A CANADIAN SIKH WEDDING AS a CULTURAL PERFORMANCE By
A CANADIAN SIKH WEDDING AS A CULTURAL PERFORMANCE
by
Kuldip Gill
B.A., The University of British Columbia, 1977
A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
MASTER OF ARTS
in
THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES
DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY
We accept this thesis as conforming
to the required standard
THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
February 1982
0 Kuldip Gill In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of my department or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission.
Department of ANTHROPOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY
The University of British Columbia 2075 Wesbrook Place Vancouver, Canada V6T 1W5
Date March 4, 1982
nF_fi 0/7Q) FRONTISPIECE:
THE SHADI ABSTRACT
This thesis presents the first extended description of a
Canadian Punjabi Sikh Wedding. The cultural events prior to, during and after a wedding, in one rural family in British Columbia, are pre• sented as scenes in a cultural performance. In doing this, an attempt has been made to use ideas from the approaches of Clifford Geertz and
Milton Singer. Geertz's notion of 'thick description1 has directed my ethnographic data collection. Singer's idea of cultural performance has given these data a textual form as well as shown me the importance of noting the sequential occurrence of events or concrete social units during the performance of a Sikh wedding. I have explored and commented on Barbara Ward's concept of 'conscious models' in relation to the study of the Sikhs as an immigrant group in Canada.
The significance of this ethnography is its description of one avowedly traditional Sikh wedding which included many rites or event sequences. This attempt at 'thick description' may enable others studying other Sikh weddings to note comparatively the impact of events and processes external to this ethnic group on the institution of Sikh marriage. As well, the internal tensions and pressures for change may be revealed by the way marriages are performed in the future. This thesis, thus, provides a base-line for the comparative study of other
Sikh weddings. While the primary contribution of this thesis is to the body of ethnographic literature, it should also be useful to people and institutions interested in Ethnicity, Social Change, Women's Studies and those interested in immigrant groups. - iii -
As the study of one Canadian Sikh wedding in one family, this
thesis does not present any general conclusions or generalizations applica• ble to the whole of Canadian Punjabi Sikh culture. - iv -
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ABSTRACT iii.
LIST OF FIGURES v.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS vi.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT vii.
INTRODUCTION 1
Footnotes 17
CHAPTER I: THE BETROTHAL (MUNGNA) 18
Footnotes 57
CHAPTER II: THE RITUALS (SAGAN) 63
Footnotes 119
CHAPTER III: THE SHADI (WEDDING) 123
Footnotes 157
CHAPTER IV: CONCLUSION 159
GLOSSARY AND TRANSLITERATION 168
BIBLIOGRAPHY 180
APPENDIX I CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS 183
APPENDIX II A PUNJABI WEDDING SONG (GEET) 185 - v -
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Page
I GENEALOGY OF DARSHAN'S CLOSE KINSMEN 2
II THE CAST OF PERFORMERS 4
III THE RELATIONSHIP OF KINSHIP TERMS TO SPACE 35
IV MAIAN - CAST OF CHARACTERS 66
V PALI - CAST OF CHARACTERS 73
VI THE GROCERY LIST FOR A CANADIAN SIKH WEDDING 76
VII FOOD PREPARATION AT THE TEMPLE - CAST OF CHARACTERS 79
VIII WESTERN WEDDING SHOWER - CAST OF CHARACTERS 93
IX SAGAN, GIDTHA AND WESTERN-TYPE WEDDING SHOWER
- CAST OF CHARACTERS 97 .
X GIDTHA - CAST OF CHARACTERS 107
XI NAI-THOI - CAST OF CHARACTERS 111
XII THE SHADI - CAST OF CHARACTERS 129
XIII THE WEDDING RECEPTION 144 - vi -
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Page
Frontispiece - THE WEDDING PARTY (THE SHADI)
II STIRRING THE LADDU 83
III WOMEN PREPARING FOOD IN THE TEMPLE KITCHEN 85
IV SECOND FLOOR PLAN OF SIKH TEMPLE 12li
V REMOVING THE SEHRA FROM THE BRIDEGROOM 132 SEATED BEFORE THE GURU GRANTH SAHIB IN THE TEMPLE
VI BRIDEGROOM PLAYING TRADITIONAL GAMES WITH HIS 146 SALIS AFTER THE WEDDING - vii -
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I have acquired debts to many people during the course of my graduate career and especially during the research and writing of this thesis. I wish to thank the following:
Dr. Michael M. Ames, my advisor during my graduate school career, for directing, my interest to the study of North India during my undergraduate year and for his supervision, advice and support during my graduate school career. During the writing of this thesis Dr. Ames offered both valuable criticism and advice.
Dr. Cyril Belshaw, a senior member of my graduate committee, for his support and encouragement during my time in graduate school. As I wrote this thesis, I benefited from the exchange with my colleagues in the Post-graduate research seminar directed by Dr. Belshaw.
Dr. Helga Jacobson and Dr. Judy Pugh for their suggestions and criticism as I worked on and wrote this thesis.
Dr. Martine Reid for her friendship and for the opportunities she has given me to learn about the Northwest Coast Peoples.
Stuart Piddocke, my friend, former teacher, and colleague, to whom I am endebted for many years of discussions about anthropology and more recently, for his kindness in reading and offering criticism on this thesis.
My colleagues, Anne-Marie Fenger, Pat Berringer, Pamela Peck (Ormston), and Jeanette Auger. I thank all of my friends, colleagues and teachers at the Department of Anthropology and Sociology and at the Museum of Anthropology for making graduate school a remarkable educational experience.
Jim Rimmer of Pie Tree Press for his kindness in producing the ink drawings for this thesis. I thank Sylvia Chan for typing this thesis.
Especially, my brothers Kal, Stan and Jerry and their families for years of love, support and understanding as I studied.
My family presented in this thesis, for allowing me to record these proceedings, for their help and understanding.
The University of British Columbia, for two teaching assistant- ships, the Provincial Government Department of Labour for support through Y.E.P. grants #2608.01 and #1202-08-01 and the Museum of Anthropology for support through museum assistantships.
Finally, I wish to thank Jim Mcintosh, who is familiar to most of the above as a friend, for his support, encouragement and companionship, prior to and during my university studies.
I wish to acknowledge that any mistakes in this thesis are my own. - viii -
...ethnography is thick description. What the ethnographer is in fact faced with - except when
(as, of course, he must do) he is pursuing the more automatized routines of data collection - is a multiplicity of complex conceptual structures, many of them superimposed upon or knotted into one another, which are at once strange, irregular, and inexplicit, and which he must contrive somehow first to grasp and then to render. And this is true at the most down-to-earth, jungle field work levels of his activity: interviewing informants, observing rituals, eliciting kin terms, tracing property lines, censusing households...writing his journal. Doing ethnography is like trying to read (in the sense of
"construct a reading of") a manuscript.
-Geertz, 1973:9. - 1 -
INTRODUCTION
This thesis is the first extended description of a Canadian
Punjabi Sikh wedding ritual.''" It presents the drama of events before, during, and after the wedding of a Canada raised Sikh woman to an India born Sikh man. The events recorded here are those which struck me as the most significant and vital; events that tell the joy of a family, which reveal the emotions of a young woman during transformation from the single to the married state and which reveal the struggles, both collective and individual, of a family and its members adapting to a new 2 land, while maintaining the values and attitudes of its own culture.
The wedding referred to above and described in the following pages, is that of my cousin-brother's (FBS) eldest daughter (FeBySeD),
Darshan. I am her 'aunt' (FFBD) . Figure I-;, shows the genealogy of our
family (lineage A), and that of Darshan's mother (lineage B). Many of
the women depicted in Figure I have primary roles in the events that
follow. They are the mother, the grandmother (MM), and the aunts
(MBW's) of the bride-to-be. Together, or singly, they officiate in the
rituals and attend the bride during the wedding celebration.
My approach has been influenced by Milton Singer's idea of
"cultural performance". Singer suggests how a performance can be treated
as an operational unit which Is both concrete and observable in the study
of Indian culture. Each cultural performance has a "limited time span,
...an organized program of activity, a set of performers, an audience,
and a place and occasion of performance" (Singer, 1972:65-80). Lineage A Lineage B Lineage C
A,0
OA A = 0 A=0 Masi-j i
' • x 1 6 A=° A=° A=° 6 A A A Kuldip
Ar.j. uri Gurdial O 1 [EGO Sur j it Dave
Darshan Harj it
FIGURE I GENEALOGY OF DARSHAN'S CLOSE KINSMEN
(This chart is generationally correct. It does not include all members of each family). - 3 -
The performance described in this thesis occurs mainly in two centers, the home of the bride and at a Sikh Temple. In the first, the rites are conducted by women, while in the second, a priest is the ritual functionary.
The set of performers are presented in Figure II, with a brief description of their relationship to the bride and their role in the wedding. The audience is treated as part of the cultural performance
I am describing. The activities are organized and they span a period of ten days from the first ritual to the wedding day.
The wedding and associated events are culturally significant to the principal actors and other participants, and these events represent strategies used by Canadian Punjabi Sikhs to maintain their values and beliefs. Thus this thesis is a study of their social organization of tradition, in the sense meant by Redfield (1960:158):
Social organization is the way that people put together elements of action so as to get done something they want done... social organization is described when we account for the choices and the resolutions of difficulties and conflicts that actually went on in one particular situation. (It is) the way in which elements of action are put together in any particular case of trans• mission of culture.
1 present the traditional values of the B.C. Sikhs, the
difficulties posed by their attempts to maintain those values, the ways
choices are made which incorporate traditional values while taking into
consideration the immediate situation in Canada. THE CAST OF PERFORMERS
Name Role
Darshan A twenty-one year old Canadian-born Punjabi Sikh woman, daughter of Arjun and Gurdial. She is a high school graduate currently .working as a clerk-typist in a township approximately eight miles from her farm home. Darshan is 'ego' in this thesis.
Gurdial Darshan's mother, a woman born in village Punjab, now living on a farm in the rural area of the Fraser Valley. She is an attractive woman who takes immense pride in her familial roles. She works during most of the year at a cannery about 25 miles away.
Sur jit Darshan's younger sister. A high school graduate about 19 years of age who lives at home and commutes with her sister to a township nearby, where she works in a bank.
Masi-ji Darshan's maternal grandmother. I call her Masi-ji which is the term used for a mother's sister. She is Gurdial's mother, and grandmother to Surjit and Darshan.
Harjit An India born young man aged about 25 years who is Darshan's prospective groom. He is university trained in the agricultural sciences.
Arjun Darshan's father. A man born in village Punjab, who now owns a small berry farm in the Fraser Valley. He is also employed in the lumber industry.
Kuldip Darshan's '.aunt' (FFBD) . A Canadian Punjabi Sikh Graduate Student in Anthropology, at the M.A. Level, studying North India, the Sikhs in particular.
Others in the 'cast' who have roles to play are three of Darshan's uncles (DMB) and their wives (DMBW). Many other relatives from the patrilineages of her mother and of her father help in the preparations for the wedding and during the wedding. Their roles are minor so are not listed individually.
A number of white friends participate as 'audience' at the wedding and at a shower held in honor of the bride. - 5 -
In Chapter I, I discuss the arrangement of marriages amongst the B.C. Sikhs and the marriage rules which determine who may marry whom. The betrothals of one young woman and her uncle are described.
A description of seven events which preceded the wedding of the young woman is given in Chapter II. I present each event as a scene in a play. For each scene, I set the stage with a few lines
which, if read by a stranger to the culture would..tell her what to anticipate. Frake, in a discussion of the adequacy of description states:
This conception of a cultural description implies that an ethnography should be a theory of cultural behavior in a particular society, the adequacy of which is to be evaluated by the ability of a stranger to the culture (who may be an ethnographer) to use the ethnography's statements as instructions for ap• propriately anticipating the scenes of the society ...The test of descriptive adequacy must always refer to informants' interpretations of events, not simply to the occurrence of events (1972:221).
The wedding performed in the temple, and the events after, are described in Chapter III. Again, the scene is set for the reader using the dramaturgical frame developed in Chapter II.
The units of observation can be identified quite readily because of their centrality and recurrence (Singer, 1973:71). Thus, the events I call sagan (rites) and the shadi (wedding) in this thesis are 'performances', they have a good deal of significance for the performers and the participants. The culture of the B.C. Sikhs is
"...encapsulated in these discrete performances which they...exhibit to visitors and to themselves" (ibid:71).
* * * * - 6 -
One of the primary concerns of this thesis is to show how women play a major part in passing on traditional culture. In much of
the anthropological literature which focuses on the activities of men, women have been depicted as almost perpetually subordinate, their roles underplayed. In this work, I focus on women as participants in and organizers of, ritual activity. I feel a commitment, a responsibility
to make a beginning in the expansion of our knowledge of the roles of
B.C. Sikh women. My intent is to remove them from the category of the visible 'exotic' and to place them as contributors to the Canadian
cultural mosaic.
My observations were constructed from the perspective of a
Canadian Punjabi Sikh woman trained as an anthropologist. Consequently,
I could readily identify the women who performed the rituals and who
directed the activities related to'the wedding. They knew the lore,
the songs, the marriage rules, the recipes, and the strategies involved
in the performance of the wedding. The women may also be viewed as
critics of similar events preceding those they manage; they evaluate
and they attempt to set standards for similar performances in the future.
This is a conscious and deliberate attempt to retain the rich cultural practices which convey the Sikh values to the participants. The older women admonish the younger ones to watch and to take note of everything being done and how it is done, for in the future they will have the
responsibility.
One of the problems I have encountered is how to describe a wedding, as conducted by the Canadian Punjabi Sikhs, and as I observed
it from the dual perspectives of my anthropological and Punjabi
1 - 7 -
backgrounds. In my attempt to bridge these two levels, one of the experience of it, and the other of telling about it, I looked for some form which I could impose on my data. Given my dual perspectives, I made the decision to present the elements and events of what I observed in the way that I appreciated them originally in my field notes, thus keeping the documentary form intact. The relevances I have selected for comment, the concepts and the events, are informed by my 'insider' status (I am related to the bride), and mediated by my anthropological training.
In the construction of this document, I have attempted to keep to the concrete observable units or social events and occasions
I observed. Where past events were of explanatory interest, I have added annotation and background information to make the description more clear.
I have tried to describe what I observed and the circumstances surrounding the observations as thoroughly and as honestly as possible.
Where the event took place in my absence and I have only indirect information about it, I state that is the case, then go on to describe the event. The interest after all, is not only in the description
(although that is primary), but also in the experience presented here of the totality of the events surrounding the wedding. Still, two questions may be asked regarding the validity of the documentation.
