184 



INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY — PUBLICATION NO. 2 



and the wedding occurred on August 17. On 

 August 16 the women of the household, aided 

 by relatives, soaked and washed between 5 and 

 6 fanegas of maize for tamales and tortillas. 

 Also, a beef was killed, cut up, and placed in 

 the storage loft. The evening of the same day 

 new clothing v/as taken to the groom by the 

 bride's relatives, and he was dressed, everything 

 but his pants being changed in the patio. The 



groom's house, where breakfast was served. 

 The godmother of baptism and the godmother 

 of the wedding were seated on mats in the patio 

 with the bride at the right hand of the god- 

 mother of baptism (pi. 7, right, center; fig. 18). 

 Both received gifts of ribbons and coins, but 

 only the godmother of the wedding had the 

 paper ornaments on sticks placed in her hair 

 (pi. 7, lower right). When breakfast was 



POI?CH 



B/JriD 



Figure 18. — Arrangement of the principal actors in a Tarascan wedding. 



W/TH 







dressing should be done by a male first cousin 

 of the bride. (Agustin, for example, dressed 

 the groom when the daughter of his mother's 

 sister was married.) 



The wedding in church took place at about 

 4 a. m. So early a wedding is unusual, partly 

 because it costs more, but the Sanchez family 

 obviously planned to make the most of the 

 wedding. The bride was dressed in new cloth- 

 ing before the wedding. After the wedding the 

 bride and her party went to her parents' house. 

 Between 10 and 11 o'clock they returned to the 



finished, the bride and her relatives returned 

 to her house. 



A group went out with the musicians and 

 brought back a large quantity of bread. On 

 such trips with the musicians a direct route is 

 never followed, particularly on the return, but 

 a circuitous route is taken to display the bread 

 and the crowd to as many as possible. As soon 

 as the bride's relatives had left, dinner began 

 to be served to the relatives of the groom, the 

 men eating under the shed separately from the 

 women. The bread was put on a table deco- 



