CHERAN: a sierra TARASCAN village — BEALS 



183 



of the groom. To the mother and the godmothers of 

 the groom are given 5 or 10 centavos each. The form 

 of presentation is always the same; the money is placed 

 in a china plate covered with a cloth. The recipient 

 tips the plate so the money slides into her hand with- 

 out the amount being visible to anyone else. The 

 recipient shakes the hand of the donor and in the case 

 of the mother, who is standing, curtseys. Sometimes 

 money is given to the males in lieu of cigarettes. If 

 the family is large, the godmothers and the mother may 

 receive from 8 to 15 pesos. Shortly after the arrival 

 of the bride's party, the parents and uncles of the bride 

 and groom, and sometimes other relatives, all enter the 

 kitchen. There the marriage manager performs a 

 ceremony (described on p. 103) by which all become 

 compadres.^ 



The father of the groom now orders the distribution 

 to all the relatives of the bride [and in observed wed- 

 dings, to everyone present] of one piece of bread each. 

 The bread was prepared in advance and is an obligation 

 of the father. This is called the (<Af Aki t'iren^kua. Or- 

 dinarily these pieces are in the form of a crown which 

 we call kanakua. [The conpacb-es or brothers of the 

 groom's father help him with the distribution, handing 

 him a piece of bread which the father himself usually 

 hands to each guest on a lacquered tray (pi. 7, upper 

 right). The order of events in the account here does 

 not coincide with any wedding witnessed. The distri- 

 bution of bread usually came after the exchange of 

 clothing and bread described below. Only if there 

 were to be little or no clothing exchange or dancing 

 would the distribution of bread be this early in the pro- 

 ceedings. The time of distribution is regarded as 

 indicating the probable length of the wedding; the later 

 it is distributed, the longer the wedding will last. In 

 the case of the latest distribution observed, the wedding 

 lasted 3 days. Similarly, the beginning of the drinking 

 usually did not take place until the clothing and bread 

 exchange was well under way.] 



When this act [the distribution of the bi'ead] was 

 finished, they begin to bring out the bottles of charanda 

 and all begin to drink until they are quite drunk. It 

 should be noted that only the relatives of the groom 

 have the right to buy and carry liquor, the relatives of 

 the bride drinking what is offered them [which is 

 abundant. The person who produces a bottle drinks 

 from it first.] While they are drinking, at the same 

 time they are making the exchange of the clothing and 

 bread in the following form. 



All of the women relatives of the bride such as the 

 maternal and paternal aunts give clothing to the uncles 

 and aunts and other relatives (of the groom) as well 

 as the parents, who are those who receive the best 

 clothing. These in their turn in recompense return 

 bread in a quantity not more than $1.50 and not less 

 than $1.00, while the musicians are playing regional 

 tunes and jarahcs and others are dancing. [For a 

 somewhat different sequence of events with some addi- 

 tional details, see the account of the Sanchez wedding 

 below.] In a word, there is a very great movement. 

 5!)6569— 4G 13 



[Each person giving a garment presents it to a relative 

 of the groom who had given bread to the person at the 

 ceremony 8 days after the pardon.] In another 

 locality the same acts are being performed by the others 

 who have a separate group of musicians. These are 

 the brothers and grandparents of the bride and groom. 

 Comes a moment when the groom is taken by the arms 

 and they hang about his neck bags and tortilla cloths 

 (servilletas) . The groom is made to dance to two 

 tunes. With this he leaves [the brothers, cousins and 

 grandparents] and the remainder continue drinking 

 and dancing until it is late and time to leave, only the 

 bride remaining in the house of the groom, with which 

 ends the events of the day of the wedding. 



The following day is another small fiesta called the 

 kauijanc'kua. On this day it is an obligation of the 

 parents of the groom to go to give thanks to the god- 

 parents of baptism and of the marriage in their houses, 

 accompanied by their closer relatives, making their 

 thanks concrete by all getting drunk in the house of 

 these godparents. On the other hand the brothers, 

 sisters, cousins of both sexes, and grandparents of the 

 bride hire musicians and go to the house of the groom 

 to wash all the pots used the previous day, which is an 

 obligation of the bride, although actually it does not 

 result this way as they arrange to drink charanda and 

 very few pots are washed. When they are all good and 

 drunk again, celebrating this drunkenness among the 

 cousins, brothers, and grandparents of the bride and 

 groom, the marriage events end. As a regular thing 

 there has been an expenditure of between 200 and 300 

 pesos for all the parts of the marriage ceremony, which 

 must be paid by the father of the groom. [Written by 

 P. Chavez, Cheran, Michoacan, October 10, 1940.] 



The foregoing account represents the 

 thoughtful view of a Cheran wedding as seen by 

 an intelligent and well-informed native resident 

 of the town. As is to be expected, certain 

 aspects of the celebration are overlooked. 

 Some of these have been inserted in brackets 

 in the account given above; others will be 

 added below. The Chavez account also pre- 

 sents a slightly different order from that 

 observed at several weddings. In all proba- 

 bility the Chavez account is in part somewhat 

 inaccurate in its order; very likely it also 

 represents an expression of one of several 

 possible arrangements. Some weddings are 

 much more elaborate than the generalized de- 

 scription, while others are much simpler. 



The most elaborate wedding during the time 

 of the study was that of Samuel Sanchez, son of 

 Antonio Sanchez, a well-to-do farmer with a 

 large number of relatives (pi. 6, left, center). 

 The most significant points are discussed below. 

 Samuel stole his bi'ide about the middle of July, 