First, is it an accurate portrayal of what actually took place? Second, 3 in what ways did my presence alter the events? - 8 -
The first question may best be addressed by the following
discussion of (a) the circumstances which were the genesis of this
thesis, (b) the time span of the fieldwork, (c) the data base, (d) the
method of recording the proceedings, (e) the test for reliability and
(f) a statement of the limitations.
The genesis of this document lies in an experience during
my graduate school career when I, in consultation with my committee, 4
changed my thesis topic. Out of this experience I subsequently, and
hurriedly,embarked upon the fieldwork for this study. The wedding which
is recorded here was imminent. Because it was the wedding of my niece,
I had had more than usual contact with my family (our interaction
because of my years of university work, distance to be travelled, etc.
is usually infrequent). This contact was mainly because I had undertaken
to be the 'aunt' to bake the wedding cakes. Fortunately, I had early
decided to record the wedding events as 'notes for further research'.
These notes enabled me to enter the field work situation with some
background data already at hand.
While the period of some minimal notetaking based on telephone
conversations with my nieces and a number of short visits to their home
began in late 1980, during early February and March, 1981, our contact,
especially by telephonerbecame more frequent. A phone call from Gurdial
in India, to her husband Arjun, saying the groom-to-be was on his way,
suddenly precipitated the wedding celebration and the preparations took
on urgent dimensions. I left Vancouver for the community where the wedding was to take place and remained there for almost a month. The
intensive fieldwork was conducted from April 10, 1981 to May, 1981 - 9 -
(my chronology of events is presented in Appendix I). During that time
I stayed at the home of the bride-to-be or with my younger brother and his family, in a neighbouring town within easy access of her home.
Subsequently, a number of return trips were made to observe and to participate in one final event, and to clarify a few points in the earlier field data.
My data are based on my observations and understanding of the events as a person fluent in the Punjabi language and of a Sikh back• ground. It also consists of my record of conversations which I had with my family, that is with my niece Darshan, who was about to be married, with her younger sister Surjit, with their mother Gurdial, their aunt (MZ), and most importantly with their maternal grandmother who I refer to as 'Masi-ji' (MZ) in this thesis. It was Masi-ji who frequently helped to explain some of the events, undertaking the answering of my questions seriously, with great interest, providing detailed explanations and examples. Other members of both lineages
(shown in Figure I) also contributed to the construction of this work as I made notes of what they had said, what they were doing, and their explanation of both, as I required them.
A few times, the explanations, convoluted with examples and
Punjabi words from another dialect, could not be followed, and they are lost. Some of the conversations which took place amongst several groups at once where I could not be present, are also lost. At other times I could not hear the conversations which were muffled by faces half covered with shawls, so could not record them. These are the normal hazards of fieldwork and do not detract from the worth of a document. - 10 -
Most of the information on which this document is based was recorded in longhand. Some of it, recorded on brief notes during the day, was incorporated that evening into my fieldnotes. From the beginning, I rigorously followed the advice of my supervisor to record 5 the data daily. Every evening, however late I retired, I first completed my field notes, afraid to trust the mass of detail to my memory for even one day. In fact, the commiting to paper of the data every evening became one of the more pleasant things to look forward to, especially as I watched the notes grow into a lengthy, in-depth journal.
At first, afraid to re-read my notes, I did not. Then, when I did, I realized how much of that detail I might have forgotten - it seemed new, as if I was experiencing it for the first time in the words. With this came the knowledge that I would not have captured as much of the events
I observed, had I not recorded them daily.
During the fieldwork, I rarely used a notebook and pencil where I could be observed. On the first occasion that I attempted covertly- to take notes, some of the women eyed me curiously. Gurdial laughingly suggested that the other women may have thought I was keeping an account (asav lainthe ha) of the food items used for the wedding rituals and the communal meal at the temple. Since this is considered to be miserly, I decided it would be best not to provoke such comment.
Often, once I was in my car, I would jot down just a word or two, which would serve later to help me recall the event or concept I was afraid of forgetting. - 11 -
Brief notes were taken during the wedding celebration in the temple. Then too, people watched me, although I thought I was in• conspicuous about it. (My notebook was in my open purse, I had a stub of a pencil and wrote under the fold of my sari.) Given a lengthier period of fieldwork, I think an ethnographer could attempt to make a pencil and notebook a part of herself so that people would be accustomed to the idea.
A tape recorder provided a partial tape of one of the events at the home of the bride. Another tape recording, at the temple, is of such poor quality as to be unusable except to provide an idea of the general noisy ambience in that setting.
No documentation is complete without its author correcting faulty assumptions and stating the limitations of the data. This one is no exception. First, given my Punjabi Sikh background, the reader may assume that I have previously attended a number of Sikh weddings. This is not the case. I have attended two weddings, both during my early teenage years. So, while the proceedings of this wedding were not completely strange, they were remarkable. Especially new to me was the extent to which the ritual events before and after the wedding rites have been elaborated. The spontaniety of occurrence of events and things new to me, asking about them and noting them as well as actively helping to achieve certain ends, so captivated me that a reflective view of them was a contradiction, an impossibility almost, for me.
The urgency with which this work was undertaken - resulted in very few formal interviews- most of the people (including myself) busy with the preparations, had little time to sit and talk for lengthy - 12 -
periods. I worked, observed, asked questions of the members of my particular work group and kept my eye open for the whereabouts of
Masi-ji, one of my aunts or a cousin-sister (FBD) in case I needed an explanation. Then I wrote my fieldnotes, always anxious about the speed with which one forgets the finer detail and the sequence of events. Even so, on more than one occasion I rechecked sequences care• fully.
Finally, in this section I want to state that I have tried- to make this thesis exemplary of 'thick description'. It is not my task here to go into the literature which validates a descriptive work as anthropology. Suffice it to say that I grappled with the problem both in the field as I wrote my fieldnotes and later in the writing of this work. First, in the field I soon realized,as Singer (1972:70) . states that the immediacy of concrete/experiences "...discourage(s) the mind from entertaining and applying the synthetic and interpretative concepts that I had (taken) with me". Later, as I wrote my draft I faced the question of whether or not a descriptive work is an intellectual achieve• ment, a contribution to the field of anthropology. During this grappling,
I added footnotes to my descriptions using the synthetic concepts, discussing colour symbolism, exploring the etymology of Punjabi words, etc. Then, having come to terms with the fact that the effect of these accretions to the main descriptive work was to add confusion and to reduce the very particularity that protracted descriptions are valued for, I removed them along with the use of the made-in-the-academy concepts. The thesis is presented as description which has its own validity. - 13 -
The second question I asked above is how did my presence
change the situation? As a Canadian Punjabi Sikh woman, I participated
in the affairs of my family and tried to fulfill their expectations.
To this degree my presence did change the situation. As an 'insider'
I was aware that I received communication, transmitted it and perhaps unknowingly even changed it in the transmission. The best I could do was to be aware of the possibilities. I could not refrain from giving
advice when I was asked, if it better served the interest of my family
than did the knowledge they previously had. But, I did it now with
reflection about the anthropological tradition and asked myself: Is
this introducing change? Should I make such suggestions? What is the
effect of some of my questions? Of my suggestions? Will I leave people with questions that are unresolved? Or with some they never did want
to face, to resolve? What is my responsibility in this situation? And always I asked myself how does this relate to the broader B.C. Sikh
culture rather than just to this family?
Since I am an anthropologist studying my own culture, a few words are necessary about my dual roles. During the wedding described here, my family expected me to enact the roles of a member of the Sikh
culture, whereas my scholarly interests presumed the role of anthropologist.
While it was not incongruent for me to fulfill both roles, I did explore and begin to understand that in order to do this, I unconsciously maintained a mental separation between the two roles. On one occasion,
some time had lapsed before I realized that I had got caught up in the
flow of the events I was participating in so thoroughly, that I was uneasy.
I wondered if the events just past had made a sufficient impression on my - 14 -
memory. It was as if for a brief period I had experienced a different reality, or a singular reality. As I have recorded in my fieldnotes, at that moment I was conscious of the fact that as an anthropologist
(and perhaps the danger is more of a liability for an 'insider'), I kept a tension between myself and the flow of events, as though a part of me was an onlooker on my own actions.
Apart from my family and in the context of the larger B.C. Sikh community with which I interacted during my fieldwork, I feel there were different levels of response to my presence which ranged from unabashed curiousity about me from strangers to gossip by others. Sometimes, I felt a 'polite tolerance', I cannot say that I had a feeling of rapport with everyone. I understand now that just as in everyday life away from the field situation, rapport with everyone is an ideal perhaps, but is not achievable nor is it crucial. Usually, people went about the activities they were engaged in,ih' spite of my presence. They worked with me, if I happened to be in their work group, engaging me in con• versation and including me in theirs. A few women who did not know me expressed surprise that I spoke Punjabi, others expressed surprise at their surprise. (My Punjabi, halting at first, seemed to return completely within just several days, a fact which provoked some happy comment from my family.) My perception is that I was accepted during my field work, with mixed reactions.
During my field work there was constant interest in my dress.
My relatives wanted to be sure that I conformed to the accepted attire,
(that of a salvar and kurti or a sari) at the various events I attended.
Luckily, as an Aunt I was given a 'Punjabi' suit of clothes to wear. - 15 -
But, they were never quite right - they evoked comment such as, "We will have another set made that fits you better", or, "They are still too tight", etc. I think part of the problem was that I did not know how to move in such garments - I cannot remember how to cross the ends of a shawl or over which shoulder they should fall. When I wear a sari,
I feel that my movements are always incongruent with the flow of the garment. Just as I think I have learned how to tie a sari, I find that there was one more trick to making' the folds right, or that I wear it too high off the floor or...or...! In this respect, my presence did create a problem for my relatives.
At first, there were times when I did alter the situation in small ways but without too much'concern, such as when I mentioned a song and dance I had seen performed at one of the weddings when I was a child.
Later, I was to see it given a prominent part in the women's dance at the hall. At other times, a food which I had mentioned as being a favourite would be prepared for us. It was only when I issued an invitation to a friend who is a professional dancer, asking her to dance at the women's dance, that I realized I had introduced change to a traditional event. After that I was very careful in making suggestions myself, but watched as people innovated where they had to in approximating the traditional events.
Toward the end of my field work, and a few times before, I felt that, my presence was a nuisance, but then any guest with whom one interacts intensely for days on end can wear out her welcome. After all,
I had been asking endless questions, talking with everyone and listing groceries, taking photographs, recording songs, etc. I think that this - 16 -
f
may have been offset by my expediting some of the wedding preparations by taking people shopping, going on errands, and helping to prepare the foods.
In order to ensure as high a degree of accuracy as possible,
I checked those things which I knew as a member of the culture, that is my reality against that of others, and then attempted to stay as close as possible to what they said. Often, I would ask several people for their interpretation of an event to ensure the data were accurate. Their perception of what I wanted to know was so sharp that at times, I felt they had already encountered the anthropologist.
This frank account is offered without apology, in the interest of scholarly honesty and in support of the validity of the content of this document. I think the account is an accurate one of the events which took place during the recording of this wedding. In my estimation my presence, while it did not go unnoticed, did not significantly change the situation.
As Geertz (1963:19) observes: "The ethnographer 'inscribes' social discourse; he_ writes it down. In so doing, he turns it from a passing event, which exists only in its own moment of occurrence, into an account, which exists in its inscriptions and can be reconsulted".
As such this document is "essentially contestable" and it is my hope that it will be seen as a source from which others perceive problems to be addressed, and into a further refinement of the study of this culture.
The concepts and facts presented here will enable others to delve more deeply into the cultural life of the Canadian Punjabi Sikhs, and to show to all Canadians the richness of the values, beliefs, and attitudes of this group. FOOTNOTES
I use the term Canadian Punjabi Sikhs to differentiate between Sikhs in the Punjab in India and people of Punjabi Sikh descent resident in B.C. wherever they may have been born. My study concerns Sikhs from village Punjab or their descendents who have settled in a rural area of the Fraser Valley in British Columbia. Hereafter, I will refer to them as B.C. Sikhs (after Ames & Inglis, B.C. Studies, No. 20, Winter 1973-74, pp. 15-49).
For an historical background of B.C. Sikhs, I refer the reader to "Conflict and Change in British Columbia Sikh Family Life" by Michael M. Ames and Joy Inglis, B.C. Studies, No. 20, Winter 1973-74, pp. 15-49.
Walter Goldschmidt (1969:19) poses these two questions.
The topic of this thesis was originally suggested as a paper topic by a member of my graduate committee, Dr. Judy Pugh.
Dr. M.M. Ames gave this advice to me as I left for the fieldwork. - 18 -
CHAPTER I
THE BETROTHAL (MUNGNA)
This chapter is divided into three parts. First, I begin with three models which I postulate (ex post facto), to be the organizing principles or 'conscious models' B.C. Sikhs have of their own social system."'" Second, I explore and summarize my impressions as an insider, 2 of what I know of the ways in which Sikh marriages are arranged.
Third, I present the data, that is, what I was told about betrothals and what I saw and had explained to me,during the showing of two family
films about betrothals, and later at a family dinner.
In most of this chapter, rather than presenting each section, and then commenting on it from my perspective, I have chosen to embed the
commentary and, sometimes, to footnote it, throughout the presentation.
I do this to make more explicit how I have come to 'know' these facts, of how in other words, knowledge was constructed in the process of my doing ethnography.
I do not attempt to make generalizations from this data which will be applicable to the whole of Canadian Punjabi Sikh culture. Instead,
this is the presentation of one wedding ritual, the events that preceded and followed it, in a rural Punjabi Sikh family. As such, this thesis provides a baseline towards the construction hereafter of empirically
testable hypotheses about other Sikh weddings in rural and urban areas; and about the adaptations taking place in the social organization of the
Sikhs as Canadian immigrants. Underlying the main presentation are themes
such as the struggle between ethnicity and assimilation, between the - 19 -
cultural norms and the patterns of actions which the younger members want to live by, and the attempts of the community to bring about some congruence between beliefs, values, and action.
I
The first of the 'conscious models' referred to above is the 3
'ideological model'. Most B.C. Sikhs have beliefs and expectations based on traditions and experience from India, of what a Sikh marriage is supposed to be, which they endeavour to approximate in the Canadian setting. The Punjabi Jat Sikhs of India who migrate to Canada, are an endogamous caste group, divided into a large number of exogamous goth
(patri-clans). Ideally, marriages are arranged following ancient rules which prohibit marrying into one's father's goth (that is one's own lineage), one's mother's goth, one's father's mother's goth, and one's mother's 4 mother s goth. Furthermore, village exogamy is practised. In fact marriages cannot even be arranged in bordering (sim simna) villages, but must be in villages at least 10 to 15 miles apart. The greater the distance between villages ,the more prestigious the marriage is considered to be. This model, developed over centuries, incorporates the ideology of a strongly entrenched patrilineal, patrilocal based extended family structure with male dominance, Sikh religious beliefs, and rituals which
I think may be from an ancient folk tradition. B.C. Sikh parents evoke this traditional or ideological model as they bring up their families: - 20 -
It is a model for social action, which not only provides criteria for justification or criticism after an event, but also influences choice and decision beforehand (Ward, 1965:122).
