© 2018 Dr Margaret Sheppard

Arrival of the Bride at her Husband’s Home

Bringing the Bride to her new home

Relatives of the groom collect early at his home. The houses will already have been re-plastered and mud walls redecorated, and the yard and houses will be scrupulously cleaned. The men will slaughter the beast (or beasts) in the kraal -for a Setswana wedding this is usually goats or sheep. Then the men cook the meat for the feast in the kraal.

The women will prepare the other food to be cooked - samp, rice, porridge, salad etc. Pots and food are usually protected by the family's traditional doctor with medicated water. The doctor sprinkles the beast(s), food and pots, to protect them against poisoning by sorcery.

While they are awaiting the bride's arrival, the groom's married female relatives will be practising singing traditional songs- "warming up" - for the arrival of the bride. Other people who have gathered to watch the arrival of the bride ululate loudly. As the bride arrives, her procession continues to sing their sad song, whilst the relatives of the groom are singing joyful, lively songs and ululating. The married men in the meantime will be sitting on their Kgotla chairs in the Kgotla.

As it is announced that the procession with the bride is arriving these women will gather outside the entrance of the groom's home. Some will hold hoes, others stempers and kikas, brooms, threshing sticks, rakes, axes - each woman pretending to be doing a job with these tools, singing all the time. One woman will be lying on the ground wrapped in a blanket and wearing a scarf like a Motsetsi (woman in confinement) holding a piece of wood wrapped up like a baby, she may even have a bowl and be pretending to drink soft porridge (as is drunk by Batsetsi). Each of these women are representing the different roles and jobs that are expected of the new bride as a married woman.

As the bride's procession enters the groom's yard, the women are shown to the lolwapa of the house of the groom's mother. The bride's possessions are unloaded into the house by the groom's female married relatives. Each of the bride’s possessions is carefully noted and witnessed by the married female relatives from both the bride’s and groom’s side.

As each woman is unloaded, she sits with the bride's female married relatives inside the lolwapa on one side. (The bride's relatives in the weddings L observed sat to the left of the house's door-way.)  The bride will sit in the middle of her female relatives with the wife (wives) of her maternal Uncle(s) next to her. Her mother of course, is not present. The groom's female married relatives will sit on the other side of the lolwapa.

All the women must sit down properly like women sit, either with their legs straight out or to one side. They are not allowed to stand up or to squat as those positions are believed to make the bride feel unsettled and want to go away. Then as they are sitting like this the "Motsetsi" brings the "baby" to the bride and hands it to her. She kisses the "baby" and then cuddles it inside her blankets like a real baby.

Then all the women enter the house of the groom's mother, where the bride in front of all the women taking part is given the "laws of marriage". Only married women may witness this part. In fact unmarried women, men, divorcees, recent widows and those with unhappy marriages are not even allowed to enter the lolwapa of the house during this part of the marriage. These "laws" are never told to unmarried people, but I was informed that the new wife is told her duties towards her husband, his mother and his other relatives. She is warned about the terrible consequences to her husband of her being unfaithful (i.e. her unfaithfulness will cause her husband to have an accident or become very ill etc.)

This law-giving continues until sunset when the bride is taken to her new house and shown where to sleep. The groom’s Malome brings the groom and they are "put to bed" in front of witnesses and later consumate the marriage. Presumably before they are "put to bed" inside their house, the couple are protecteded by a traditional doctor - their "bloods are joined" (Pauw describes this custom among the Batlhaping, where it is called go apaya banyadi (to cook the bridal couple). He says they both kneel with the upper parts of their bodies uncovered. The doctor then sprinkles the couple with medicated water and then makes incisions on the outer sides of their wrists, he then rubs black medicine in these from a lenaka, and then they both drink tshitlho. I do not know the Bangwaketse method as it is secret.)

The other people retire to enjoy the feast and the beer, then the bride's relatives return in a procession to the bride's Kgotla. As a certain amount of beer will have been consumed, they are usually singing loudly!

Bride shown her new house

This sage usually follows the next day when  certain relatives of the bride, such as her maternal Uncles’ wives  and maternal and paternal aunts, will be called to the groom's home, and in front of his similarly related female relatives, the bride will be shown her house and the possessions her husband and his family are providing for her. In the event of a later divorce or separation she may not be entitled to keep these things, or her family may be called upon to replace them if they are found to be missing. Her things that were brought in her procession are also noted.

Nowadays all these possessions are often officially noted and itemised in a note book (an inventory!). Both sets of relatives are witnesses to this. The groom's senior maternal Uncle’s wife will be the one responsible for showing the bride her possessions.

First days in her new home

On rising on the first day at her new home the bride will help sweep the house and the lolwapa and start to assume her duties as a daughter-in-law (fetching water, cooking, etc.). One or two of her younger sisters may come to live with her to keep her company and help her in her work. Also her children, if she already has any, will live with her.

Throughout the wedding, the women of various dikgotla related to the bride and groom will brew traditional beer. When it is ready they take it to the respective home (bride's relatives to bride's home, and groom's relatives to groom's home). The men of the kgotla lead and the women follow in a line behind. Each woman carries some of the beer in a white bucket with a lid (these buckets are always used to carry the wedding beer). As they near the home of the wedding they may sing, and the women of the home, on seeing the arrival of the beer, start to ululate. The beer party then remain at the home to help drink the beer, and are usually served with light refreshments.

New brides usually wait about two weeks before going to visit their own homes. According to Schapera, among the Bakgatla, when a bride makes her first visit to her mother's home after her marriage she is formally escorted by one of her husband's aunts for her first afternoon or evening visit to her own home. I did not see evidence of this, but did see a bride making her first visit to her own home with one of her husband's sisters.

After this first visit she is free to visit her own home at any time, although apart from when she has her first confinement she will not usually sleep there. Her children will of course frequently visit their maternal grand-parents and stay with them. When there are several children one or two may go to live for some years with their maternal Uncles to help his wife. It is not uncommon for a child to be "given" to its maternal grand-parents to "look after them in their old age" when all their own children may have grown up. Several of my students lived with maternal grandparents or with a maternal Uncle . There is a very close link to which are attached many rights and obligations, on both sides, between children and their mother's Kgotla. The whole of the relatives in that Kgotla are usually referred to by an individual as his Bo~Malome (maternal Uncles).