of this can be changed. If there is a wedding, ask who's involved and how they're qualified to be involved. What the requirements are for participation by a bride and groom, and by a celebrant. What kinds of speech acts might be involved, and whether they would be the same or different - and whether there would be more of them, or fewer. You can also reconsider the details of this change of state in terms of how society recognizes it, and what its impact is on the people involved. Is it a love marriage? Is it most important to the couple or to their families? Or to the society as a whole? What is considered natural and wholesome about it? Is there anything that might be considered unnatural or unwholesome yet not destroy the validity of the marriage speech acts themselves?
Weddings are also full of symbolism of all kinds. The order in which things are done suggests value placed on each participant. A little girl, if she becomes junior bridesmaid, would be first of the bridesmaids to come to the front of the church; but if she becomes the flower girl, she's the last of them, because her job is to strew the path of the bride with flower petals. The flower petals suggest freshness and beauty, and springtime, which is a time of fertility. There's color symbolism in the white dress of the bride. There are the rings, which have no beginning and no end and symbolize the connection between the two people being married.
In the wedding we attended, there were elements added from Filipino culture. The couple had "sponsors," or people they knew who were there to support the marriage. At a certain point in the ceremony, both bride and groom were covered with a veil, then encircled with a white cord symbolizing their connection, and once those had been removed, the celebrant poured a handful of coins into the groom's hands, and he poured them into the bride's (she thereafter handed them to one of the bridesmaids). The coins were to symbolize their good fortune in the future.
In our wedding, there was an Australian element - not in the ceremony, but at the reception where we had one fruitcake and one American style wedding cake. I've seen photos of Indian weddings, and the clothing and other parts of the ceremony are entirely different. Japanese weddings have lots of different parts, and each part has a particular appropriate costume. The Shinto tradition has the bride wearing a beautiful white kimono with a hood that goes over her immaculately styled hair. Japanese brides will often wear an American style wedding dress at a different point in the day as well.
There are the speeches, too. But the best man's humorous speech at the wedding reception in America or Australia isn't at all like the long series of formal speeches in a Japanese wedding, all of which are executed in front of a gold folding screen.
I'm not saying everyone should go out and write wedding stories. But memories of weddings can be relevant in some stories, and wedding symbolism can percolate outward through different cultural practices, and of course as I said above, the way married people are treated differs vastly from the way unmarried people are treated. I hope this post can give you some ideas not only for weddings themselves but for ways to diversify the symbolism in your stories.
I'll end this post by extending my heartiest congratulations to our lovely Sheryl and her new husband Robert. Many thanks for including us in your special day.
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