Wedding custom of Buryat Mongolians

The wedding of Buryat Mongols still retains the ancient traditional customs of northern nomadic people. Weddings are roughly divided into three steps: engagement, farewell and marriage. The engagement was arranged by the man's messenger. At the engagement ceremony, the woman's parents often test each other's wisdom with false refusal or temporary silence, and the scene is humorous. The woman's parents agreed to the marriage when they accepted the "Hada" presented by the man's messenger. The man's emissary solemnly put the milk and candy he brought into the fruit bowl of the host family, indicating that the two families had concluded "the goodness of Qin and Jin." After that, the man's parents came to the woman's house to recognize their relatives, and both parents shared sheepskin quilts for their children's wedding. The night before the wedding, the woman's family held a grand farewell ceremony, and the locals called it "Nalixiang". Relatives, friends and village neighbors sit in a circle around the blanket, with men sitting in the east and women sitting in the west according to their generations; At the junction of the two halves, the girl who is about to get married is dressed in new clothes, facing south, accompanied by a female companion. There are boxes of cooked sheep heads in front of them. The old singer raised a glass to bless and earnestly encouraged the married girl with a high-pitched and beautiful voice. At the end of the song, people lit bonfires and danced around them. The dance is unrestrained and the scene is warm. The next morning, the bride mounted the steed brought by the wedding messenger and headed for the man's house surrounded by more than a dozen young men and women. There were bursts of laughter and hoofbeats in the green fields. It is a tradition for herders to send their relatives away by horse. Whether the man's home is close at hand or hundreds of miles away, ride a horse to send them. The bridesmaids are all married women. The third part of the wedding is the wedding ceremony. Next to the old yurt of the groom's house, a new white bag with seven stripes was built, which became a unique bridal chamber on the grassland. After the woman sends her relatives to buy a dowry, she will hold a "pillow grab" ceremony. Four strong men in this woman's family hobbled in with pillows. The pillow has a strange shape, with different thicknesses at both ends and a length of about one meter. Four strong men from the man's family stepped forward and surrounded the pillow in the middle. The two sides pulled each other and refused to give in. The onlookers cheered and cheered, so lively. When it came to inextricably linked, some elders came forward to persuade them, and they did not stop them. The two sides smiled at each other and put the pillow on the couple's wedding bed. The bride took off her boudoir makeup and put on a woman's costume: wearing a cylindrical hat with pearls and jade shining on it; High boots, black and shiny; Seven braids combed before marriage are combined into one.