A hide-and-seek wedding - Tanzania's "hide-and-seek wedding"
The game of hide-and-seek is not new to anyone, but who has had the experience of playing hide-and-seek at a wedding? Here we will learn about the Tanzanian "hide-and-seek wedding", to see what kind of a custom.
Tanzania's wedding customs are diverse, including the northwest of a tribe called "Dien Ding Ram", its wedding customs are particularly new and strange. In the local Swahili language, this kind of wedding custom is called "Chilalafemida" - "hidden wedding".
On the eve of the wedding, the bride's maiden family sings, dances and bring the bride to the bridegroom's village, but not directly to the bridegroom's home, but to a hidden place in the village to hide the bride. When convinced that the bride is well hidden, the bride's bridesmaids go to the groom's home to report the news, and ask the groom to go looking for. If the groom is lucky enough to find it at once, he can happily welcome the bride into his home. The groom is not alone in his search, but accompanied by two friends and relatives, together to go door to door to find the bride.
Whether the home is hiding the bride or not, neighbors are willing to let the groom and his party into the house to search, and will even feel honored. Because they feel that it is a very lucky thing that their home to be searched by the groom so that they can get some good luck. However, the neighbors must remain silent and not reveal the bride's whereabouts to the groom. Because according to local customs, if the groom is not through their own efforts, but according to the information provided by others to find the bride, it is a "fake marriage", even if the marriage, the two will not be happy in the future. So if someone "kindly" tipped off the groom, not only will he not appreciate it, but he will be very unhappy and may turn against him.
If the groom can not find the bride in the first family, he will go to another family to find, a continuous search for three families. If the bride is not found three times, the woman's relatives will take the bride back to her mother's house and send her back seven days later, so that the groom can search for her again, still up to three families. If they can't find it again, the bride will be picked up again and sent back a week later for "hide-and-seek", and so on and so forth until the groom finds his beloved. Not every groom is so lucky, individual "unlucky" groom may not be able to find the bride for a long time, the wedding will be delayed again and again, sometimes even for several months.
The custom of "hiding the wedding" seems to be a waste of time and energy, but the good thing is that people here are not too busy, more than a few times to find, but also to add some fun to the quiet life. So, the groom looking for the bride does not panic, watching the people are more than happy.