The Wedding

One evening I was listening to Nora Jane Struthers and relaxing in my little bure when I saw Iliana walk up.  After putting away the iPod and dispensing with the usual greetings she invited me to her wedding two days later.  It was nice of her to come by, I thought, but I was already planning on going to the triple wedding that was the talk of the village.  What shocked me was when she asked me to “stand next to me at church.”  She was asking me to be her bridesmaid.  I was flattered, surprised and of course I accepted.  She asked for a jaba (the top of the common women’s dress) so she could make us matching outfits for the party and said not to worry – she would take care of everything.

Trying on the tapa

In the morning I wasn’t quite sure what to do, so I wandered over to Iliana’s house around nine and found the bride to be sitting with a large group of women fashioning salusalus or flowered garlands for everyone in the wedding parties to wear.  I asked if I could help with anything and I was lead outside to the shed where ladies were sitting around cooking for lunch and was put to work slicing long-beans with a razorblade.  Although I have experience cooking for large groups, this razorblade thing was new to me and I promptly cut the tip of my finger (not badly).  When we finished the beans I was whisked back to the house where ladies were arranging the gifts of mats, pillows and mosquito nets in one room and kneeling on the ground folding tapa a cloth made from mulberry bark and printed with traditional designs.  The tapa were pleated, folded over a length of old cloth and tied around the waist like a skirt. 

Cutting veggies with razor blades

Ladies arranging wedding gifts in Iliana's house

When everything was ready the old women dressed the grooms and groomsmen in the tapa and adorned them with the salusalus and sprinkled sandalwood on their hair.  All of the grooms were from the same extended family – which is why they were all getting ready together – the other two brides were from other families and were preparing in other areas of the village.  The old women dressed Iliana and me, too.  I felt conspicuous.  Not only was I the only white person, but I was wearing a bright pink dress Iliana had lent me when everyone else was in white, and I wasn’t wearing the full tapa like the others, but they told me it was fine.  And I was thrilled to be taking part so it didn’t really matter.

Kitione getting tapa put on him

The boys in their tapa

Iliana and I all dressed up

As we started to the church I handed off my camera to Nasa, a boy from a nearby village whom I trust a little more than the others because he is smart and talkative, always smiling and wants to be a pilot.  It turned out to be a good bet – I got lots of great photos.  I was only concerned with acting appropriately like a good bride’s maid.  The only problem was that I had no idea how a good bride’s maid is supposed to act in the US or in Fiji so I was trying to watch the other girls and do what they did.  This lead to me making furtive glances around at the party while we were standing at the front of the church and probably made me look even more odd.  I did realize that I wasn’t supposed to have my shoes on and then desperately tried to kick them behind me.  Mostly I tried to be comforting, supportive and cheerful.

Outside the church

In the church

Vows

As the wedding progressed I could feel myself sweating profusely.  It was a very hot, humid day with no breeze and the tapa and salusalu must have added about 10 degrees (Celsius!).  By the time the talatala had finished the vows for the first two couples (same stuff you hear in the states: in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, etc.) I knew something was wrong with me – my knees were weak and I was getting nauseous.  I needed a fan or something.  I remember putting my hand on Iliana’s shoulder to ask her for her fan, but the next thing I knew three pairs of hands were grabbing me and setting me down on a bench.  I fainted in the middle of the wedding!  The old women took off my tapa and salusalu and started fanning me.  Out of nowhere a cup and bottle of water appeared.  I was all right and the wedding was going on, but I was mortified.  Iliana told me not to worry. 

Everyone wondering what's going on with me

Just barely consious

Feeling better not that I'm sitting down

After signing the legal documents and shaking hands with a hundred or so people, we headed back to Iliana’s house to change into our matching sulu jabas and head to lunch.  There was a big table set up for the wedding parties, with chairs and silverware and cups and all the things that you might take for granted in the states but actually rarely have when dining in Fiji.  We had bowls and plates of all the best food – including pork ribs – to choose from.  Everyone else took turns standing at long counters and consuming a steady stream of food from plates that the women served already heaped with an assortment of the usual Fijian feast foods: fish, taro root, beef chop suey, stewed beef, stewed pork, chicken curry, and more fish and taro root.  I had never had such good pork in the village!

Nasa - my awesome photographer

With lunch over – I thought we would head straight to the various sheds around the village that had been decorated for drinking grog (kava) and dancing to music blasting from boom boxes, but there was another matter to attend to first, the dowry ceremonies.  Iliana’s had been done before the wedding day, but the other two brides had to be formally given to the grooms’ family along with all of their possessions.  First came Salote, whose family is from the same village and didn’t have to come very far.  She was accompanied by a huge wooden chest full of chinaware, blankets, mats, pillows, even a mattress.  Her father presented her, her things and a tabua, a sperm whale tooth on a cord woven of coconut fiber – a very valuable cultural artifact, to the groom’s family and when her family left, Salote stayed in the house.  She and her husband already have their own house, but she told me it was ceremonial for her to stay at the husband’s family’s house.  When Seinimeri came it was a different experience.  Her family is from a different island and it is possible, though unlikely now that the islands are better connected by ferries, that she will never see them again.  Her father cried as he gave her away, again with a tabua, and the groom’s family tried to be comforting and cheerful.  Like Salote, she just stared demurely at the ground as the old men talked.  These days women choose who they want to marry – and these couples had been together and happy for years before the wedding day, but in the past the bride had no say in the wedding besides just saying yes.  It was interesting for me to observe a cultural tradition that is so distinct from the marriages I’d experienced at home.

Dancing with the ladies on the wedding mats

With all of the ceremonies out of the way, it was finally time for the party.  All over the village the sounds of celebration, grog drinking, kava pounding, and music abounded.  I headed, with some other girls, to a party on Salote’s side of the village with the more traditional sigidrigi music played with guitars and ukeleles accompanying soft Fijian voices.  We danced, sang, drank grog and enjoyed the atmosphere until all the grog was gone and then left to sleep away our grog-induced stupor.  A pleasantly Fijian end to an incredibly Fijian day.  I went to bed feeling like a real Peace Corps Volunteer.