With the 'ideological model' as a base, the second of the 'conscious models' is the 'actual' or 'immediate model' which is that of the B.C. Sikhs social and cultural life as they know it and live it day to day. It has a notable uniformity. At the same time, there is considerable variety based on a) the district or area in Punjab from which the family came, b) the strategies they adopt (as individuals, and as families) as they
contend with the Canadian situation, c) their economic, educational and political circumstances, d) the size of their kinship network in Canada
and finally, e) the length of time they have lived in Canada. I believe
that Sikhs as migrants in India or as immigrants to Canada, have an
appreciation of themselves as a people characterized by "variety-in-
uniformity" knowing strongly that in spite of differences and internal
divisions, they are a group of people sharing a common religion, and
other common beliefs and values.
The third model postulated (but not explored fully here), is
the Sikh 'observers' model (the B.C. Sikh's model) of the larger white
Canadian milieu which encapsulates Sikhs as an ethnic minority. This
construct is based on what the B.C. Sikhs believe to be the most notable
characteristics of that white culture. According to Ames and Inglis
(1973-74:28), this latter model, based chiefly on mass media sources, 5 tends to be a negative one. - 21 -
II
As I state in the Introduction, I am using Singer's idea of
'cultural performance'. With this approach in mind, I set the stage for the description of a B.C. Sikh wedding as a cultural performance beginning with the first concrete act in this performance, the mungna or betrothal. I explore the mungna, or betrothal process as it is practised by the B.C. Sikhs,, attending to the following questions: a) who is betrothed? b) when is a betrothal performed? c) how are betrothals negotiated? d) where are they conducted? After an introductory exploration of these issues, two case studies of mungnas are described.
Throughout, I use and explain Punjabi terms for kinship and other beliefs and values.
It is my impression that amongst the Canadian Punjabi Sikh families of the lower mainland and Fraser Valley area of British Columbia, parents attempt to arrange marriages for their children as soon as they are about to complete high school (for girls), or a year or two later
(for boys). As in India, unwed daughters or sons are a source of great anxiety, for the longer they are single, the greater the chance of their forming liaisons with those unacceptable to the family. This is especially important in the case of women, for the prestige of the family rests largely in the purity of the daughters. The norm is that the daughters must be under the protection of their brothers and/or fathers 6 and then their husbands.
In Canada, there are two additional elements which are of concern. First, there are fewer available choices, since the immigrants - 22 -
have usually been recruited on the basis of kinship. Thus, marriage rules could be broken by an unknowing romantically inclined couple unaware of their gotra relationships (few young people in Canada know the
7 marriage rules). Second, the greater freedom to interact in co-educational settings raises the possibility of mixed marriages. These two points are of differential concern too, depending upon whether the families live in rural or urban areas.
In rural Canadian areas, where there is a Punjabi-Sikh community, it is easier to approximate the Sikh ideals because the distances to be travelled to dances, games at school, or even to shop, are easily given as a reason to keep young people at home. In the urban milieu, it is much more difficult to curtail the activities of young people. This is partly because the temple functions differently in the two settings.
In the rural area, because of the isolation, the Sikh temple serves as a place a) to sociably meet others, b) to worship in common, and c) to conduct the business of the Sikh community from the politics of the community, to outside interests and conflicts which can be aired at the temple. The temple is the place where the values and beliefs of the Sikhs are reinforced. The younger members of the rural community
look forward to these outings, which also include going to temple services in other places, such as New Westminster, Vancouver, or Victoria.
In the urban areas, by: contrast, where there are more choices of 'acceptable' social outings, the temple is less important as a locus
for social contacts. It is my impression that there is more divergence
from the Sikh ideals in the urban areas. - 23 -
In both urban and rural areas, marriages are arranged between two people after many considerations and requirements are met. In the
Sikh community, which is ideally patrilineal and patrilocal, it is considered a misfortune if a family does not have a son or sons to continue the family name, to inherit the father's ancestral property
(in India and in Canada), and to perform his funerary rites.
The early arrangement of marriages is seen as a way of maintaining the values of the community. If a young man marries outside his ethnic group, the societal, familial orientation of the Sikhs cannot be continued. Few Western women would willingly fulfil the arduous tasks for their mothers-in-law that are expected from the Indian daughter-in- law. Thus, it is considered a great hardship, as well as a disappointment to the mother if her traditional role is unfulfilled,and she does not finally have a daughter-in-law to look after the household tasks. (This is, however, changing rapidly, for even Sikh daughters-in-law in Canada soon learn that nuclear family living is not only easier in many ways, but is possible).
It is considered shameful for a Sikh woman to marry outside her culture, for she first must have met and known the man to have become romantically interested in him. Her position in the Sikh community is difficult unless and until her family shows her some support. Most families do not do so at first,-and attempt to dissuade their daughters.
Some families have attempted to arrange hasty weddings with local Sikh families where possible, though usually it is not. Once the local community knows the woman is 'running around', it is not interested in her as a prospective bride. In such an event, where the wedding between - 24 -
the woman and a man of another ethnic group does take place, the family will often accept the situation, but without much grace. Usually, they are repeatedly 'sympathized with' at the social functions,which puts them in a position of defending their child and themselves. There may be diminished relationships thereafter between the mother and the other women.
One elderly female informant told me "...it is quite a tiresome chore to arrange marriages". When I asked, "How does one find someone who is eligible?" She replied:
It is through friends or relatives, that we come to know about eligible boys and girls, then it is tedious sending someone to ask about them, then going to visit their families to look at them, their circumstances, their sikiria.^ Then you try to see if that boy or girl will fit into the family...
I asked: How do you decide?
She replied: We do what we can to assure a good match, but it is really up to God after that - how much can we do - but they should not be city people - if they live there to go to school or work, is fine...
I again asked: Why?
She replied: Even if we choose someone from the cities in India, we like them to have parents in our villages - they are more like us, they know our traditions, the way we do bund/barthai, and quevildari.
Her reply supports my impression that amongst the Sikhs I know here who are mainly from rural India, an attempt is made to maintain here the quality of life of rural India. - 25 -
On the other hand, recognizing the low estimation which Sikhs born and raised in Canada have of village life, many parents are eager to point out the kinsmen a prospective partner may have in Indian cities. While B.C. Sikh parents appreciate that the life style of urban India is closer to that of the West and will appeal more to
Canada-born or raised Sikhs, betrothals are still usually arranged with people who have strong ancestral ties in the Punjabi villages.
I asked another middle-aged female respondent:
Why not arrange the marriages here, between Canada-born and raised young people? Why not in Toronto or California?
She replied: We don't have time to go to these places - we work all year. When can we go there?
This reply showed a great deal of frustration. This frustration probably arises from difficulties associated with travel in Canada, such as arranging accommodation in urban centers and not having adequate
English language. There may also be a lack of agnatic and affinal networks on whom to rely for help in arranging marriages. By going to
India, Sikhs go to places familiar to them, usually to their own homes in their ancestral villages, where they can expect the betrothals to be arranged in the traditional ways.
One young B.C. Sikh woman told me that she has agreed to her parents arranging her marriage,but that she has asked that it be with someone like herself, born and raised in Canada, with ideas similar to her own. The difficulty is to find someone eligible. I think that those who are considered highly eligible are those who are in university, or those who have completed their education and have good jobs. These - 26 -
people are in high demand; they usually select their own partners in
Canada or have a good deal of input into whom they marry from India.
I was told that most young women here will not let their families present them as 'eligible' when they know that the young man has a preference for someone already. One eighteen-year-old woman said:
I'm not going to break up two people who are in love - how would I feel married to a man who loves another woman - so the choice is someone from India - but I would rather have married someone from Canada. I'll do what they (the parents) say, it would hurt them too much if I don't. I just want it to be soon now, so that I can leave and have some freedom.
She was very clear in her comparison with herself and her white friends.
She said: They look at marriage as being 'tied down' and they laugh when I say then I'll • finally be free!
One Sikh expression for seeking mates for children is to say
usen pwch pai si, meaning "we asked for (were seeking) information".
Usually, this information is sought from the kinship network in India,
or occasionally from close friends in Canada or India, and/or through
advertisements in Indian newspapers ,in the locale in which one is hoping
to find a mate for their daughter or son. When the family has knowledge
of someone eligible, they attempt to have discreet inquiries made about
the person. Once the choice is regarded as fairly certain, the family
of the boy's side is usually made aware of the fact that their child is
considered a suitable match;and they are then free if they are interested, - 27 -
to begin conducting their own inquiry into the girl's family. After initial inquiries by the woman's side are completed, and if there seems to be good chance of successful negotiations, a more direct contact with the boy's family is made, and they are asked about their willingness to establish an alliance with the girl's family. By the
time this happens, the boy's family has also usually made inquiries about the girl and her family, and have made an initial decision to
engage in the talks which may result in an alliance between the two
tabar (families).
Once the discussion is underway and the formation of the
dowry decided, the future of the young couple, and such things are ironed
out; and when the two sides are satisfied, the girl's side gives a rupee
to the boy's father or the father's representative. This rupee symbolizes
their successful negotiations,and is the beginning of a lifelong set of
exchanges between the two lines. The relationship symbolized by the
rupee is contractual in the sense that once accepted, the receiver cannot
disregard or return the rupee without the opprobrium of the community.
It is considered a serious insult to the woman's family if the marriage
negotiations are broken off after the acceptance of the rupee. There
are only a few circumstances under which such action can be taken,
usually justified in terms of the unworthiness of the girl for physical
or moral reasons. If the woman's side terminates the negotiations, the
breach is slightly less damaging to the boy but is considered an affront
nevertheless. A break in negotiations,following the acceptance of the
rupee,could seriously impair or hamper a woman's chances of making
another suitable match. For these reasons, people do not undertake - 28 -
serious face-to-face interaction until they have exhausted their
"search for information"fand are certain of the choice except for the giving of the rupee;and the discussion at that time by the representatives of each side,of their mutual expectations about the time of the marriage and the preparations and costs.
The acceptance of the rupee then, indicates that the mungna has been successfully negotiated. It is as if the girl's family has
"asked for" the man,and the giving of the rupee is symbolic of the beginning of a lifetime of exchanges or transactions between the two
tabar (families) or khandan (minimal lineages)."*"^
Once the rupee has been accepted the mungna activities are
underway. The milni, the meeting of the relatives of both sides, usually
takes place in the village of the boy's side. The woman's family go to
the formal mungna and milni rite en masse, taking with them the gifts for
the man, his father, mother, his father's sisters (pooah), his father's
younger brother (caca), his father's younger brother's wife (caci),
his father's elder brother (taiya), his father's elder brother's wife
(taiye), for the brothers (bhir), and the sisters (bhain), as well as
for other relatives. Perhaps the grandfather (dada) and the grandmother
(dadi) are given gifts too.
The gifts are food (usually fruit and sweets), clothing
(salvar and kurti) for the women, blankets for the men (or clothing such
as salvar and kurta), Western clothes for the younger men. After the
gifts are displayed, the sagan (rite) for the man is conducted in his
village.''""'" Its purpose is to validate, the betrothal before the members
of both lineages. - 29 -
The young woman is usually in her own village, for she does not accompany the group going to the boy's village. Later, she too, has a sagan performed for her, in her own village.
In most North Indian villages the rule is that marriages should be arranged in villages at least ten miles and usually fifteen to twenty miles apart. A bride's father's village is referred to (while she is growing up and until her wedding) as her pind (village),or as her dadke
(from dada/dadi meaning "paternal grandfather"/"grandmother", and the possessive suffix ke_, meaning "of" or "belonging to") . After her marriage, the more common usage is pake (a contraction of pioke, i.e. pio meaning "father" and ke meaning "belonging to"). This change in terms
further emphasizes, I think, her removal from her natal village, through marriage into another lineage. By defining her connection to her village through her father rather than her grandfather (i.e. to one generation in depth), people de-emphasize her natal attachment.
By custom, a woman's share of ancestral property is fulfilled 12 by the payment of a dowry. . In future she will receive 'gifts' for herself and her husband's family, which her parents will be obligated to give; but she cannot reciprocate from the household of her husband. A woman's parents will, not usually accept a gift from a married daughter's household, or they must return more than they receive. In most cases a daughter will not accept a gift from her husband's family for her agnates because-^ she knows they cannot afford to become involved in such exchanges. Aina par quorn chuke? (who can carry such a weight?),
is a common way of expressing the idea of an economic burden or exchange debt. - 30 -
A woman's children have a special relationship to her father; he is their nana (maternal grandfather) and her mother is their nani
(maternal grandmother). As such, they are affectively important and important on ritual occasions. The children's primary tie, however, is to their father's lineage. They have no property ties in their mother's parent's village, nanke. Thus, at marriage and when a daughter has children, she will be tied more and more strongly to her husband's lineage. After marriage she will live in her husband's village which is referred to as her sauri, that is in the village of her saura
(father-in-law). Her sons will inherit the land; her daughters will have the right of dowry and continuous gifts, while she has the right of maintenance.^
These notions are reproduced in the Canadian setting. As I have mentioned above ,some of the kinship terms also refer to space.
As well, they serve to demark the social boundaries of a particular village. For instance corresponding to the kinship term pio (father), there is a bounded location or space called pake ,where the expectation is that a particular behavioral complex will be evoked by a married woman. Similarly a kinsman of the category referred to by a married woman as saura corresponds to the space called sauri which has a different set of expectations regarding behavior attached to it. In the first, pake, a married woman when she returns to her natal village is in the category of a 'daughter of the village'. Here she will be treated as a 'sister' by the men of her own generation. She does not have to observe avoidance rules, she can uncover her face, joke and
laugh and interact relatively freely with the other villagers. - 31 -
To return to pake after marriage is a time of freedom and a vacation from onerous household chores. By contrast, at her sauri she must observe rules of avoidance, and keep her face covered in the presence of any male. Here ,she attends to the household chores under the supervision of her mother-in-law, her'husband's sisters ,and the wives of her husband's older brothers.
