MARRIAGE AND MARRIAGE CONTRACTS
THE MARRIAGE RITE
We will now follow the bride to her father-in-law's house and witness the religious ceremony by which the hymeneal tie is indissolubly knitted. It is essential that the omen bird should be favorable on the trip to the bridegroom's house, otherwise the party must return. Usually the parting injunction of the bride's father to his cofather-in-law warns him to watch for the omen bird.
A pig is killed as soon as possible and set out in the usual style at the house of the bridegroom. The bride and bridegroom sit side by side on an ordinary grass mat. No special decorations have been made; no bridal chamber has been prepared, except sometimes a rude stall of slatted bamboo or of bark.
When the meal is ready, the bridegroom takes a handful of rice from his plate and offers it to the bride while she also gives a similar portion to him. Then he passes his rice from hand to hand behind his back seven times, after which he says in a loud voice: "We are now married; let our fame ascend."15 The bride imitates him. Whereupon loud howls of assent proclaim the consummation of the marriage contract.
15Kanámi no miño nakalíbto ang bántug námi.
The meal goes on in the same riotous style as described before. I seldom witnessed a marriage during which the bridegroom did not become rather hilarious toward the end of the meal, but never displayed anything but feelings of delicacy and respect toward the bride. Instructions of a kind that would be considered highly indecent, according to our standards of morality, are howled out in the most candid way, so that this ordeal proves embarrassing for the bride. She eats hastily and retires to her female friends in the cooking portion of the house. I have seen several cases where the girl, being a mere child, continued to weep during the whole proceeding.
The feast being concluded a female priest takes the betel-nut omen. Seven quids of betel nuts are placed by one of the family priestesses upon a sacred dish.16 She then sets it upon the head of the bridegroom and falls into an ecstatic condition, steadying the plate with her hand. Should one of the betel-nut slices become separated from its betel leaf, the omen is considered unpropitious and is followed immediately by the prophylactic rite--the fowl-waving ceremony.
16A-púg'-an.