No. 36.— 1888.] MARRIAGE CUSTOMS OF THE MOORS. 225 



round, and the priest gives the signal for departure by rising 

 from his place. 



From this time great activity prevails in both houses in 

 preparation for the great event in prospect. The houses 

 are whitewashed, mandapams and pandals are erected, 

 and a tinsel throne is prepared in the bridal chamber. 

 About ten days before the day fixed for the wedding the 

 invitations issue. These do not take the form of the neat 

 and elegant wedding cards so well known to us — anything 

 more tedious and wearisome than the process adopted can 

 hardly be imagined. The bridegroom, arrayed in his best and 

 attended by a large party of friends, is bound to call at 

 every house of every Moor, high or low, within the radius 

 of several miles, and invite its inmates of both sexes in 

 the following terms : " Who is in this house ? " Some one 

 from within— often an invisible old dame — says : "Who are 

 you ? " The spokesman of the inviting party cries out 

 in stentorian tones, "We have come to invite all the males 

 and females inhabiting this house to the wedding of Mira 

 Lebbe, son of Ahamadu Lebbe, of New Moor street, on the 

 night of Monday, the seventeenth of this month of Rajab, 

 and ask all of you to give your attendance early." A single 

 word, "Nallam " ("good "), is frequently the only response ; 

 but in the case of intimate friends or relations quite a 

 different reception often awaits them. In some cases a 

 feast is prepared and partaken of, in some merely a light 

 refection or pdtchoru, &c; but as many of these cannot, 

 for physical reasons, be included in the day's programme, 

 the distribution of these privileged visits is a matter of no 

 small difficulty. It may be imagined that a ten days' pere- 

 grination and a daily surfeit of pdtchoru panikdram 

 and sweetmeats, added to all the worry and trouble incidental 

 to a great Moorish wedding, must be a trial of no ordinary 

 kind ; but placidly, contentedly, and even triumphantly do 

 the victims deport themselves, for there is no variation in 

 the pulse of the Moor, no alcoholic perturbation of his brain : 

 provided his stomach is full he is happy. 