Quite often, partly in jest and partly as a way of reproducing the spatial arrangements of Indian villages, a Sikh woman in Canada will refer to a house as the 'village' of nanke, dadke or pake. For the women in Canada this is a conscious playing with the rules of kinship and location, they know that they are punning, that there is incomplete• ness in representing a house in Canada as a village in India, that it is a partial analogy. (In making this correspondence they are also comparing and critiquing their situation in Canada and India.) At the same time these concepts are highly congruent with the personal understanding or the ethos of Sikhs. They help to reinforce and reproduce the Punjabi Sikh social organization in the Canadian setting. In short, the family and lineage groupings of Punjabi Sikhs are inextricably tied to village structure and social action.
Another idea which is reproduced in Canada is the way in which people are identified. In North India where there are hundreds of villages, many are occupied by people belonging to just one or two main lineages. More than by a surname, a person is identified by his or her first name ,and the name of his or her village. This way of identifying someone is retained in Canada. For example to refer to someone as
"Harjit Singh, (village of) Daleke", would be enough to identify a Sikh - 32 -
man living in Canada to another B.C. Sikh. Furthermore, most B.C.
Sikhs who were born in India consciously identify themselves with their
ancestral village. Only rarely is the person referred to vis a vis his
Canadian place of residence, and then only if there is difficulty in
establishing his or her identity for some reason. I want to emphasize
that it is as if,for each person the boundaries of the Indian village
extend to Canada and enclose them in a named extension of an Indian space.
These ideas are transposed to Canada. In fact, they are a significant
aspect of Sikh social relations in"the Canadian setting. The world view
and ethos of even second generation Sikhs consists of this extended
'model of and 'model for' aspect regarding kinship, space and identity,
which influences B.C. Sikh lives, their social exchanges, their familial
14 and property relations, etc.
The ancestral property and its ongoing status defines who is
allied with whom. Some of the more marked confrontations and estrangements
between Canadian Sikh families are due to feelings of inequity or
unfairness with regard to commonly owned land in India. These antagonisms
are usually made public and often people here will seek intervention by
senior villagers living in Canada. These villagers have an interest
in keeping the village lands from going to an 'outsider' (even as
leasehold). They know the friction.this causes in a village, for leased
land, if it is not cultivated by the owner after the second year (in the
case of - absentee landowners) can be appropriated by the government and 15 given to the lessee. I was told that for this reason people would
rather lease to a relative, although that involves a careful consideration 16 of whether it should be to a fellow villager or to an affine. - 33 -
In the last few paragraphs I have indicated how the identity of a person is strongly linked with the ancestral village in India and how this is related to the formation of alliances (in this thesis through marriages). In order to avoid confusion,and to show that the above discussion is germane to the discussion of identity, the following
example may help. When two B.C. Sikh women meet for the first time they
exchange names and give the names of their ancestral villages (married women may give the name of their husband's village (sauri) first and
then that of their father (pake). This exchange of information leads
to an exploration of whether or not they have some affinal or consanguineal
relative in common. Perhaps they have a close relative or, if they wish
they may establish a classificatory relationship. In the future they will each know who the other is, based on this identification process.
If two married B.C. Sikh women who have identified themselves
in the above manner are in an area where they are isolated from contact
with other Indian families or have few kinsmen in Canada, they may have
a great dependency upon each other and may establish a fictive relationship
which will then allow them to interact as family units. For example,
they can dispense with many of the avoidance rules concerning each other's
17
spouses, if they are 'related' as sisters. Many of these fictive
relationships are the basis of the leasing of land in India'to 'trustworthy'
people and also for marriage alliances in the future.
The B.C. Sikh's way of establishing identification is especially
noticeable in the temple when the donations list is read out during'the 18
phog (temple religious service). The first name, the paternal village
in India, and the dollar amount are given, in that order. Thus, people at - 34 -
the temple are always cognizant of the people who are attending regularly and the strength of their affiliation to the community and of their religiosity. When newcomers are named and their ancestral
village is read out, other B.C. Sikhs can decide if the information
is pertinent to them, and if their kinship network encompasses the village of the newcomer. The size of the donation a person gives at
a particular phog is usually determined by the identity of the sponsor 19
and a person's relationship to him.
In the foregoing discussion, I have shown how certain broad
kinship terms relate to and seem to spatially encompass villages in
India. Further, I have shown that a person's behavior is morally cir•
cumscribed by the terms and the spaces they relate to. While my main
purpose is to describe a Sikh wedding, I see it as my purpose too, to
induce reflection on how these terms may relate to the behavior of a
young couple about to be married and to how the B.C. Sikhs strive to
reproduce their social organization in Canada. Towards this end I feel
justified in introducing now the family under study (perhaps enigmatically),
and in briefly discussing the kinship and spatial arrangements as shown in
Figure III.
When we look at Figure III, Part 1 - India, horizontally from
A to B to C we have a depiction of the village and family Darshan is a
part of, her dadke, which is Section B. By way of explanation,and
because her maternal grandparents and her mother's brothers and their
wives play a prominent part in the wedding, I show them as Section C,
or nanke. Section A represents the village she will marry into. Each
village is at least 10 miles from the other, and in the case of village _, 35 -
PART I - INDIA
Darshan's Husband's Darshan's Father's Darshan's Mother's Village Village Father's Village A , O A , O. A , O F6l o A 1 Arjun Gurdial
A 6 O A Harj it Darshan (Ego)
Saure Dadke/Pake Nanke
PART II - CANADA
Apartment Darshan's Father's Darshan's Mother's Darshan and Harjit House Father's House
Darshan and Harj it Harjit - Pre-marriage Post-marriage PHASE II Post-marriage PHASE I
Figure III - THE RELATIONSHIP OF KINSHIP TERMS TO SPACE - 36 -
A, it is in a separate district as well.
Now, if we look at Part II - Canada, Sections B and C are separate houses in Canada, about 1/2 mile apart (and A is in India).
As I have stated above, a person living in Canada is still identified in relation to village India.
In Punjabi Sikh marriages, it is obligatory for a girl's parents to find her a mate of slightly higher status than their own,
21 thereby gaining prestige. Since the Punjabi Sikh goth are not arranged in hierarchical order, 'high status' is defined locally and in each case of marriage. In other words, there does not seem to be a system pf marital alliances based on formally ranked goth. Instead, certain families have their own rank order of preferred goth and these are based on the current attributes (i.e. economic circumstances) of particular families. It is probably the case too, that since women are generally considered inferior to men, their goth would 'naturally' be considered lower. Thus, I believe that Punjabi Sikhs create dispersed
alliances with each marriage (with some repeat alliances, but they are in-:
22
frequent), being careful not to break the gotfca exogamy rules.
With this general information in mind, I return to our example described in Figure III. When Harjit arrived in Canada, he was given a
room with Darshan's maternal grandparents (Section C, Part II), that is
at her nanke. If this were India, since his is the more prestigious
family, he would not find himself in the position of accepting food and
•shelter from the relatives of his future wife. I think he probably
feels quite strange in these circumstances. (On the other hand he may
not - since the whole situation of arriving in Canada is a new experience.) - 37 -
Whatever he feels, he is being cared for by his financee's family.
Moreover, he will have to make further modification to North Indian
(Punjabi Sikh) beliefs and values once he is married. At that time, for a period, he will reside with his wife's parents. A son-in-law who consents to live in the home of his father-in-law is called a ghar-jawai, a term which connotes low status and low prestige for both
lineages. This means that he is taking economic help from his in-laws
(in this case, for a few weeks, he is) and they may be using his labour
(in this case true to a limited extent). . In all of this they are going against the expectation that the groom's status should be superior to
that of his bride-to-be.
This information is important for a number of reasons. Firstly, because it relates to social change by showing the basic shifts in 23
cultural beliefs and values that are made by immigrants from Punjab.
Secondly, without this information, which I consider essential for the
understanding of Canadian Punjabi Sikh culture, the reader will not be
in a position to fully understand the spatial aspects as they relate to
kinship and exchange.
Now, before introducing the case studies of the mungnas
(betrothals), I would like to state again that the young woman whose betro•
thal and marriage I am describing in this thesis is my 'niece' (FeBySeD).
She was nineteen at the time her marriage was arranged. At that time
her mother, Gurdial, had received a letter from a woman friend of her
mother's in India, who said she wanted to suggest a certain boy as a
likely marriage partner for my niece. Shortly after that and for a
number of reasons, Gurdial went to India. One reason was to see for - 38 -
herself the families of a number of likely marriage prospects. She decided on Harjit.
The choice was based on a number of factors: he was from an acceptable goth (exogamous patri-clan), that is he was not related to any of the four goth that are prohibited to Darshan's lineage by the marriage rules. Considerable attention was given to his appearance and demeanor; his education and his probable future prospects in the
Canadian setting; and to his personality. As I state above, the Punjabi
Sikhs are expected to marry their daughters into families which have or appear to have a higher status than their own thereby gaining prestige for themselves. Harjit's family, their relative status, their moveable and immoveable property, and their sikiria (alliances) in other villages, assured that this was a prestigious alliance. The betrothal was arranged, and the series of events that followed are described in these pages.
Ill
Darshan1s mungna was almost three years ago so I do not have first hand information about it. However, I have been told of two recent mungnas and have been shown some movie films of them. One is that of my second 'niece' Surjit (Darshan's younger sister), and the other, that of their mama (MB) .
Gurdial, her parents, two of her brothers, and her son all went to India in December, 1980. Their main reason for this trip was the wedding of Gurdial's brother. At the same time they began their search for an eligible man for my second niece, Surjit, by placing an ad in a newspaper. - 39 -
They received more than one hundred replies. The most likely prospect, however, seemed to be a PhD. student brought to their attention by Gurdial's female cousin (FZD).
I asked Gurdial: How did you find him?
She replied: Through my sahali (girl friend) in my dadke, who has relatives in Calcutta. He is from a village - in fact the old woman (his grandmother) still lives there, but the family have lived now for a few decades in Calcutta. They have a restaurant business there. When you go to India again you will be able to see them.
Gurdial and her family asked friends to check his background,
his village, his family's status, their sikiria, and his academic background. He was also 'seen' by friends and relatives at his
university. Finally, his family was approached, and when the final
negotiations were completed, the rupee was given and accepted.
When the negotiations were being conducted, the young man and
his family were told that he had to be willing to 'settle' in Canada.
My family was adamant that he be willing to immigrate and that their
daughter would not be going to India to live. I was told that some
families in India are not willing to send their educated children to
foreign countries to live, so this had to be carefully understood.
The film for this last mungna shows a rented van being loaded
with fruits and other foods and the clothing and other gifts to the boy's
family. It was during the showing of the film that I was told that this
was not really a mungna but a rok. Surprised, I asked what a rok means. - 40 -
A number of people willingly gave me explanations. First, a young man told me
"Its like going to buy a cow and saying to the seller 'here is some money - I'll be back for the cow and will pay the rest at that time'."
Although we laughed at his example, I feel that a word of explanation is needed. In India, (in contrast to Canada) the cow is a highly revered animal and in fact is worshipped in some places. So, we need to remember that first, the groom was not being likened to the animal but the situation was explained by reference to it. Second, even if he were, it would not have the same meaning as we would give it in Canada where the cow has a different set of meanings attached to it. The next example was provided by my cousin/brother (FeByS), he said:
"It's like going to a store and paying so much down, like a lay-away."
I asked if it was like a contract and that appealed to everyone, but I feel the best meaning is in the word itself - 'to stand in the way of a young man so that he cannot negotiate a marriage with any other family.
In the film he was shown seated out-of-doors, in a straight- backed chair. He had a towel draped down his right shoulder and he was holding the lower edge cupped into his right hand. There were many people standing around him. On a table next to him were displayed the gifts of clothing from our lineage, on another table to his left was a table - 41 -
with a red cloth package which contained patase. Gurdial reached
into the package and took out one patasa which she put into the boy's mouth, then she circled his head with some money which was then put into the towel cupped in his right hand. I was told that the red cloth package with the patase also had 10,000 rupees in it, which I
think is meant to be the way to rok him. That is, acceptance of the money entails an obligation. In another film sequence, Masi-ji,
Surjit's maternal grandmother, was shown with a thai (metal tray-like
25 dish) on which a.red cloth had been spread. On it ,the items of gold that were being given to the newly betrothed man (a watch, a ring, etc.) , were being displayed to the gathering. In still another sequence,
Surjit's mother's brother is shown in a hug with the boy's father
- I was told that this is the milni (meeting) portion of a betrothal.
In north India, the mother's brother is a very prominent person in these rites (and later in the shadi). The sequence also showed Surjit's maternal grandfather and the boy's father in an embrace.
In the film the lagi (a servant),who is the son of the nai 2 6
(barber) ,was pointed out to me as one of the people who made up the mungna party. Usually the nai goes to arrange the giving of the rupee, and traditionally he arranged the mungna by doing the negotiating for the woman's side. In this role, his caste name was replaced temporarily, and he was referred to as 'raja' (king or prince). Gurdial told me that in the past there was so much trust in this person that a family rarely if ever went against the arrangements suggested and made by the household lagi. She always talks about the lagi with affection and respect. - 42 -
During the mungna rites, the man's side is not obliged to give gifts in return, but they usually do send a gift to the woman being betrothed and perhaps to her brothers (both elder and younger),
27 and to her younger sisters.
In the mungna under discussion, that of Surjit, the man's side sent a gold sungali (chain) and some 'suits' to my niece, as well as some other gifts which will be given to her at her sagan (rite).
In this thesis, I am discussing how a woman's side goes about these arrangements. If a man's side has a preference for a particular woman as a betrothal partner, members from his side would let the woman's side know. It would still be up to the woman's family to approach and negotiate with the boy's side, and then to complete the transactions as described above. Amongst the Sikh Jats, the woman's side always re• presents itself and is treated as inferior to that of the man's side.
As stated above, this inferiority is expressed in many ways throughout the couple's life. This obligatory inequality is very apparent in the asymetrical flow of gifts from the woman's side to the man's.
When Gurdial's brother's betrothal rite was being conducted in India, his family was given five gold pieces which look like gold coins. They are called mor. Some of the wealthy families give the mor
(instead of the rupee), which seem to give some additional meaning with regard to the wedding expense that will be undertaken by the woman's side.
The boy's father told me:
Two mor usually mean the bride's parents will go to average expense for the wedding, the meals and costs. When they gave us five we knew it would be a very large lavish wedding! - 43 -
By the photographs shown to us after that wedding, we could
see that it was indeed a very large elaborate wedding. It was financed
by the woman's side but there was also extensive expenditure by the
groom's family, at their own choice. For instance, tuxedos were rented
in Canada and flown to India for the participating males. As well, the
wedding parties used more cars, etc. There was use of sophisticated
equipment which was purchased beforehand in Canada by the man's side
(for recording and filming that wedding), and elaborate professional photographs of the bride and groom were paid for by the man's family.
