clean, wash her from disease and iniquity. Permit her frequently and successfully to bear children. Permit her to see her children’s children. Be a mother to her; love thy daughter.”
After this invocation the bride either plunges entirely into the stream or she is drenched with water, and the remainder of the pure is upset into the river; then all return home in the same order.
On re-entering the house the bride is received by her mother-in-law, who gives her a new name, such as Vechai (the Darling), or Mazai (the Beautiful), or Pavai (the Lucky One), or Tozai (the Healthy), or any other name she prefers. The ceremony is performed as follows: she leads the young wife by the hand to the stove, from which she takes a loaf of bread and strikes her on the head with it, saying: “I call thee Mazai”[1] After this she leads her by the hand to the oven; the daughter-in-law places her hands upon it with the palms downwards, and her mother-in-law feeds her with bread, meat, eggs, and salt, out of hand, in such a way that the bride need not make the least movement, with the words, “Just as the stove never leaves the room, do thou never leave it.”
In the Penza government, on the second day of the wedding, the young wife is again dressed and led by the other girls to a river to fetch water in a large bucket. On their way there they sing songs, and on their return besprinkle each other. The rest of the day is spent in dancing and merry-making.
On the third day of the wedding, prayer is made to Ban azyr ava, goddess of the bath-house, and to Kud azyr ava,[2] when the young wife offers to the first a new oaken
- ↑ In Simbirsk and Penza it is the best man who takes the bride to the stove, and, striking her on the head with a loaf, gives her a new name. Among the Erza a new name is also given to the bride, but on the third day of the wedding.
- ↑ In some places the bride offers to Ban asyr ava and Ved azyr ava by laying money, bread, and salt under the bench in the bath-house for the first goddess, and by throwing them into the water for the other divinity. (Moksha of Nizhegorod).
