The
wedding was an arranged marriage that the families negotiated, and the price
being cows. In the Dinka tribe the
man pays the woman’s family and she gets a higher price based on 3 things 1)
height (the taller the better), 2) family lineage and 3) education (jury is
still out on if this affects the price positively or negatively). A cow goes for about 1000 pounds (or
$350). My co-worker paid 85 cows
for his wife to be, approx 85,000 pounds or over $24,000. Considering that 90% of the population
makes less than $1 a day, this is quite a lot of money.
Anyway
after traveling with an armed police escort we arrive in Yei and quickly dress
for the wedding. But the wedding
is held up because they are still negotiating…one of the sticking points being
the large bull that needs to be sacrificed at the wedding. SO after another 2500 pounds and
the process of finding the right bull, the wedding is able to finally commence.
It
was a pretty amazing experience, there was tons of chanting and a procession,
we were ushered into a large tent that was covered in embroidered flowers where
women (which took the bride and her friends one month to make) wiped our faces
with clothes and then our feet.
Outside the tent they sacrificed the bull to the sounds of chanting and
drumming.
First they carefully skinned the bull then slowly removed each organ whole, they even cut a small incision in one of the 3 or 4 stomachs and then pulled out all the grass.
First they carefully skinned the bull then slowly removed each organ whole, they even cut a small incision in one of the 3 or 4 stomachs and then pulled out all the grass.
The
bride eventually came with 50 women in attendance and wearing a surprisingly
traditional white wedding gown (with sleeves) and a veil. Her hands and feet had dark henna and
she and her maids had sparkles on their faces. The mood became serious and she looked quite somber. The two hadn’t really seen each other
much and they definitely both seemed nervous. In addition she is quite young and will have to leave her family.
The wedding went on for 3 hours with lots of speeches, chanting and singing. The men sat on one side, the women on the other. Eventually they asked the kawajas (foreigners) to stand up and speak. We took turns said a few words and then everyone sang a song about ‘welcoming people from the land where people speak Hallo!’. It was late into the night and eventually the ceremony was over.
Everyone
trickled back to their tukuls, the men went to their homes including the grooms
and the bride to hers where people stay up all night but don’t eat.
Early
the next morning we were brought to the grooms family where we met all the
elders (the senior negotiating team for the bride price) who turned out to be
mostly women as the men had died in the war. There we hung out with the bride and her cousins talking about
marriage and traditions. They
asked me many questions about marriage, the U.S. whether we have vegetables and
meat, had I gone to school, and they all assumed because I was not yet ‘grown’ (read
tall) therefor I must be 15. When I explained
I wasn’t married because I hadn’t found anyone, I got many offers of 19 yr old
sons and brothers, even an offer to be the 2nd wife of a girl's
father.
Eventually
another cow was slaughtered and then the women drummed and danced, which I was
asked to take part in.
We
ended up eating a meal of millet porridge with warm milk and then made the long
trek back to Juba.
Good morning how are you?
ReplyDeleteMy name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.
I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of used stamps because trough them, you can see pictures about fauna, flora, monuments, landscapes etc. from all the countries. As every day is more and more difficult to get stamps, some years ago I started a new collection in order to get traditional letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately it’s impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.
For all this I would ask you one small favour:
Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from South Sudan? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in South Sudan in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and an original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:
Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Calle Valencia, 39
28903 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain
If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.
Finally I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.
Yours Sincerely
Emilio Fernandez