They were married in March and came to Canada in April, bringing Darshan's prospective groom with them.
When the families came back from India, there was a family
dinner at the home of Darshan's maternal grandparents. It was attended by Darshan's parents, her sister and brother, her maternal grandparents,
their three married sons and their wives and children, and one unmarried
son. I was also invited. Before the dinner a few close friends and relatives came and went. The purpose of these visits was to welcome
the family back, to 'view' the new bride (DMBW), and to meet Harjit,
Darshan's prospective groom. The phone also rang every few minutes, as people called to welcome, and to ask about the health of the group returning from India. I had telephoned early in the day to say that
I would be there at about 4:30 p.m. My field notes for April 12,
1981, read: - 44 -
I arrived at the farmhouse and Gurdial looks out
- as I get to the door it is opened and they greet me with
lots of chatter and hugs and take my coat. Then, the new
bride is led out of the bedroom at one side of the kitchen, where she is in seclusion and in the company of her young
unmarried sister-in-law. My 'nieces' too, come and go
from that room. The new bride is dressed in a red sari with gold floral patterning on' it. The pala (decorative end panel)
is pulled over her head, and low over her face. First,
Masi-ji (the bride's mother-in-law, sus) shows me the bride's
face and then, while the bride stands, head lowered, her arm i
taken out of her sari folds and her gold bracelets are shown to me. Later, her earrings and necklace are also brought to my attention. She is very lovely, and I say so - she smiles very slightly, then returns to the bedroom.
Then I go into the front room with Masi-ji and Gurdial.
This is where the men are sitting. A few of the young ones rise when I enter - one of them is Darshan's prospective groom
Darshan's father takes me over to him, explaining that I am his 'pooah-ji' (Aunt). We greet each other with joined hands and then everyone laughs expectantly - I am told by Masi-ji that he should touch my feet with his hands in respect - I insist that he is not to do so and he very embarrassed complie with my request. I give him the envelope with the card and a gift of money which is to welcome him. Then I am told that for the formal picture I need to stand with him, with my hand - 45 -
on his shoulder. After the pictures are taken, I return
to the kitchen where the women are preparing the foods
for dinner.
At this juncture, I ask the reader to remember the discussion above, about the spatial aspects of kinship and to refer to Figure III, if need be, as I relate the following incident from my field notes of
April 12, 1981:
During the dinner tonight, many of the traditional
ways have been overlooked somewhat because it is inconvenient
to do otherwise. The families make a number of changes to
the Punjabi Sikh traditions. For instance, in India, the
groom would not be in the same house as the bride-to-be prior
to the marriage. However, in Canada he is temporarily staying
at Darshan1s nanke (maternal grandparents house), and it is
here that the dinner is being held. At the same time, it would
be unthinkable for the family to leave her alone in a remote
farmhouse as the family dine at her grandparents, so she is
at the dinner, and thus, in the same house as her prospective
groom. (She is in fact 'in seclusion' with the new bride,
her mami (MBW), in the bedroom just off the kitchen, or
in the kitchen with the women. The men, sitting in the
livingroom, know that this area is 'out-of-bounds' today.)
The women of the household are taking some care that Harjit
does not see Darshan, but they are mainly quite unconcerned - 46 -
about the notions of nanke, dadke or the groom's
village, and go about their duties as usual. Until,
suddenly, there is a phone call. It is one of Gurdial's
women friends welcoming the travellers back. They
converse for a minute - I think the woman asks about
the whereabouts of Darshan. Gurdial answers 'at home'.
From Gurdial's conversation it appears that the woman
has first called there and she now counters with the fact
that some man had answered and that in the background she
could hear a good deal of noise and laughter.
By way of explanation, the men had all gone to Darshan's family home right after dinner, taking Harjit with them. Gurdial had been told this in an earlier phone call and had angrily told Arjun that if they were there then he should have conducted the sagan (this was a reference to the special rite a mother-in-law conducts before a son-in-law enters the home of his wife, for the first time). Arjun should not have taken Harjit to his home.
My field notes continue:
I then hear an agitated Gurdial say 'that may be, we are all
here at nanke', and she didn't know where the prona (groom)
was but that she was sure the younger men had taken him
out - he was lonesome for his college friends. She continued
that there may be someone at home with Darshan's father -
she didn't know. - 47 -
This short excerpt shows a number of ways in which the
traditional rules have been breached. First, the groom would not be
living with the maternal grandparents of his prospective bride.
Second, the betrothed couple would not ordinarily be attending the
same dinner. Third, the father of the bride-to-be should not be in
extended or close contact with his future-son-in-law. Finally, the
groom should not have entered the home of his future wife without the
appropriate rites.
The conversation reported above shows how traditional ways
are breached in the Canadian setting, but it is neither easy nor
comfortable for most people to make these adaptations. While every
B.C. Sikh family does make the adaptive concessions, others are there
to induce just enough guilt that the changes are few,and the old patterns
are reproduced and clung to if at all possible.
After the dinner, we were shown the photographs of the (MB's) wedding and the photographs of the man to whom Surjit is now engaged, as well as those of the man to whom her youngest masi (MZ) is engaged.
We looked, and made the appropriate comments on the good looks of the young men. I was given a picture of a soccer team and Surjit's masi's
(MZ) fiance was pointed out to me. The names of the team members were written in English at the bottom. Gurdial said "here, read it", I did, much to everyone's pleasure.
I had asked Darshan how Surjit feels about her betrothal, she said: - 48 -
It's very hard, Auntie, at first, you wonder what he will be like and if you'll like him - and if you'll get along. When my girl friends at school asked me about it - I just told them we were used to the idea, our parents raised us that way. Surjit will get used to it in a little while.
When we were shown the photographs, there were several instances of women whispering, "That is Surjit's saura (father-in-law)" or "That is Surgit's sus (mother-in-law)". Through all this, Surjit seems very pensive and more quiet than usual. Her mother has already told me privately that Surjit is not very happy about her marriage being arranged so soon.
After we had finished looking at the photographs, we went into the front room recently vacated by the men. Masi-ji played the tapes of the women's songs from the wedding in India. They provided great enjoy• ment for us - as we listened to the different kinswomen in India singing- the songs.
In my field notes of April 12, 1981, I have recorded:
While we listened to the taped songs from the
wedding in India, there was a lot of laughter and
conversation as Gurdial, her mother and the new bride
told us about the songs and dances. (The new bride
has now changed her clothes and is wearing a salvar
and chemise and sweater. She is not quite so reticent
now, it is late and only the women members of the families
are present; the men had left the house after dinner.) - 49 -
As the songs are played, Masi-ji shows us the motions
the singers and dancers in India made as they sang those
bawdy songs. We readily identified the funniest (those
that made light of kinship relationships (affinal ones).
Then we heard the new bride singing a song - at her own
wedding! I asked about this, and was told that it is
allowed now, occasionally, because so many of the young
women are educated. This is, I think, considered quite ap•
propriate behavior for the daughter of a rich 'modern' family.
The song starts off "I have seen the moon (chand) today..."
We cannot help but laugh at her audacity, and she hides her
face laughing too. (The chand or moon is of course reference
to the groom - the word is a rich metaphor for love in Indian
culture). She sings another line and then the refrain is
taken up by the clapping, dancing, women in India. I cannot
help but notice that this young woman was singing the song
in India, on the eve of her wedding. By the older traditions
she would certainly not have been singing, and not about
her husband-to-be, in terms of love.
I asked: who dances?
Masi-ji said: All the women do, in the barrda (courtyard).
I asked: How many women were there?
She replied: about 200!
I asked: Earlier you said the churia (lower caste women of the sweeper caste) come and they dance. Are they invited or do they just come? - 50 -
She said: Some come and others are invited.
Gurdial said: We gave them 20 rupees for coming!
Surjit: Auntie-ji, they dance more and better. (I think this means they are more expressive and act out the risque parts with greater abandon.)
Masi-ji told us who the singers were and how they are related to the family. Over and over again we hear, "And this is Surjit's Sus"
(mother-in-law). I think there is a" process of transformation going on
- one of making a new kind of sense to Surjit, of her new role as a betrothed woman. Every time one. of her new 'relatives' are pointed out in a picture or in song, she is, or will probably begin, to think of her role vis a. vis that person. The women tonight smile at her approvingly and talk in quiet undertones, so the men cannot hear, when they talk about her future relatives. Surjit is being presented with a new conception of herself, over and over, and in time she will identify with it. Her consciousness or experience is being reshaped by the frequent expression of these kinship relationships. Tonight, Surjit sits in a reflective mood. According to her mother, she is not very happy about the new state of affairs.
This is the beginning of a new phase in Surjit's life. As her grandmother was to tell me later:
"If we keep telling her, it will go into her thamag (mind)."
The fact that there is an expectation of change in Surjit's conception of herself, as well as in her behavior, to fit the new reality is a con• scious one and is verbalized.
It is my impression that during this period the betrothed woman is made to feel that she is significant - she will soon join the - 51 -
group of young brides who are so admired and talked about in the
community. For a few years they are the focal point amongst the women
- the young girls adore them, mothers-in-law display them, compare and
lavish praise upon them or berate them, and other women gossip about
them.
This new phase may be more difficult for a Canadian Sikh
woman for whom a marriage is arranged,than it is for one in India.
There is a period of time after her mungna, I think, when she is helped
by her extended kin network to make 'sense' of the new situation. I saw
part of this sensemaking unfolding at the dinner, as the events of the
betrothal arrangements are discussed over and over, in a narrative sequence.
The young brides especially, I think, see it as one of their roles to
help the newly affianced girl to accept the idea and to start to relate
to them in a new way, for soon she will be one of them. They never tire
of hearing the details, and to every newcomer the details are narrated anew.
It probably becomes part of Surjit's self in some way. I think it (the
arranged marriage) has defined stages of:
1) the initial negation of the idea of being betrothed
2) an acceptance of the idea - as an abstract notion
3) the actual ritual of marriage (shadi)
4) the growing experience of the fact that she is allied to a new, and what is to become, a primary set of relatives.
This period of reshaping of her consciousness by repetition of of her new relationships, accompanied by the positive approval she received - 52 -
from all the women, the new attention at all the temple functions, will soon help her to move on to the next stage of acceptance of the abstract notion.
It may be some time before a woman accepts the notion of being betrothed. Sometimes, as it was for Darshan, it may be several years before the man has finished his education in India, and gets the necessary immigration papers to come to Canada. I think that in such cases, for these young women there are probably periods of conscious forgetting of the new role, especially when at school or at work in
Western settings, away from home. But it is probably never for very long; family members plan, consult, buy for, worry about that prospective groom, write to him, phone him, worry about immigration - implore both Canadian 28 and Indian sides to help and to hurry the process, etc., etc. And of course, at the weekly temple functions people ask about the progress a family is making through the red tape of immigration, medicals, etc. so that there may be an acceptance, albeit one that is questioned. My eldest niece Darshan did sometimes ask her mother with some annoyance:
How did they know what he was like? How did they know the two would like each other? What if they did not?
The period of the betrothal is sometimes portrayed in the songs as one where the young woman seems to have become more individualistic, that is she seems to have acquired more independence in some ways. I think the girls in India look forward to this period in their lives, when they are given a good deal of attention for a period of time prior to the shadi, and are relieved of onerous household chores to work on their trousseaus. - 53 -
One of the songs or geet which illustrates a young woman's
independence and pride in herself and her coming marriage is usually
sung by two women in the roles of mother and daughter (see Appendix ill).
This is a song about a mother who has sent her young daughter
to draw water at the village well and, after waiting for some time for her
to get back, goes to the well and finds her sitting in thought, and washing and rubbing her feet clean, as if she were going somewhere.
The mother tells her not to wash her feet so; she says the flowers are
in full bloom in the fields; her daughter should start stringing the 29 garlands (for her wedding perhaps?). The young woman talks back
to her mother and tells her to go explain to her father that daughters are precious (i.e. not to be scolded)."^0 She tells her mother to go and
scold,or fight with some household servant (lagi). The mother replies with "listen my daughter don't speak back to your mother in such a large (i.e. loud) voice, where you have made do for twelve years (in her parents home), wait there patiently for just six more months (presumably for the wedding day)". The daughter replies that for twelve years she has fought back tears at this place, that she loves her father, but she won't stay another hour - her trousseau is ready' The mother, exasperated, responds with the first refrain saying that she should go home and do her work instead of sitting washing her feet (anticipating leaving).
This song tells us that the bride-to-be is indeed young, just twelve, and that she is not fearful of her wedding, but has been anticipating it all of her life and is eager to leave. She is also reminding her mother that daughters are to be brought up kindly in - 54 -
their parental home for they soon leave and perhaps to difficult
31 marriages and unkind homes.
I think that daughters in rural India, because they have not been exposed to the romantic love complex of the West, make the transition to wedded life more easily (and perhaps more willingly) than Sikh women raised in the West. Young women in India look forward to romance, but within married life, whereas in the West young Sikh women have been exposed to the idea of 'love marriages'.
Not only are songs such as this one very appealing, but they tell us a good deal about the cultural beliefs and values. Many of the older values now discarded are encoded in the songs. In the above song, for instance, the age at marriage is given as just over twelve. Such early marriages were made illegal in India more than 40 years ago.
(They do still occur, but infrequently.)
Summary
In this chapter, I have described the betrothal system of the
Canadian Punjabi Sikhs. By the use of the concept of 'conscious models',
I have presented first, the 'ideal model' B.C. Sikhs have of a Sikh marriage arrangement. Then, the 'actual or immediate model' is described showing the strategies for marriage arrangements which are enacted by B.C. Sikhs. A third model, the Sikh 'observer's model'
(the model B.C..Sikhs have of non-Indians) was mentioned briefly.
The marriage rules of the B.C. Sikhs, who are of the Jat caste, are described as prohibiting marriages with a member of: - 55 -
a) one's father's goth (one's own lineage),
b) one's mother's goth,
c) one's father's mother's goth, and
d) one's mother's mother's goth.
Darshan was also explicit about one's FBWB and MBWB being prohibited marriage partners. In addition, village exogamy is practised so that marriages are not arranged in villages bordering on one's own, but should be in villages at least ten to fifteen miles apart. B.C. Sikhs have an ideology which includes a belief in a patrilineally, patrilocally based extended family structure with male dominance.
I have explained that in the arrangement of marriages it is obligatory for the parents to find grooms whose families have a slightly higher status than their own. This higher status is not based on a formal hierarchical ranking of goth, but is defined locally (i.e. within an area of a district). Perhaps, and this is my understanding, families have their own rank order of preferred goth, based on past alliances and the changing economic circumstances of a lineage. Consequently, there is flexibility in the goth which are preferred over time.
