CHERAN: a sierra TARASCAN village — BEALS 



185 



rated with ferns. The serving of food to the 

 men was done by brothers-in-law of the groom's 

 father. Cigarettes were passed around by one 

 of the groom's uncles. 



About 12 :45 p. m. a second band arrived. 

 While the mother was not occupied she sat on a 

 mat in front of the house where she received 

 coins from guests. The father received ciga- 

 rettes, which were placed beside the altar under 

 the shed until needed, when they were passed 

 about to the guests. After eating, many went 

 to the house of one of the other relatives of the 

 groom where they ate again. The bride's 

 relatives were given dinner at her home by her 

 parents. 



Iris leaves were distributed to the men 

 selected to go for the bride, and they left with 

 the band hired by the groom's father. The 

 godmothers moved under the house porch where 

 they sat on mats. A procession of women came 

 in bearing lacquered trays on their heads filled 

 with fruit and bottles of soda pop. These 

 women were female relatives of the groom who 

 had not helped in the kitchen work. The soda 

 pop was given to the men who had been assist- 

 ing, while the fruit was given to the women 

 assistants. Some of the men fastened quanti- 

 ties of breads and cookies to strings suspended 

 from the roof of the shed where the bride's 

 male relatives would sit again on their return. 



A number of women bearing cornstalks and 

 flowers (cannas, dahlias, and calla lilies) left 

 with the second band and some of the men, 

 including the groom's father. They were going 

 to get bread. 



In the meantime the bride and her relatives 

 arrived. The bride's male relatives went to 

 the shed where they all grabbed at the breads 

 and cookies, each trying to get the most. The 

 female relatives sat in a group in another place 

 (see fig. 18) with the clothing before them 

 arranged to make the greatest possible display. 

 The bride sat beside the godmothers. She was 

 barefoot and accompanied by a small girl. 



The first lot of bread was brought in. The 

 godmothers with the first band, which had 

 returned with the bride, went out into the street 

 to meet the bread. About 15 minutes after 

 this the bride went into the house where she 

 stayed the remainder of the ceremony, accom- 

 pained by a number of younger girls. 



The exchange of clothing for bread now 

 began. The father and mother of the groom 

 were the object of most attention and every 

 effort was made to keep giving them clothing 

 too rapidly for them to remove it. Each donor 

 placed the garment on the recipient. Occa- 

 sionally the father would succeed in getting 

 away and dash into the house where he would 

 remove it all. Despite this, at one time he wore 

 about six shirts and four or five pairs of extra 

 calzones (trousers). Three or four times dur- 

 ing this procedure, the groom came hastily into 

 the courtyard and entered the house to leave 

 the bags (morales) and tortilla cloths he had 

 been given. 



After some exchange had gone on and part of 

 the repayment in bread had been accomplished, 

 a group brought in seven more large baskets of 

 bread. Some of the older women accompany- 

 ing the party brought breads made in the shape 

 of bulls. They rushed about holding the breads 

 between their two hands and pretended to gore 

 others until other women finally seized them 

 and broke them to pieces. These breads in the 

 form of bulls (and sometimes other animals) 

 are provided by the grandparents of the groom 

 but are used only in the period from January 

 until after Carnival according to some inform- 

 ants. However, this was August, so the in- 

 formants must have been in error. 



Before the exchange of clothing and bread 

 was completed, the godmothers began the 

 dancing. No one was supposed to dance until 

 the godmothers began. All the early dancers 

 were women, mostly elderly, dancing by them- 

 selves or in pairs. When the music began to 

 play for a second dance, elderly women with 

 more breads in the shape of bulls began running 

 at various persons standing around and pre- 

 tending to gore them with the animal until they 

 began to dance. 



The dancing was interrupted at this point 

 by the eruption of a group of men and women 

 into the courtyard carrying baskets, cooking 

 pots, comals, water buckets, etc. Two men 

 carried on a pole a huge copper pot in which 

 tamales had been cooked. This group began to 

 dance and everyone cleared a place, primarily 

 because the pots were black. After a time the 

 dancers began to wipe their hands on the sooty 



