Re: Wedding rituals

[Helen Winkler <winklerh...>]

I don't know that much about Yemenite culture but have come across a few 
articles that talk about wedding traditions that have some interesting 
similarities to some of the European ones:
One article talks about the "binneh ceremony where the women make up the 
bride"( Dahbany-Miraglia, Society of Dance History Scholars, 1988)

Another discusses the singing of rhymed couplets while the women dance:
"A good female singer, however must be able to vary the words that she sings 
and perhaps even improvise rhymed verses...The female dancers are themselves 
the singers, accompanied by a woman who plays the drum, and who can also 
join the singing if required.  Certain women are considered to be good 
dancers precisely because they sing texts that everyone enjoys." (Shalom 
Staub, Dance Research Annual 1978)

Also in the movie Dancing into Marriage they discuss how the women are made 
to cry at the wedding by the verses the singer sings--similar to the Eastern 
European Jewish weddings of old.

Helen




----Original Message Follows----
From: "Paul M. Gifford" <PGIFFORD (at) flint(dot)umich(dot)edu>
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To: World music from a Jewish slant <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
Subject: Wedding rituals
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2000 13:43:16 EDT
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Khupenikes (at) aol(dot)com wrote:
 >
 > Michael Alpert and I played it at Yale, leading Rebecca Taichman's 
parents
 > home after opening night's party. (Well, this was in fact a 21st century
 > version: we were only accompanying them to the cab next corner...)

This is how it's done in contemporary Bucharest at Gypsy weddings,
unless the church is nearby. The musicians play on the sidewalk
outside the apartment building for a little dancing, then the wedding
party enters the taxi cabs to go to the photographer before going to
the church.

All the talk of wedding rituals is quite interesting. I wonder how
much of the Eastern European Jewish wedding ritual was specifically
Jewish (prescribed by scripture or religious tradition) and how much
was common to Eastern and Central Europe, regardless of religion?

For example, I've read about the bridal hair-pleating ceremony, and
something like that was described in a 1790s description of a Jewish
wedding in Podolia. The Gypsy (or lautari) wedding in Bucharest I
attended started off in the morning with the bride at home, in front
of a mirror, grooming herself. Two musicians (accordion and guitar)
were present, one singing a ritual song that also accompanies the
"babushka" ceremony at the end of the dancing (which, I am told, is
also common to Ukrainian weddings). In Dearborn, Michigan, I was at a
Gypsy wedding (this group's origins are in eastern Slovakia, c.1880-
1910) with exactly the same thing---though the dresser and mirror
were placed in the living room of the house. The musicians (several
violins, cimbalom, two basses) played on the front porch and front
yard. But in both Bucharest and Dearborn the weddings are now reduced
to one long (maybe 20 hour) day.  In Bucharest Tuesday is the
preferred day for lautari weddings, because the musicians are most
likely to have that free and to be able to show up (they play for
free but hope to get tips).

Yesterday I happened to read Lawrence Welk's autobiography
_Wunnerful, Wunnerful_ (1971) where he talks about the three-day
weddings of the Black Sea Germans in the teens in North Dakota,
playing at the in- laws, etc. Josh Horowitz once mentioned about the
custom of tantsgeld, and this sounds very similar to Volga German
practice, where the person put a coin on the Hackbrett/Zimbal for
each dance, or for three dances.

Another similarity----I was at a Romanian wedding in Chicago where
the couple was from Maramures. The wedding banquet featured a woman
who chanted rhymed, off-color couplets. After each, which drew a lot
of laughs from the crowd, the clarinetist (who was the leader of the
musicians) would play the same short tune. This must have gone on for
ten minutes. I wonder if this relates to the badkhn's activity?
Needless to say, the meal was accompanied by plenty of doinas.

Paul Gifford



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