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I was going to write about The Wedding of the Dead an anthropological account of life in a village in Romania during the late 70's and early 80's under communism. But first I wanted to mention an article I saw on the BBC about Romanian children living on the streets. I remember when the iron curtain fell and pictures of children in Romanian orphanages were flooding the tv screen. Today there was an article about the large numbers of children living on the streets, and under them in steam tunnels, huffing glue to kill the hunger pains and getting raped, sold into prostitution and generally living squalid horrible and unspeakable lives. It seemed miles and miles away from the world of ritual and cherished children, whose lives were often short but were always valued in the descriptions given in the book. When I finished the book I was wondering how life had changed for these people since the book was written 20 years ago. Now it just seems another of the world's many tragedies. An anthropologists role is to observe and try and portray what they see about a culture and the human race. But sometimes I just feel a greater social responsibility to do something more meaningful and less clinical. I do still want to write about the book I read though. I really enjoyed it, it was full of beautiful and sad poetry. But I think that will have to be a separate post.
The wedding of the dead by Gail Kligman is a look at life in a small village in Transylvania in the late 70's and early 80's. The anthropologist spent a year and a half living in the village and documented their life cycle rituals, in particular their wedding, funeral, and weddings of the dead ceremonies.
Kligman started by discussing the three day weddings celebrated in the village. It appeared that most weddings were love matches in the village, however arrangements were still need to be made between families. There was a strong patrilineal and patriarchal structure to the village and this was displayed throughout the wedding ceremonies. Marriages were viewed as hard, and domestic violence was common, brides often cried at many points during the wedding. The bride was viewed as the central figure in the weddings, she was looked on as sold by her mother, and the weddings were set up to frequently remind the bride of her lower position and her change in status, many sexual jokes were made at her expense during later parts of the ceremony.
After the church ceremony the bride and groom returned to their respective houses for a dinner, later in the night the groom's party came over to the bride's house to abduct her, and a silly play called the song the hen took place. Where there would be a mock barter for the bride, represented by a hen. During this part they talked about underwear. It was amusing to me as they considered underwear to be rude and sexual, the opposite of modesty, as I was raised to believe. It presented the idea that sex needed to be concealed. The woman's argument included the idea that you can't pee discreetly when you are wearing underwear.
In this patriarchal society women, who had little power, were the gender of death. They could give life and take it away. In the poetry about death she was always referred to as a woman, sometimes as an old crone, sometimes as a young temptress. Unfortunately I know next to nothing about Eastern Europe mythology so don't know if it's common in that are to view death as a woman. I've only ever seen representations of death as a man before, Neil Gaiman's comics none with standing. I thought it very interesting though that in a culture where a woman's role was seen as lower and inferior she would be given the ultimate power over man's lives. I'd really like to find out if more research has been done on the aspect of death as a woman. I think it's a fascinating image.
Weddings of the dead were done for children, mainly adolescents who died before they were able to get married. They were done to appease otherwise vengeful spirits. It was believed that everyone should get married and no one should be denied this even if they died. Girls who died unmarried were said to have "chosen a husband", this was different to live girls getting married who were chosen to marry by their mother in law. Death gave a woman a choice she did not have in life. The laments at the wedding of the dead for the girls often considered her to be lucky to be marrying. Girls were married to a heavenly bridegroom, part of the church of God, and therefore were seen not to have to worry about being beaten or abused. Boys were married to an actual living girl in the village. But she was able to remarry to a living man as in the eyes of the village it didn't count as a real marriage as it couldn't be consummated. One girl had a death wedding and then seven weeks later married a living bridegroom.
The patriarchal structure of the village was also changing during the time that Kligman studied them. Communism had made it so that most of the men in the village had to earn their living through seasonal migrant labor. As a result the village consisted of mainly women, old men and children. The women taking the lead in daily lives as the functional heads of households while the men were away. The men said that it was very hard for them to fit back into their homes when they returned. This is something else that I would be interested in seeing how it had changed after the fall of communism.
The ending of the book contained appendices of poetry taken from the weddings and funerals and death weddings. Also it had poetry about life in the village, changing times and the nuclear threat. And was probably the most powerful part of the book.
I realized reading this book that I know very little about Eastern European culture, particularly Romania / Transylvania. But it made me want to learn more.
Kligman started by discussing the three day weddings celebrated in the village. It appeared that most weddings were love matches in the village, however arrangements were still need to be made between families. There was a strong patrilineal and patriarchal structure to the village and this was displayed throughout the wedding ceremonies. Marriages were viewed as hard, and domestic violence was common, brides often cried at many points during the wedding. The bride was viewed as the central figure in the weddings, she was looked on as sold by her mother, and the weddings were set up to frequently remind the bride of her lower position and her change in status, many sexual jokes were made at her expense during later parts of the ceremony.
After the church ceremony the bride and groom returned to their respective houses for a dinner, later in the night the groom's party came over to the bride's house to abduct her, and a silly play called the song the hen took place. Where there would be a mock barter for the bride, represented by a hen. During this part they talked about underwear. It was amusing to me as they considered underwear to be rude and sexual, the opposite of modesty, as I was raised to believe. It presented the idea that sex needed to be concealed. The woman's argument included the idea that you can't pee discreetly when you are wearing underwear.
In this patriarchal society women, who had little power, were the gender of death. They could give life and take it away. In the poetry about death she was always referred to as a woman, sometimes as an old crone, sometimes as a young temptress. Unfortunately I know next to nothing about Eastern Europe mythology so don't know if it's common in that are to view death as a woman. I've only ever seen representations of death as a man before, Neil Gaiman's comics none with standing. I thought it very interesting though that in a culture where a woman's role was seen as lower and inferior she would be given the ultimate power over man's lives. I'd really like to find out if more research has been done on the aspect of death as a woman. I think it's a fascinating image.
Weddings of the dead were done for children, mainly adolescents who died before they were able to get married. They were done to appease otherwise vengeful spirits. It was believed that everyone should get married and no one should be denied this even if they died. Girls who died unmarried were said to have "chosen a husband", this was different to live girls getting married who were chosen to marry by their mother in law. Death gave a woman a choice she did not have in life. The laments at the wedding of the dead for the girls often considered her to be lucky to be marrying. Girls were married to a heavenly bridegroom, part of the church of God, and therefore were seen not to have to worry about being beaten or abused. Boys were married to an actual living girl in the village. But she was able to remarry to a living man as in the eyes of the village it didn't count as a real marriage as it couldn't be consummated. One girl had a death wedding and then seven weeks later married a living bridegroom.
The patriarchal structure of the village was also changing during the time that Kligman studied them. Communism had made it so that most of the men in the village had to earn their living through seasonal migrant labor. As a result the village consisted of mainly women, old men and children. The women taking the lead in daily lives as the functional heads of households while the men were away. The men said that it was very hard for them to fit back into their homes when they returned. This is something else that I would be interested in seeing how it had changed after the fall of communism.
The ending of the book contained appendices of poetry taken from the weddings and funerals and death weddings. Also it had poetry about life in the village, changing times and the nuclear threat. And was probably the most powerful part of the book.
I realized reading this book that I know very little about Eastern European culture, particularly Romania / Transylvania. But it made me want to learn more.
.