I have shown, too, how the village boundaries in India are reproduced in Canada. The ways in which village affiliation, kinship
terms, and identity are inextricably linkedtand how these ideas are transposed to and manifested in Canada,have been described.
By the use of two case studies, I have explained how mungnas are 'actually' conducted. There is considerable flexibility for idiosyncratic expression in the way the rites are conducted, within - 56 -
the broad ideal of the mungna and shadi. This expression (or these
choices) depends on the economic circumstances and the wishes of the particular family and lineage involved.
In the following chapter, the pre-wedding events, the sagan
(rites) are described. - 57 -
FOOTNOTES
This concept developed and used by Barbara Ward (1965:113-37), was adapted by Ames and Inglis (B.C. Studies, No. 20, Winter 1973-74) to the study of B.C. Sikh family life.
As an insider, I am also an informant (but as stated in the introduction,! check my cultural knowledge carefully against that of other Sikhs).
Ward (1965:124) also refers to this model as the believed-in traditional model.
According to Karve (1968, 3rd ed.:118), "The Jat is an agricultural and a fighting caste of south Punjab, Delhi and northern Rajputana. It is divided into exogamous gotras and the marriage rule is that a man must not marry into (1) his father's i.e. his own gotra, (2) his mother's gotra and (3) his dadi's i.e. father's mother's gotra. Not so long ago, and among the orthodox people even now, a man also had to avoid his (4) nani's i.e. his mother's mother's gotra." (The underlining in this quotation is mine.) As well,there is village exogamy so that marriages cannot be arranged in bordering villages; in fact I was told not within at least 10-15 miles of the person's own village.
Ames & Inglis (1973-74:28) say:
No Sikh gave a consistently negative view of Canadian family life in all categories, although most gratuitous statements did tend to be negative.
The characteristics they isolate from mass media sources are:
"...sexual exploitation, youthful rebellion against parental authority, the tragedy of old age, and the alleged instability of the conjugal relationship."
(a) George Buhler, Dharma Shastras, Volume 25, 1886, Manu, IX, 3.
(D) While this-is'the- ideal, in actual' practice educated B.C. Sikh daughters, like the children of most immigrants, find that from a very early age, there is a reversal of their role vis a vis their , parents. In many life situations they must assume the role of the helper; the parents, that of the recipient. In these households, the parents rely on their children's knowledge of English language and the cultural ways of the - 58 -
non-Indians, which their children acquire at school and work. As young B.C. Sikh children mature into young adults, they have usually acquired expertise in the Canadian way of life such as shopping,
banking and travelling etc.; and also know how and what to translate and explain to their parents as they go to immigration or medical appointments and as they expedite other family business.
When a Canada-born and raised Sikh woman marries, especially if it is to a man from India who lacks familiarity with Canadian ways, her expertise and knowledge gives her power and control which her India- . born and raised counterpart takes years to acquire, if she ever does. This is not the place to examine the ways in which power and control affect the interpersonal (with her husband) or social (in the Sikh community) quality of her life. That is a topic for comparative social anthropological research, perhaps in Women's Studies.
7 Darshan however did know the rules, I quote from my field notes dated March 29, 1981:3)
I was curious about their (Darshan's and Surjit's) knowledge of marriage rules. Dar. knows them. She said she could not marry into her own village, nor anyone with her surname, her mother's surname or either of her grandmothers maiden surnames. She also cannot marry any of her MBWB's or her FBWB's.
8 Sikiria means 'kin relationships or alliances'.
9 Bund/barthai means to portion out, to distribute, or to dole out. As Shackle (1972:127) states, in Punjabi "some adjectives are commonly followed by another similar in sound or meaning, to emphasize the sense".
Quevildari means to have expertise and responsibility • in exchanges and their maintenance, to honour promises and con• tracts. Hence quevildar is one with the above qualities.
10 I have used the word transactions because there is intentionality in the choice of partners. I think that once the marriage rules have been considered and there is no prohibition, people then attempt to make an 'alliance' which will enhance their prestige, gain them an ally. - 59 -
11 From my conversations with a number of women, I gleaned that sagan are rituals conducted for 'good luck or good omens'. When I asked what they mean, no one could tell me more than it is tradition to conduct them. I think that like the Sikh religion., they are syncretic, perhaps from Hinduism, Islam and ancient yogic traditions.
12 Indian Women's rights to immoveable property have been severely circumscribed since ancient times. Since the late 1950's there have been a series of Legislative attempts to change the proprietory rights of women, beginning with the Hindu Succession Act in 1956. I have been told that Sikh women in the Punjab have a right to property but it is difficult to enforce and the norm remains that women do not inherit ancestral immoveable property. This has been the cause of much litigation in the Punjab. For an early source on this see: Hindu Woman's Right to Property; (Past and Present) by Roop L. Chaudhary, published by Firma K.L. Mukhapadyay, Calcutta, 1961.
13 Daughters have the right of dowry and it seems that the daughter's daughter can also expect a substantial expenditure from the same lineage (from her MB and her MF).
14 Follow Geertz: 'models for' reality are motivational, i.e. they represent social norms, are templates for action and could be said to be more about immediate life. 'Models of reality are the worldview of that culture, their basic assumptions about their world and their place in it, they touch immediate life less.
15 I have been given this information by a number of people - I do not know the Indian laws about absentee ownership.
16 One elderly male relative said that most people feel that a related fellow villager is more liable to take advantage of such a situation. On the other hand most of the people of the village have an antagonism to someone's affinal relatives cultivating village lands since they are from other villages and are thus considered to be 'outsiders'. But a non-relative (from outside or within the village), may try to appropriate the land for himself. Absentee landownership poses many dilemmas for Sikhs, especially if two coparceners are both in Canada. (One needs to have ancestral land and a village- India base when arranging marriages.)
17 Bartle (1978:211) in his study of the Obo, Ghana, cites Schildkrout (1975:249):
kinship relationships among rural born immigrants, beside those formed through marriage, are often voluntarily contracted, through the metaphorical use of kinship terms and the performance of kinship roles. - 60 -
This is also true for B.C. Sikhs and probably for other im• migrant groups as well.
To sponsor a phog is also to ask for validation by the community. A phog is usually held for an event of social significance, a marriage, a death, a baptism or a khushi the phog (i.e. to sponsor an event for happiness to bring bhain and pra (brothers) together. These sponsors may be people who have not had any other type of phog to sponsor for some time.
Relatives and close friends of a phog sponsorer usually give the larger donations because it is a-'family' event (the sponsor is a representative of the larger lineage and receives a show of support, both monetary and as seva (service) in the temple kitchen. If few people come in support of their lineage member, that would become the basis of comment in the community - usually in the form of the evaluation of the underlying conditions for the lack of support. Alternatively, not supporting someone is a way to show the community how strongly the party not in attendance feels about some ongoing grievance. Otherwise, if a person cannot attend a phog sponsored by an individual, he or she will send the donation with someone else who is going to the temple so that it gets recorded.
I say 'enigmatically''for I have decided to present my knowledge of how marriages are arranged (this may appear to be a set of generalizations) but have not yet introduced the case studies in which these people are the 'actors'.
The sanctions for not doing so would range from gossip from villagers that the girl had some hidden defect so could not attract a more prestigious marriage partner, to speculation of all sorts about why a family would resort to such a marriage.
Dr. Helga Jacobson, during a committee meeting, raised the question of how alliances are conducted by Sikhs. In North India dispersed marital alliances are the result of the four gotra rules of exogamy. However among some Jats, Kolenda (1970) has recorded repeat alliances, that is sibling-set and collateral-set marriages which she refers to as 'deflected alliance'. Moreover, she states that they do not violate the marriage rules of the North which prohibit marriage amongst the four gotras I mentioned earlier. I have knowledge of one collateral-set marriage in Canada which was conducted for convenience. - 61 -
23 As Dr. Michael Ames has pointed out (personal communication): "By now most Punjabis are probably migrants - all over India and all over the world. They have been migrants for many, many years, so they may have brought with them these 'adaptive' patterns."
24 Patase are round wafer-like sweets the size of a twenty-five cent piece, which in India are sometimes purchased before one goes into a Sikh temple to pray. These are then distributed to anyone who happens to be in or outside the temple. When I did this in India, it was on a day when the degh (a communion food sometimes called prashad), was not being served, so I felt the patase were compensatory. They were shared with a brotherhood, so fulfilled the Sikh Gurus injunction for us to pray together. Patase are also used in sagan (or rites) such as betrothals. In this case, and throughout this thesis we will see that food is a multivalent symbol. The patasa here mediates the social exchange between two lineages, whereas in the temple they (patase) mediate between man and God).
25 Colour symbolism is important during rituals, I was told red is 'good luck', but no one elaborated on the symbolism. I think there are many accretions in Punjabi Sikh culture from ancient Indian traditions. For colour symbolism the reader may consult Upanishads, translated by Swami Nikhilinananda, 1963. See also Victor Turner, The Forest of Symbols, pp. 84-90, for a short discussion of colour symbolism in the ancient world. I do not know of a Sikh exegesis of colour symbolism.
26 In this instance the Nai (barber caste) is the lower caste person who is 'attached' to the family in a jajmani relationship. Amongst Punjabi Sikhs he does not cut hair, but does pare finger and toe nails of his clients, as well as deliver messages on special occasions; and during marriage arrangements he is the person who does the negotiating for 'his' family. In recent years however,fewer people are willing to leave these arrangements to the Nai.
27 The younger sister (s) sali (s) are traditionally the replacement for the woman being betrothed should she die in the early years of her marriage. The term sali is also used as an abusive term by men i.e. as a mild swear word (to refer to some woman as a sali is to imply privileged familiarity with her, thus, this usage is an insult in this society). This may indicate the low status of the woman's side vis a vis the male side in Indian marriages. The term sala, conversely is used as a kinship term and for a way of designating familiarity between two men. As Dr. Michael Ames has pointed out, it is also a term used to ridicule, amongst some peoples. - 62 -
28 I am not personally aware of circumstances where immigration has actually forbidden entry, but do know of people who have been delayed by Indian officials or Canadian officials for reasons of health, or misunderstanding about required documentation.
29 The reference to flowers in full bloom is a metaphor for young women ready to be married. It is a metaphor which carries a lot of meaning in Punjabi. Women are often referred to as flowers.
30 I was told about one 'daughter' who was having difficulty adjusting to Canada and her new family. My informant said she had been kept latte by her parents. This expression is not synonymous with being spoilt, but perhaps 'indulged' or raised with more gentleness and fondness. The status of the family is of course a major consideration - not all families can afford to keep their daughters in such a way, although most attempt to - 'because they will be going to another house1.
31 This is a sentiment that is frequently expressed in a Punjabi Sikh home, and especially when brothers and sisters fight. A boy will be reproached and told not to fight with a sister for she will be going to a strange household and who knows what her life will hold for her there. - 63 -
CHAPTER II
THE RITUALS (SAGAN)
There are a number of rituals which occur between the mungna
(betrothal) and the shadi (wedding), which may be viewed as parts of the cultural performance. They have a dynamic which links one with the other in a sequential way, leading up to the shadi. From the performance of one such rite it is possible to anticipate at least one other, and perhaps more, of the other events, and the shadi itself.
These rites are called sagan by the Punjabi Sikhs. I believe
they are from an ancient folk tradition, with accretions from Hindu and
Islamic beliefs. They do not have explicit meanings, they are procedures
for good omens or good fortune. No prayer, public or private is conducted.
Nor could I tell what power, if any, is invoked. It is as if the action
involved in conducting the rite, and the ritual paraphernalia, contain
everything that is needed to ensure the efficacy of the category of event
called sagan.^
In this chapter, the sagan are described in the order of their
occurrence:
A) MAIAN
B) PALI
C) GURDHWARE LADDU, PAKORIA PAKORN JARNA
Food Preparation at the Temple
D) GOREA THE SAGAN
Western Wedding Shower - 64 -
E) SAGAN TE GIDTHA
Family Rite (Including a Western-type Wedding Shower) and Dance
F) GIDTHA
Women's Folk Dance
G) NAI-THOI
The Ritual Bathing of Bride-to-be
For each rite or event, the scene is described and the cast of characters is presented. The kinship chart provided in Figure I,.-, shows the main participants in the events discussed in this chapter.
In many cases, the field notes are presented in their entirety, with minor changes for grammatical errors. There are a few instances where a word or two has been changed in the interest of greater clarity.
In several places the field notes were reflected upon and expanded. As in the foregoing chapter, my presentation incorporates my commentary.
A) MAlAN-
The first sagan, maian, occurred in the early evening, at
Darshan's parent's home. It is a ritual event sponsored and brought by the maternal lineage to the home of the bride-to-be. A kinship chart is shown in Figure I, the cast of characters, in Figure III. - 65 -
The Scene:
The action is set in the kitchen of a rural farm house which is entered from a porch at the back of the house. This room also serves as the dining room. In a corner, under a large window, is set a 'nook' consisting of a curved blue plastic-upholstery covered, high-backed seat, in front of which is set a similarly curved table. The window faces the driveway, beyond which the raspberry fields with their 4x4 posts and heavy supporting wires, can be seen. At the right end of the driveway is an old garage. Against the opposite wall from the 'nook' is the electric stove. Against an adjacent inside wall is the refrigerator.
A right-angled counter space with cupboards below it, joins the stove and refrigerator. Along an outside wall opposite the refrigerator is another window, under which there is a short counterspace with a double sink and drainboard. From this window one can see the old weeping willow tree in the backyard, and out onto the strawberry fields beyond. In the distance, the Cascade Mountain Range can'be seen, rising out of the foothills.
Under the sink, there are more cupboards, one with glass doors, holds the fine china. On top of this is the telephone, within easy reach of the 'nook'. The wall beside the refrigerator is open into the front room which has a corner fireplace, and large windows looking out into a large enclosed front yard.
Darshan, her mother Gurdial, her sister Surjit, who has just returned from her job in a neighbouring town, and I are in the kitchen.
We have just finished the evening meal that was prepared earlier in the day, and Darshan and her sister have got up to clear the table and to wash the - 66 -
dishes. Gurdial and I are talking. (Arjun is at work, on night shift for this week).
MAIAN
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Darshan - the bride-to-be
Surjit - her younger sister
Gurdial - mother of Darshan and Surjit
Arjun - Darshan's father
Masi-ji - Gurdial's mother and grandmother to Darshan and Surjit
Darshan's Mother's brother - her mama
Darshan's Mother's sister - her masi
Kuldip - the narrator, Darshan's 'aunt' (pooah)(FFyBD)
Figure IV
In this setting my journal dated April 15, 1981, 7 p.m. records:
It is 7 p.m., Masi-ji (DMM), Darshan's masi (DMZ),
and her mama (DMyB), enter through the kitchen door of the
farmhouse with a pot, the handle of which was tied with
a course red thread. As they enter, there are warm
greetings, laughter and teasing, I rise and take a - 67 -
photograph of the three of them. They say they have brought a sagan of maian, for the bride-to-be.
