There are many wedding traditions that are hard on the bride and sometimes, the entire family is swept up into these traditions. Some of these customs are very difficult and some are easy but I think that they should all be easy. When you think about it, wedding are hard enough to prepare for without going through all of these weird traditions that our ancient families made up so that they would have something to laugh about in the afterlife as they watch us running around down here trying to fulfill all of these idiocies. If you ask me, the hardest part about a wedding ceremony should be signing the wedding guest book with the wedding pen. At least most of us do not live in China and are not part of the Tujia peoples.
This ancient tribe of people has a custom that dates back to their ancestor’s, ancestors, ancestors. It is called the crying tradition by outsiders because it involves a lot of crying. To the naked eye, it is just a bunch of people sitting around crying. But if you look closer and listen, you realize that there is a richness and meaning to this custom that is very interesting and thousands of years of customs blended together to make it more unique with each passing generation.
A month before she is to wed, a bride begins to weep. Their weddings revolve around the cycle of the moon so she know precisely when to start. She does not walk around sobbing uncontrollably; she will sit in a designated place alone and for an hour or two every day and weep. Woven into her weeping is a harmony, words, and symbols of words, small singsong phrases that can be picked up by the trained ear. At first, you think it is sad. But after a few weeks of this, you begin to realize that there is a huge range of emotions involved that include sorrow, joy, contentment, hope, loss, and gain, among others yet they are all wound up in a sadness that can only be expressed when crying.
Ten days after she starts this ritual, her mother joins her in her weeping place, which is sometimes a special tent that is set off to the side of the main village. They will cry together from now on. They cry on different notes and have a nice complexity in their rhythms that compliment one another. They sound mournful and yet there is something else behind it. Mother and daughter will cry for an hour or two every day for ten days at which time they will be joined by the rest of the females in her family. They will all cry together until the wedding day.
Now we realize what the meaning behind this wonderful tradition really is. This is the women’s way of ensuring a happy and prosperous marriage. According to their beliefs, and these beliefs are not that much different from many other cultures in the world, there are evil spirits that are jealous of a man and wife starting a life that the spirits, who are dead, can never have. These spirits try to jinx and damage the relationships that we, as humans, form with one another, in particular, love, and weddings. The women cry sorrowfully so that they can beat these evil spirits at their own game.
The premise is a simple one. They cry and weep sorrowfully so the evil spirits think they have succeeded. However, the women are crying about joyful and happy things. They cry for the marriage to be blessed. They cry for the marriage to be prosperous, and they cry for the couple to be happy and have many children together. They fool the spirits by crying prayerfully and they bless the union.
When the entire family of females gets together and harmonizes, their crying it is one of the most beautiful sounds in the world and often the entire tribe will be very quiet at this time so that they can hear what they call “The Crying Song.
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