Traditional Wedding

Last Saturday I attended a traditional wedding, which takes place at night and lasts until the following dawn.  The groom picked me up at 8pm on his third trip of hauling firewood from his house to the bride’s house about 8 km away, or a half an hour's walk.   He was accompanied by about 8 friends carrying firewood, and we walked mostly in the dark with occasional illumination by flashlights, crossing what sounded like 4 waterfalls, but must have been just streams filled to the brink with the recent rains.

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Here in Cameroon it is the bridegroom’s responsibility to pay for most of the costs associated with the wedding.   The amount the groom is expected to give to the bride’s family varies.  If I understood correctly, it is determined by how much the bride’s mother’s family received when she got married.  But it also increases with a bride’s education level.  So, some men marry women with lower education levels and then have them continue education after marriage because they can not afford to marry a women with a university degree.

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For this particular wedding, Erik had to get together the following:

s         10 tins (250 liters or about 60 gallons) of palm oil

s         A barrel of meat

s         100,000 FCFA (about $2,000) in cash

s         As much firewood as the groom’s friends can bring

s         A "married woman's outfit" for the bride to wear after the wedding so people know she is no longer available

Another important aspect of a traditional wedding is the comedian who keeps the older females in the bride’s family entertained during the long evening of food preparations.  (The men sit in a separate hut where they talk and listen to music cassettes.) 

Here is the comedian greeting the bride's grandmother and beginning a long string of bawdy jokes to keep the elder ladies flattered and entertained.  The women on the right are cooking a big kettle of fufu corn to feed all the guests, about 200 hundred people.

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It is a tradition to slaughter a chicken at a wedding.  Before doing so the comedian put it on his head then asked it a lot of questions and interpreted its clucks.  The meat from this one chicken was then shared with the 50 people that were in the house of the women.

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Here Eric (the groom) and Elizabeth (the bride) share a bite of fufu and djamajama the traditional staple food around here.   Note they keep their head bowed during all of the ceremony.

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Here is Elizabeth (in the beads) and her bridesmaids posing for pictures after the ceremony was over and they could show their faces.  During the wedding itself there was a "roast" of each one of them as well as of the groomsmen.

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For the last couple of weeks, Erik has been excited about the wedding but also agitated and stressed about getting all this together while at the same time trying to finish up a small house that he was building in his parents compound for him to live in with his new bride. I supported him by buying one tin of palm oil. He was so happy he skipped around the shed we were working. (He is the one running the market outreach program in Belo.) Giving gifts to locals is always controversial, because you do not want to provoke envy and or floods of requests from others, but Eric's little happy dance made it all worth it.

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At the wedding, corn beer was served (sparingly) but who needs lots of alcohol, when you are allowed to doze off in the ceremony without embarrassment.   Here the appetizers of Kola nuts, popcorn, and yam are being served.

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Comments

[Marta Pelusi]

This sounds like lots of fun, and all of the food sounds good (both the wedding food, and the food you describe in your other posting that more specifically addresses available foods). -- Marta

[Bella]

Thank you for this information .. its really helpful information and mostly becuase you were actually there .. (:
good job i hope you make more on different subjects.. like rituals or holidays (:

[hlilary]

I dont like this website .. it doesnt explain anything ,, rarely !!
couldnt you at least put a little more effort into .. but no i guess not , you just turned a great party into a laughing stock ..

[jamie]

What were you thinking ??
you just messed everything up . This is so horrible
im looking for information and i cant find one thing !! i finally found this website and thought maybe these ppl will have something good to write about .. and again just like the other ones a ruined party and a ruined paper ,, you idiots .. morons
!!

[jamie]

Why would you say all this junk about these poor people. They had a good wedding and everything, and your going to ruin it becuase there was no alcohol ?? Are you Addicted to Alchol or what because that's what it seems like. You think the whole wedding was bad becuase there was no beer or alchol maybe theyre not all like you. Theyre not all addicted to drugs . Thats what they get for allowing people like you to experience theyre wedding but then they dont know whats comin back on them..