MARRIAGE IN THE DAYS OF MY GRAND FOREFATHERS!
MARRIAGE IN THE DAYS OF MY GRAND FOREFATHERS!
Marriages and death rites were the most important social activities of my people, such that the level of respect paid to a mourning family, or one where a marriage union takes place is always reciprocated with an equal or worse attitude. The rites and relevance is a vast discussion, enough to produce a large volume. I will briefly run through the issue of the marriage process and also make a remote effort to link my ancestors with technology, back then. Like most of my myths on my people, the Tangale's of Kaltungo, my sources are from oral discussions with elderly people.
As sacred as marriage may seem to be in some cultures and now in most religions, in the past, the marriage institution was not a serious thing among my people as it is today, because nearly all marriages were not stable then, as the women are always at liberty to leave their husband's home for their Parent's, or to another man's house to be his wife. It is for this reason that most of our grandparents have either the same mothers and different fathers or the other way round.
The marriage feast is often looked forward to, because the processes from the indication of interest (engagement), to the payment of the bride price (wula), up to the marriage feast involved a sort of feasting. The first process is the introduction, which is normally by an elder from the intending groom's family, mostly an uncle, who approaches the intending bride's parents to tell them they have seen something good in their house and would like the two families to be united in marriage. The girl will be called upon and asked if she recognized the visitors and if she is aware of their mission. If her response is in the affirmative, the emissaries will go back and report that the mission was successful. After that, two or three people will be sent to the intended bride's family to discuss a date for the declaration of intent or engagement (shaan adau). When the date for the engagement is fixed, the groom's party will return and inform their family members. The process of engagement involves a little bit of feasting on both sides. On the man's side, on the day that is set for the preparations, the women of the clan will gather in the man's family compound where they will fry and grind the adau (beniseeds). During the grinding, food and drinks will be available, there will be singing and gossips. At the girl's place, after receiving the adau, all the matured male members of her clan will assemble at the clan's grove to eat the engagement or bribe food which also includes a large male goat that the men will cook and eat. Only married men are properly served when this special food is being eaten. The bachelors are given the leftovers. Also a portion of the beniseed will be given to the intending bride and her mother, which they will share with their friends and relatives. A total of three chickens is added, being part of the token, as the portion for the mother, but well to do suitors often substitute the chickens with a female goat. The engagement price is non refundable and it is the part that my forefathers are more interested in, such that at the sacred grove where the food is eaten, the commonest prayer then is "may the ancestors turn her heart soon to run to another man, that we may feast upon another goat".
After the 'shan adau' comes the payment of the bride price, which is refundable and without feasts. Here two or three elders of the suitor's clan will go with the bride price, usually two goats, a male and female with one chicken and a fixed amount of money. The size of the male goat is sometimes argued over and eventually accepted. There are certain clans that request two chickens instead of one, and blankets and salt. When the bride price is accepted, the intendings are said to be married, "wula yaag kerji ". The last part of the bride price is the show of manliness or the ability to be able to take care of the bride by the suitor, which is often exhibited by the groom and his closest friends or members of his clan. In the act, the youths will either build a new hut for the girl's father or they will go to the father in-laws farm, his largest and hoe all of it. When this last act is done, preparations will be made for the wedding feast, after which the bride will move into her husband's hut, always newly built. The bride usually comes with every available cooking/kitchen utensil. Her father will personally carve a bed or pay for one, which she also takes along to make it their sleeping bed. This act is believed to be a blessing, as it will make the marriage fruitful with children.
The people of my tribe were not renown for technology. They were however skilled hunters and mighty warriors. There is no record of smithies in those days and nearly all the weapons and hoes they used were battered for with the Terawa, Jukun and Waja tribes whom most of the trading or commercial activities of the people was done with. There is a myth that says when the forefathers drove the people of Komda out of the present settlement, a man was left behind, who was obviously a custodian of the acts of worship of the Komda people, it is said that when he was captured, he pleaded for his life and offered to teach my ancestors how to care for the mountain gods and most importantly how to make weapons and other implements of iron, because he was a blacksmith. My ancestors are said to have agreed, of which the man integrated with them and fulfilled his promise and married one of their daughters and had his own clan, the "kwalgwari" clan in Lapan. The problem with this myth is that there is no clan or family amongst the original tribesmen, that is reknown for smithying!