(1) Na Cai is the man who invites the matchmaker to the woman's house to act as matchmaker. After the woman agrees, she sends a messenger to send the goose as a gift and formally asks her to get married. Why give gifts with geese? It is said that because geese are migratory birds, they sometimes move from south to north. In ancient times, it was thought that men belonged to Yang, women belonged to Yin, wild geese flew south to north, and yin and yang were harmonious. The gift of geese symbolized the harmony between yin and yang of a couple. It is also said that the male and female pairs in geese are fixed. When one party dies, the other party will no longer choose a spouse, and the goose as a gift symbolizes the loyalty of love. In a word, taking geese as a gift has a deep meaning and has existed since ancient times. However, the goose carried by the man's messenger is not really given to the woman's house, but the messenger gives it to the woman's father when she goes home, and the woman's father returns it to the messenger when she goes out. In fact, the wild goose only plays a role as a prop in the process of accepting gifts with its symbolic meaning, rather than a specific gift from the man to the woman.
(2) Asking the name is that the messenger sent by the man asks the name of the woman's biological mother after the gift to distinguish whether the woman is a concubine or not, and asks the woman's name, official rank, date of birth, etc. To predict the good or ill luck of marriage after you come back. Asking the name is also a gift from the goose. The woman's family will hold a banquet to entertain the messenger, and then the woman's father will send the messenger out.
(3) After Naji learned the woman's name, he divined in the ancestral hall to predict whether the marriage was auspicious. After getting a good omen, they sent messengers with geese to the girl's house to report good news, which was called Naji. After Najib, the engagement was officially confirmed. Of course, if the man's family has an ominous omen in the ancestral hall, which indicates that the marriage will not succeed, then there is no need to perform the ceremony of Naji again.
(4) Zheng Na is also called Nacheng, which is to give bride price to her. After Najib, the two sides announced their formal engagement, and the man wanted to give the woman's Meng Xuan (Xun) a bundle of silk and Li Li (Li Li) leather as a dowry. The bundle of black silk is five pieces of red, black and light red silk (a bundle of silk is five pieces, so "bundle of silk" can refer to quantity), including three pieces of black wood and two pieces of silk. In ancient times, it was thought that Yang was strange and Yin was even, which symbolized the perfection of Yin and Yang and conformed to heaven and earth. Lippi is a pair of deerskin, which means that spouses are in pairs. In the Zhou Dynasty, Meng Xuan and Lippi were used as betrothal gifts, mainly for their symbolic significance. Later, the bride price was gradually replaced by money and property, so the levy was also called "taking money".
(5) Inviting a day means that after the man chooses the auspicious day for marriage through divination, the angel will still take the goose as a gift to ask the woman for permission. In fact, according to the convention, the date of marriage is decided by the man, and "invitation" is just a kind of modesty, so later generations also call it "notice" directly.
Kissing is the most important ceremony in a wedding. On the wedding day, the groom drove a black lacquer car to the woman's house to marry the bride. There is a candle head in front, followed by two slave cars and a car for the bride. After arriving at the bride's home, the well-dressed bride stood in the room, and the bride's father greeted her at the door and took the groom home. At this point, the groom still gives the goose to the other party, salutes and goes out, accompanied by the bride. Then the groom drives himself and invites the bride to get on the bus, and then a special driver drives on the road instead of the groom. The bridegroom got on the bus and rushed to wait outside his house. When the golden bride arrived, the groom took her into the house, gave a banquet, and carried out the etiquette of * * * marriage supervision.
* * * Prison is the meat that the newlyweds eat after offering sacrifices at the wedding ceremony, which symbolizes the equality between husband and wife from now on. The specific ceremony is to hold a banquet in the southwest corner of the new house, with the lungs and livers of cattle and sheep in the middle and vegetable sauce, meat sauce, millet and pork on both sides. The bride and groom sit opposite each other, first offering millet and lungs, and then eating them together with pork sauce on the lung ridge. So * * * eat it three times, and then do the ceremony. It's a ladle Cut a gourd [robe] into two scoops, one for the bride and groom and one for drinking. * * * Drink it three times and call it a couplet. Cucumber tastes bitter, so does wine with it. Therefore, the wedding ceremony not only symbolizes the combination of husband and wife, but also contains the significance of letting the newlyweds share joys and sorrows. After the bride and groom get married, they will take the leftover food to another room for a banquet. The relatives of the bride will eat the leftover food of the groom, and the wedding guests of the man will eat the leftover food of the bride. This ceremony will be over.
After the wedding banquet was removed, the bride and groom took off their dresses, and the groom personally took off the tassels on the bride's head. The tassel is a kind of silk rope, which is a token to determine the marriage relationship between men and women. Women tie their hair with it after they get engaged, and the groom unties it himself when they get married. Then, the candles in the room were removed and the wedding was completed.
The next morning, the bride wants to see her aunt (that is, her in-laws). At this time, the bride should take a clean bath, put on plain clothes and go to visit her uncle and aunt with a "Christine" full of dates, chestnuts and flowers in her hand. Then, the bride takes out beef, pork and other foods and gives them to her aunt for dinner. At this point, the bride became a full member of the male family.