Toureg Wedding Description 8/5/07

The Toureg Wedding

8/5/07

The families involved in this wedding were upper-class but the urban house it was held at wasn't nearly big enough to support the many people who attended, solution, have the celebration in the street outside... this made it very public, street vendors and all sorts of people would approach (or join in) the even to see what was going on or perhaps make a possible sale. According to our language instructors, this was a very unorganized wedding. The organization of a Toureg wedding is not the responsibility of the parents, bride or groom, or relatives. The local Inhardents (musicians, such as my host father and his band Tartit) are the ones responsible for putting on the ceremony.

A Brief Lesson in Toureg Weddings

When Touregs get married they have two ceremonies:

1. A small ceremony in which the family of the bride takes the bride to the husband's house, the bride is meant to cry the entire time because she is "modest" and doesn't want to boast her happiness in front of the family (Bess and I think that the brides here are crying real tears because often the woman, or girls, are being forced into marriage, and often the brides have never met their husband-to-be or the men are up to thirty years older. Indeed, Bess and I know of a 17 year old Toureg girl, named Fatti, married to Toureg man in his 40's, named Mamadu. Anyway, when the bride reaches the house of the groom their is a quick religious ceremony, some readings from the Quran, and that's it. But keep in mind that Bess and I haven't attended a ceremony like this yet, only Natalie has, for her the ceremony seemed to happen spontaneously, unexpectedly, and Natalie felt "freaked out" and sorry for the girl who was, indeed, crying the entire time they drove her across the city of Bamako.

2. The second ceremony is a large one, a massive feast, a musical concert, an endless dance, a time of giving money, giving thanks, saying prayers, a time full of joy and laughter. So what's the problem from an American point of view, well... the bride and groom do not attend the celebration. That's right... they are "too ashamed" that so many friends and family would gather in their honor so they do not attend in order to be humble. It would be dishonorable for a bride and groom to attend their own wedding.

The Wedding Ceremony From Jared's Perspective:

The night before the wedding our compound was full of people tuning tihardants and tightening drums (Touregs only put their drums together immediately before use, they also keep the leather wet with water during play, it really does make a deep and powerful sound this way), like I said... it is the Inhardents who run the ceremony which the Bride and Groom don't attend. The next day we got to the ceremony and I was immediately separated from Bess and the other PC girls, I sat in a tent-like-thing with Amano (Host Father), Muso (Tartit singer), language translators (Elmedhi and Abdalla), and many more Toureg Men... all eating meat right off the carcass with our hands... Amano took me around and proudly introduced me to the Toureg "Bosses" of Bamako, they sat around on the ground-rug-thing with their fat bellies, stiff, strict and powerful postures and they seemed to talk that "Big Guy" talk, I sat in the corner of the tent-like-thing and felt like I was lost in time because everyone was wearing robes, most people were wearing their turbans (including me), and nobody was "white" or speaking English. Later I joined the girls and the celebration but was immediately forced into dancing... this was expected by everyone because I am the son of Amano and thus I, Iknet, am an Inhardent who is equally responsible for partaking in the duties of the celebration. As it turns out, I am a very fine Toureg dancer. The girls and I got worried that we were receiving to much attention and that the Bride and Groom would feel "left out" of their own wedding or "deeply hurt" and it was only after we asked where the Bride and Groom were that we discovered the truth of their absence... we were then discouraged for the rest of the celebration. At one point, the ceremony took an interesting turn and people would randomly enter the center of the dance floor and throw money into the crowd, people then collapsed on the ground to gather it into a collecting pile. I assumed that the money was for the Bride and Groom and I started feeling a little bit better because I thought "Oh, it's like a nice fund-raiser in which people gather, have a great time, and raise money to financially support the newly-weds, this sounds a little bit better". No, Sorry, this is not the case, as it turns out the money is collected and split up by the inhardents for putting on the wedding, the Bride and Groom don't get a dime (or Tokayat). Amano Ag Issa (host father) thought it was hilarious when I assumed that the money was going to bride and groom.

O.K. what else did I learn from this Toureg wedding, oh yeah, Toureg woman usually dance sitting down, men do a really cool break-dance-thing, my host brother Abdalla is very good at the break-dance-thing and my host mother Faddimatta keeps an excellent beat on the drum, Amano Ag Issa is an all-around-hoot and Tartit looks amazing in their dress...

Anything else... oh yeah... wearing a Robe and Turban all day in the city of Bamako while dancing and dancing for hours without water (because I forgot my bottle of filtered water) is not too bad, but God would I love to run and dive naked into the Arctic Ocean afterwards.