It is a pot full of Koa (swimming in butter), with chopped almonds and raisins. Koa is made with rich cream which is cooked over very slow heat for many hours
(eight hours for this potful, according to Masi-ji).
It turns a rich medium brown and becomes quite thick, almost granular. Sugar, almonds, and butter are added to that.
Before we eat the Koa, my 'nieces' (FeBySD's) and their masi go to the kitchen stove and turn the heat on under the griddle and the pot of dal. Darshan gets the dishes, on which the dinner will be served to the guests.
Surjit takes the dough and makes it into little balls which are placed on a plate of flour to prevent them from sticking. Her masi takes one at a time and rolls it out with a rolling pin, then, placing it on the palm of her hand, enlarges it by' quickly passing it from palm to palm with a slapping sound. Once the dough has expanded to the right size, it is placed on the heated griddle where it is partially cooked. Then it is transferred to a rack placed over a hot burner. Here, as each roti (unleavened bread) puffs up, it is removed and buttered.
There is friendly bantering between the young women as they work together to prepare the meal. They joke about
their traditional roles as masi (MZ)/pathejia (ZD's)(that is,
as 'aunt and nieces'), and their actual everyday roles as age - 68 -
mates who have attended school together. They are extremely fond of one another, calling on the phone, travelling to and from schools, jobs, shopping 2 together, and I think sharing many confidences.
They go into gales of laughter, clap their hands in amusement, and constantly tease one another, as they prepare the food.
Once a sufficient number of roti's have been prepared and the dal is hot, the food is served to the three visitors from nanke. As well as the roti and dal, there is achar (mango and plum pickles), and a plate of quartered tomatoes. Water is served to the three having the meal. I think this meal is served with more 3 than the usual formality. Meanwhile, Darshan has put the water on for tea, and after it boils, adds the tea. Later, adding milk and sugar to it, she lets it simmer for a few minutes. Then the tea and small bowls of Koa are served to each of us.
After we had each eaten the Koa and drank the sweet
Indian tea, we sat and' talked. Soon, Masi-ji rose, and as they were about to leave, she transferred most of the Koa, and the red thread signifying sagan, to one of Gurdial's pots.
A small portion of the Koa was left in Masi-ji's pot. I was told that it was important to return some to the giver
(about 1/2 cup was returned). In addition, Gurdial returned a gift of six oranges to her parents home (her pake). - 69 -
Again there is reference to the spatial adaptations
in Canada. Darshan's maternal grandparent's house is referred to as her nanke. They said the maian the sagan came
from nanke.
And the sagan was over. For this family it consisted of giving the ritual food to the bride-to-be and to eat in the company of members of the two lineages, the maternal grandparental and the parental sides.
After the sagan was completed, Masi-ji and her son and daughter left for their own home. Gurdial, Darshan, Surjit and I talked for some time and then it was decided that
Gurdial would show me the trousseau. It will be shown to the ghar thea bordea (women of the house, i.e. lineage) during
the ritual bathing of the bride on the eve of her -wedding.
Gurdial explained that if we, the family, looked at it
tonight we would be able to see everything more leisurely.
Gurdial opened the trunk as Darshan, Surjit and I sat on
the bed and watched. In the tray-like part of the trunk are the smaller items such as the cosmetics, soap, slippers and lingerie. There is a surmadani, a small ornate container
for powdered kohl, or surma as it is known in Punjabi. When we had seen these items, the tray-like section was set
aside and a large parcel wrapped in white cotton was lifted out and unwrapped. It is the wedding gown, a fuschia-coloured
langa, a two-piece long dress with a tunic-top, skirt and
shawl. Gurdial explained that she had taken it to India - 70 -
where it was heavily ornamented with pink and blue
trapunto-like work and with gold embroidery. The
turban material for the groom was dyed in India to
match the wedding gown.
There were many other clothes, a blazer,
several housecoats and nightgowns, many saris and 4
forty 'suits'. As well, there were all of the linens
which make up the trousseau called the dehj. The gold
and diamond jewelry was in the safety deposit box so
could not be displayed tonight. Darshan explained earlier:
Mom and Dad gave me a diamond set, a necklace, ring and earrings; a gold necklace and gold bangles; earrings; a watch and another fine gold chain, as well as the clothes. They gave me all that with love and they're going to get me a car.
There are many pairs of shoes and purses. Darshan's mother has made a small'many-coloured basket for her.
From India, there are two handwoven sheets, block printed with animal designs. A cotton hand-made dhurie, and a
lovely phulkari (shawl). These latter two items are
hard to get now; few women in India make them anymore.
Masi-ji had explained to me earlier:
In the villages now there isn't a phulkari to be found. Traders go into the villages with aluminum ware and trade with the women; the cloths for the pots. No one makes them anymore - 71 -
- there is very little cotton planted now r - who needs it - no one hand looms anymore.
After I had been shown the dehj, I was shown the groom's barre (i.e. trousseau) which includes his gifts to his bride. As well as his own clothing he had brought a number of bridal saris and 'suits' for Darshan. One gold 'set'k was his gift of jewelry for her. Darshanfe mami made a gauna for Harjit, it is a multi-stranded tie which a sister usually ties on her brother's wrist the night before his shadi.
Gurdial has also purchased special altar cloths for the wedding celebration. For Guru Ka Ghar (the house of the Guru), the temple, she explained, there were the red rumal (the large center cloth) and two matching pulka
(side panels), from India. These are ornamented with wide bands of gold tinsel all around the border. In the center of the rumal is the symbol (Ik Om Kar). and facing into each corner is another symbol with a crescent-like shape and a dagger-like object. The rumal is used to cover the
Guru Granth Sahib and pulka are placed one on either side, on the day of the wedding. The cloths are a donation to the temple.
At eleven p.m. we went to bed, planning to rise early the next morning to go to Vancouver to shop. We made a number of stops, first, shopping for clothes and yard goods, to be given as gifts, then for groceries for - 72 -
the langar (temple feast). On the way home we
stopped to deliver a gift of clothing to an older
'aunt' of our lineage. This gift is obligatory
(to a FZ or a FFZ) on the wedding of a young 'niece'.
We arrived back at the farm mid-afternoon, early
enough for me to make the return trip to my home in
Vancouver.
I have found that the return to Vancouver for a few days helps me to distance myself from the field work setting. As an insider as well,
I feel that to get away from the setting for a day or two helps me to main• tain my objectivity and to see the contrasts more clearly.
Three days later, I drove back out to the farm, arriving in time to help move furniture to make room for Darshan's new chesterfield suite, a gift from her nanke.
7 B) PALI
A ritual giving of sweets to the nanke (maternal grandparents) to give formal notice of the wedding date of their grandchild.
The Scene:
The action takes place in the family farm house kitchen as described in Scene A. As one enters the back door, the floor of the hall is covered with boxes of groceries, bags of sugar, flour, ,spices and many other items. There is an air of excitement as the front door - 73 -
is opened. Two men enter carrying a new chesterfield. They return to the moving van parked in the driveway and return with two matching chairs.
Gurdial and I quickly move the coffee tables and the TV to make room for the new furniture.
Gurdial is worrying about deliverying the pali, a sagan, to her parents home, that is to Darshan's nanke.
PALI
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Gurdial Darshan Surjit Arjun Kuldip
A number of other people are around the house. The moving men from the furniture store come in, deliver the merchandise and leave. The nana (maternal grand• father) and a young male relative arrive to inspect the delivered items, and they leave.
Figure V - 74 -
My field notes of April 20, 1981:
As Gurdial and I worked she said that she has yet to take the pali (sugar, or sweets) to the Nanke. She explained that this is a short sagan which occurs when the family of the bride give formal notice to the Nanke of the wedding date.
She said that in India this is done about six weeks prior to the day of the shadi, but that in Canada nine to eleven 8 days is sufficient. When I enquired further, I was told this period of time is used by the nanke to have the bride's gold jewelry and 'suits' made in time for the wedding.
Later, I left the farm house for a few houars. When
I returned, Gurdial said she had taken the pali to her parents home. She said she had asked her mother to accept a box of chocolates in place of the traditional sweets, but was told no, that a bag of sugar would be more appropriate. (Masi-ji is the enforcer of the traditions.)
Since I did not see this event, I cannot comment on the activities which took place, more than to say that no other information was relayed to me about the sagan. In this case it was only a formality since the nanke knew that the wedding was going to take place - they had brought the groom-to-be with them from India, and had prepared many of the gift items while they were there. The wedding takes place five days from now, so very little formal 'notice' is being given since it is unnecessary. - 75 -
The back hall of the house is full of boxes of groceries for the foods to be prepared for the wedding.
I ask if I can list them - my family look at me in wonder, but agree that I can - so they help me to record it (see
Figure VI). I feel grateful for the help, they know now that I am recording the events of the wedding, I have found
it important to tell them in order to have the access I want.
Also the questions I ask need a context, since they aren't always taken seriously. To my request my cousin-brother
(Arjun) said, "good, in future we will have a check list".
No one has yet made up such a list, I feel that my being a nuisance will, after all, be of some value.
The groceries will be taken to the temple kitchen.
Gurdial has begun to telephone the women who live in the lower mainland, to form the work parties for the food preparation.
The invitation is sent to the women who are 'ghar thea bordea',
(women of the house, i.e. lineage). This invitation is sometimes called neonda, a concept which entails reciprocal exchange.
I have been told that in India, when a neonda 'comes', it means that the closest relatives (the extended family, the patri• lineal descent group) get together,and they apportion the cost of the wedding (the meals, sweets, some gifts, and common expenses) according to the means and ability of the members, to assist with the necessary labour, money or goods. Later, as each requires similar assistance, the others reciprocate. - 76 -
THE GROCERY LIST FOR A CANADIAN PUNJABI SIKH WEDDING
Butter - 400 lbs. Buttermilk 100 lbs Sugar 400 lbs. Sour cream 3 gallons Flour 400 lbs. whole wheat Milk 100 lbs 100 lbs. white SOS pads - 2 bags Powdered Milk 4 pkgs. @2.5 kg. . Detergent 2 bottles more Pea Flour 200 lbs. Wax Paper Crisco 6 tins @ 3 lbs. Garbage Bags 1 package Rice, long grain 4 kg. Paper plates and cups - 300 Salt 4 kg. Ginger - 4 lbs. One skein coarse red thread Green Pepper - 6 lbs. One bar Ivory soap Red Pepper - 6 lbs. (chilli powder) Orange drink 1 - 48 oz. can Curry Powder - 6 lbs. (haldi) Orange nectar 1 - 48 oz. can Mussala 6 lbs. Icing sugar 2 boxes Caraway seed 1 lb. Catsup 6 bottles Food colour 1 pkg. red, green, blue Tetley Tea - 4 pkgs. @ 144 tea bags Cardamom Seed - 4 oz. Paper bags - 400 Oris water 7 oz. Napkins - 800 Silver leaves 2 pkgs. Dish detergent (soap) 2 large Pistachios 6 oz. Kool Aid - 12 pkgs. @ 48 oz. Tamarind 2 lbs. Toilet Paper - 4 rolls Raisins 2 lbs. Paper towels - 2 rolls Vegetable oil - 4 - 3 litre tins Additional Purchases: Mahn - 30 lbs. Vegetable Oil 6-3 litre tins Chola (dal) 5 lbs. Potatoes - 50 lbs. Kabli choli 48 - 19 oz. tins Powdered Milk 1 - 2.5 kg. Mungi - 10 lbs. Green onions 4 bunches Tomatoes - 2 tins @ 48 oz. Chinese Parsley - 3 bunches Tomato sauce - 2 large tins 150 lbs. potatoes 3 sacks @ 50 lbs. onions
(These groceries will feed app: 350 people)
Figure - 77 -
In Canada, there is reciprocal exchange, but it
appears to me to have become more narrowly defined. The
major cost of the wedding is borne by the parents of the
bride-to-be. Her grandparents (nanke or dadke) may help if
they are in Canada. If the mother's brothers and the father's
brothers are in Canada, and if they have good relations with
the family, they too will help. Usually a cash contribution
is made toward the cost of the temple meals, and help is
provided in the preparation of the food,and later to serve
the meals. The wedding gift becomes the main item of
exchange in Canada. The receiver is always cognizant of the
size and approximate value of the gift and in future will
respond with one of similar value. Neonda, in Canada, is
thus an invitation to lineage members, other than the immediate
kinswomen, to help with the labour requirements for the food
preparation.^
The relatives who answered the call were those women who were home,and who were free to come on that particular day.10 I did not check to see which relatives came more frequently than others, but I do know that the older women came almost every day (of the three days requiring the heaviest labour). The women of the patriline came everyday if they could, and if they lived in the Fraser Valley. Others, who were fictive kin or very distant relatives who are few in number, are usually invited and attend if they can. The women of the nanke, in this case, came everyday.
Some women were not called, perhaps because of strained relations between - 78 -
them and others who had priority and were, therefore called first.
The field notes continue:
Those women who drive cars will bring a earful,
picking up those along their routes who need a lift.
This relieves the sponsoring family of a good deal of
travel. In the past, when few women drove cars, the logistics
of travel were a great burden to the family sponsoring
the phog. However, now there are disagreements about
getting lifts.
The division of labour at the work parties is that
the women do the work of cooking the foods."'""'" The few
men who are not working at their full-time employment that
day, or are unemployed or self-employed, assist by shopping
for, picking up, and delivering foods or other items the
women may need.
In two days time we will go to the temple to
prepare the foods to be distributed and used for the
wedding.
C) GURDWARE LADDU, PAKORIA PAKORN JARNA
Food Preparation at the Temple
The Scene:
The act takes place at the temple. The women, having bathed - 79 -
and dressed very early this morning, gather to prepare the foods for the wedding celebration. There is a very brief rite, which consists of Gurdial tying coarse red cotton thread onto the wrist of each woman who attends this function. This tie is to be kept on for five weeks and then untied, not broken.
The kinship chart shown as Figure I may be referred to for this ritual. Figure VII shows the cast of characters.
FOOD PREPARATION AT THE TEMPLE
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Gurdial Masi-ji
Darshan's three mamian (MBW) Darshan's masi(MZ) Darshan's Father's Sister (FZ), her pooah Darshan's Father's Father's Brother's Daughter (FFBD) her pooah, Kuldip In all, there are about thirty-five women present, from Gurdial's father's lineage and the lineage of her husband. Some of the women, a very few, are close friends who are related as 'fictive kin'.
