290 Marriage Customs of the Bedu and Fellahin.
the bridegroom brings on a horse, or possibly the head of the lamb which has been slaughtered for the evening meal. This meal may also be of a sacrificial nature, especially if the young pair are to inhabit a new house, in which case the animal is killed on the threshold,^^ and the blood is sprinkled on doors and windows, — if the people are Christians, in the form of a cross. If no such sacrifice is made before occupying the new house, Azrael will claim his victim, — one of the occupants must die. The bride- groom, however, generally takes his bride to his mother's home ; unfortunately mothers-in-law have earned the same reputation in the East as elsewhere.
Music is always an important feature at a wedding. The guest is expected to offer a coin to the musicians. In the course of the evening the wedding gifts are offered to " the friend of the bridegroom," (St. John, iii. 29), who is master of the ceremonies during the whole day. He is seated on the floor of the bridegroom's house, with a cloth in front of him into which the gift is dropped after being announced. The same guest will give his offering a part at a time, (as who should give half a crown in sixpences), for the sake of hearing his name proclaimed again and again, and his generosity lauded. The amount is often greatly exaggerated in proclamation.
The real amount is, however, noted, and the same sum will be returned to the giver on any future occasion when it is his turn to be the recipient. This reduces the question of " presents " so definitely to an affair of loans that the custom is dying out among the well-off. We lately received an invitation from a townsman with the post- script " No compliments." Then comes the evening meal, served on the ground. Honoured guests may be provided with spoons.
The bride meanwhile receives her guests in her own
^^ H. H. Spoer, Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. xxv., pp. 312-13, vol. xxvii., p. 104.
