The next ceremony is called:
The Sending of a Letter and Presents.—After the date for the marriage has been fixed, the bridegroom, about three months before the appointed time, selects a lucky day for sending a communication to his bride, announcing the day chosen for the marriage, which is accompanied by a goose dyed red, a jar of wine, four pigs, four sheep, four ducks, which are all dyed red on the back. The presents vary according to the wealth or position of the families. Four of each kind of animal is the smallest number presented, the usual number being eight of each, but never more than sixteen of each kind. The poorer classes may dispense with sending living animals, and may send only presents of clothes which are sometimes borrowed and afterwards returned. The bearer of the communication is always a very near male relation.
In addition to the above presents, the material for bedding, for the red jacket and green trousers worn by the bride when she enters the bridal sedan, is sent and has to be made up in the bride’s family. Ornaments, clothes, gold and silver head ornaments, a head-dress, are also among the presents; which are brought back with the bride’s trousseau to the bridegroom’s house.
The Marriage Days.—These generally extend over three days, the first day being the one on which the trousseau is sent to the bridegroom’s house, and on the evening of which the bride goes to the bridegroom’s abode at about twelve o’clock at night; the second being the marriage day, on which the friends of the bridegroom are present; and the third, the day on which the mother and friends of the bride go to the bridegroom’s house to partake of the congratulatory feast. Generally now, only two days are necessary for these ceremonies, and in the case of the poor, one day. A master of the ceremonies is engaged, who directs the ceremonial, and whose word is law.
About three days before the “marriage days” invitations to a feast are issued by both families. The relations and