A few men, about five in all, come and go during the day. They help with the heavier work of loading and unloading the groceries or prepared foods. They too are relatives.
Figure VII - 80 -
From my journal of April 22, 1981:
Today is the first day of cooking at the temple.
At eight o'clock in the morning when I arrive, there are ten women already in the kitchen. The first batch of laddu are ready to squeeze together into little balls. As I enter, Gurdial ties a red cotton thread onto my wrist.
As they work, the women are singing songs called geet which are similar to ballads. Some women are consulting each other about the proper proportions of ingredients, since these are not written out as recipes. Other women watch.
In the temple there are two large rooms in which the' cooking is done. In the largest room, there are two gas burning stoves and one long 3-burner stove. There is a set of laundry tubs with long drain boards on either side.
At one end of the room is a washbasin over which the looped cloth towel dispenser hangs. Along two walls, in front of several small windows, are placed two long tables with benches. They are used for dining and today, as work tables as well.
There are large aluminum pots of different sizes, and many, many pots such as karahi's which are sloped-sided for deep frying. There are smaller pots and pans, large stirring spoons, long handled wire screens for taking fried foods out of hot fat, jugs for serving tea, cutlery, wooden stirring paddles, etc. - 81 -
In the middle of the floor is a large table on which the ingredients are placed. These are the groceries which have been purchased for the wedding ceremonies, that is for all of the associated functions up to and including the day of the shadi.
The second room is a step lower. It, too, is equipped with long tables and benches and is usually used as a dining room. There are two or three wash basins with overhanging looped cloth-towel dispensers. At the far end of the room, an automatic clothes washer and dryer have been installed.
There are tables running across the room as well, with benches.
On one of these are piled the tea towels, dust cloths, lining, cloths for the roti pans, large cotton sheet-like multi• purpose cloths, and odd-shaped rags. There are several small windows in this room as well. There are no cooking facilities here.
The main rooms used for cooking and dining had been painted white. They are constructed of board walls and cement floors. Strictly functional, they have metal sheeting hoods over the stoves and large round exhaust pipes taking the cooking smells and smoke outside. On the walls there are a number of hand written signs in Gurmukhi script: - 82 -
These are instructions: Langar the seva sehr takke karo ji , which is to say that the voluntary service of food should be done with the head covered.
Today, the fried foods are being prepared. Over one sloped-sided pan, three women are busy preparing small pakori-bits. They are made of a pea flour and water batter and are the base for sweet foods. Another pot is boiling with a sugar/water syrup, into which oris water is added for flavour.
Once the proper number of pans full of pakori are prepared, the premeasured syrup is added to them in a very large pot
(3Vx20"). This mixture is stirred by one woman with a long wooden paddle until it is of the right consistency. This is done over and over until the pot is full (see Illustration II).
Then,a number of women carry it into the adjoining room and set the pot on the benches. Here, women transfer the mixture into smaller pans. Two or three women then take the pan to one of the tables,and begin to take handfuls of the very warm sticky mixture, form it into balls by pressing it together firmly, and then set them on the table to harden. They are called laddu.
On two other tables, six women are each rolling out pastry dough to 1/4" thickness and cutting it into 1" squares.
These will later be fried, cooled, and batches of syrup made for them. Then, the syrup is first poured over, and the whole lot is dusted with icing sugar by one woman, as they are dropped or rather pushed into a second large pan by another - 83 -
ILLUSTRATION II
STIRRING THE LADDU - 84 -
woman. Two women are needed to pour the sugar dusted
squares from one pan to another; four women do this work.
These squares, once they have been completely coated with icing
sugar, are cooled out-of-doors. The squares are sakrepare or
korme.
Part of the pastry dough is made into matar, which are
savoury snacks with spices in them. They are long and thin
strips of fried pastry.
Over another pan (2'xl8") and squatting on the floor,
three women are making dough for the unleavened pancake-like
bread called rotis (see Illustration III).One woman kneads the
dough and mixes it, another pours in the melted butter, and
a third pours in the water.
The three-burner stove has a potful of lentil dal
cooking on it. There are two kinds of lentils in the pot.
(Masi-ji said they each represent the respective tabar of the bride and groom.) A second pot is full of hot tea, while the
third burner has a syrup cooking on it.
During the cooking, a lot of gossip is exchanged, news
from India, ailments are discussed ad infinitum, their cures, the abilities and faults of the noha (daughters-in-law).
The rooms are bursting with activity and talk, laughing, teasing women who cajole each other throughout the day as they make all of the foods.
One woman told me that in India, the women do not do all of this work. There is a person who looks after the making of - 85 -
ILLUSTRATION III
WOMEN PREPARING FOOD IN THE TEMPLE KITCHEN - 86 -
the sweets - the halvai. Here, the women learn to make all the foods, the different castes are missed. This was not a complaint as much as a difference noted. She added that the food preparation gives the women an opportunity to get 12 together.
In a third small room there is a large gas stove with a griddle-like top. Three women take the roti dough into this room. Small balls of dough are taken from the mass, shaped and put onto a table dusted with flour. On another part of the table, two women are rolling the balls out into thin (1/4") rounds which they expand by patting them back and forth between their hands and they are then slapped onto the stove top._ Another woman cooks them on the ungreased griddle top turning them over and over to brown them evenly and to prevent from them burning. These rotis are buttered, put into a cloth-lined pot and taken into the large dining room.
Here, the women at work take turns being served a meal of sweet rice, dal, rotis and mango pickles. Tea and water are both served. The women eat in groups of two or three.
By noon, there are about thirty-five women in the kitchens.
Some children are also there. The groom is brought in by his
'mama' (DMB), at about one p.m. The women, thus have their first chance to inspect the new person as he has his first temple meal in Canada. - 87 -
In the afternoon we make barfi, a milk sweet, in the small room where rotis are made. Here, melted butter (ghee) is put into a pot, powdered milk is added, and this mixture is cooked. At the same time a pot of syrup is prepared and added to the milk and butter mixture. When it is of the right consistency it is poured into large flat aluminum trays.
As it cools, and hardens, it is sprinkled with chopped pistachio nuts. I apply the silver leaf to it.
While we were making the barfi, one of the women told me who she was - that she was my 'caci' (FyBW). Then, realizing that I did not know who she was she explained by relating our genealogical connection through a 'grandfather' (FFFBS?) who lives in Canada,to a great number of kinsmen in India (whom she could name and I was in complete ignorance of),and finally that she was married to the younger son (FFFBSyS?). Then she ended with the location of their house vis a vis ours in our village in India. Later, because I was still uncertain of the connections through which she and I were related I asked
Gurdial who ran through the 'connections' again. I still do not know, but do remember the common wall we share with their house in our village in India. Later, as we were waiting for the barfi to cool, her son (my 'brother') came in and we met.
He told me he was at U.B.C. (The women eagerly asked him to stir the pot of barfi for good luck! He did, with some embarrassment at the attention.) In this way kinship networks expand, horizontally encompassing a great number of B.C. Sikhs. - 88 -
Everyone else knew exactly what our relationship is, and
I will learn.
Today, a wide range of topics are discussed by the women at the temple. One group was talking about the fact that the men now coming over to Canada to be married are more highly educated, but that no one can afford to support them for any length of time and how they must work at whatever jobs become available. It is particularly difficult for some men to do this, especially'where they leave good research jobs behind in India. The women seem to be trying to find a justification for their position. There is the realization that by selecting men who are more suitable for life in Canada and for educated
Canadian women, they also select men who are not readily employable. These educated men do look for work in their own fields, but they usually cannot find it. I think this reflects the Canadian job market, the fact that our education systems are not equivalent, discrimination, and the lack of knowledge about how to look for a job. In any case, the newcomers soon find work in canneries, sawmills, on farms and, initially at least, in other labouring occupations. The networks of kin already working soon find a niche for the newcomer.
The women recognize the seriousness of the problem. They say "what can we do? They must be responsible householders once they are married". I have not talked to any of these young men, so I do not know their reactions. For some of them the dream of further education in Canada is thwarted by the fact - 89-
that they did not foresee the differences in the university
systems which usually mean that an Indian student must fulfil
additional requirements for entrance, and in some cases repeat
a degree before going' on. Usually, this fact will preclude
further education, since few people here want to support
married sons-in-law as they' go to university.
In-coming .wives are not even allowed to complete degrees,
if their in-laws send for them and their passports are ready.
There is little concern about their unfinished degrees. The
in-laws here say why bother, they will not be needing degrees
at home and they will not need to work. Again, this is a
topic for further study; but it's a delicate matter, for the
person inquiring can be accused of putting disruptive notions
into the heads of the noha (daughters-in-law).
This gathering of women at the temple today includes
those who have just come back from trips to India. Often,
they are the ones who carry sanyahe, important, often crucial
messages from families in India. Much of the communication
between India and Canada is conveyed by these travellers.
The message carrier can carry the emotive tone of the message ,
as well as convey the facts more fully than can be done through
letters. The information is of course augmented by the messengers own sense of what he or she observed to be happening
in India. The receiver then has several input sources and the message to sort out. The message sender is of course very
selective about who is chosen to convey what type of message. - 90 -
The sanyaha is also, perhaps, further clarification of a letter mailed earlier. ' Sometimes a low level of literacy will not allow the correspondent to fully communicate everything that is to be explained about a situation.
The women were talking about our need to work at whatever jobs become available without regard for some particular suitability for some job (again the concern was with the educated men from India). One woman said that it is God's will. She went on - just as in the ocean the janvar (animals) eat each other, so it is with us - we must compete, for work
- some become richer at the expense of others. This led., to a discussion of the illness of someone in the community who has been an exemplary worker all of his life. Then the con• versation turned to the differences in treatment for various illnesses and the comparison of treatment between India and Canada.
At the temple, too, problems are made public so that inappropriate behaviour receives the negative sanctions of the community. The misbehavior of a person is made public so that in the event that it gets worse, and interference by someone outside the family is required, there is a record of the preceding events.
This was the case today when one woman told us about the treatment a young woman was receiving at the hands of her in-laws. There has been some censoring of their behavior already. More and more I feel that these topics are made public because a couple consisting of the western-raised and - 91 -
the Indian-raised, are encountering marital problems and their resolution is of great concern.
Several of the women talked about the fact that they give their sons and daughters advice to act according to their perception of their situation after marriage. That is to say, that there is the hope that they are successful; but if not, the parents want the children to know that there is help from both sides of the family if they need it. The problem is more serious for a Canadian Sikh woman going into the household of newly arrived in-laws who have very traditional views about the role of a daughter-in-law. Most of the young women do attempt to live up to expectations, but at great psychic cost and in many cases the resolution is found in establishing separate nuclear family households. Generally, it is regarded as a failure of both families if the marital difficulties are not resolved satisfactorily before they get to the stage of divorce. Few young India-raised men in the early years of a marriage will support their wives in an argument with their in-laws.
Another topic which was discussed was the health hazard posed by insecticides on the local berry farms. There have been a number of illnesses due to the spraying done in the berry fields. The symptoms talked about were swollen eyes and nasal passages, and vomiting. They say that they attempt to keep the children out of the fields for the required two days afterwards but there is a sense of great danger from these - 92 -
substances, and concern about the inability to always account
for the children's activities. This conversation conveyed,
too, their concern about' their own lack of understanding
about these things.
During the late afternoon, a youth, about fifteen years
old, measured out the ingredients for the degh or prashad (the
sacramental food). He first took off his shoes - I was told
he must be barefoot when he makes this food - then he started
to recite the pat (prayer), as he cooked the degh. I was
impressed by his ability and his devotion. His father is the
'acting officiating priest' at the temple, and was upstairs
reading the Guru Granth Sahib.
At close to five o'clock we have finished the main part
of the cooking of the foods that are to be distributed to
each family invited to the wedding. We find the large empty
boxes which we brought earlier, I line them with waxed paper
and we put the laddu into them. There are about eight boxes
full. Then the trays of barfi are loaded onto the van, the
salty foods, and the unused groceries.
It has been a long, tiring day - physically and
emotionally stressful. I have a sense of having boldly intruded.
For me, in my dual roles as insider and anthropologist, a knowledge of the language and kinship ties have been important mediators. But it would be a mistake not to say that there has been a pronounced feeling of unease for me - as 'participant- observers' we forcefully intrude where we know we are a nuisance, - 93 -
at the very least, perhaps an embarrassment and a curiosity
and perhaps all of these things.
D) GOREA THE SAGAN
Western Wedding Shower
The Scene:
The performance opens in the evening, at the home of a white woman who works in the same office as Darshan. Darshan, Surjit and I enter into an L-shaped living room and dining room. There are about eight white women seated in the living room. The dining room table is set with tea sandwiches and other Western-type sweets, tea cups and saucers, glasses, a punch-filled bowl, and several kinds of pickles.
Several of the women are busy in the kitchen. A chair, decorated with streamers, is reserved for Darshan, with a chair on either side for
Surjit and I.
WESTERN WEDDING SHOWER
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Darshan Surjit Kuldip
There are about ten white women, ranging in age from nineteen to about fifty years of age at this shower. They are Darshan's friends and co• workers. Darshan's mother asked me to attend in her place, Darshan said the invitation had been extended to me.
Figure VIII - 94 -
From my field notes of April 23, 1981:
As we entered the living room, we saw the decorated
chairs, the small sandwiches, the sweets: pineapple squares,
and nanaimo bars; and the gifts wrapped in wedding shower papers.
Darshan sat in the decorated chair and I sat on one side ,
with Surjit on the other. When it came time to open the gifts
we helped by folding the gift wrap and passing the cards and
gifts around for inspection. The gifts were mainly cut glass
items in a pinwheel pattern, and items for use in the kitchen,
such as a cutting board, tea towels, oven mitts, etc. The women
are non-Sikhs, and very curious about the wedding, some of them
will be going to the ceremony at the temple. I asked Darshan
to tell them the usual sequence of events in the wedding rite and
she did so. It is important that the rules of the temple are not
infringed, so we tell the women they must wear head coverings
in the temple, shoes must be removed before entering, intoxicants
are not allowed, and smoking in the temple is prohibited.
There is a good deal of discussion about the arranged marriage. The women want to know how my niece feels about that
aspect. They are also quite curious about the groom, where the
couple will stay after their marriage, when she will see him, will she like him, etc. Since they work with Darshan, they know
some of the frustrations involved in getting Harjit's immigration papers approved so that he could come to Canada. Darshan replies to their questions, juggling the information and giving the - 95 -
appropriate response, perhaps constrained too by my presence
there.
Since the shower, I am very conscious of how information
is communicated to different audiences. The women at the shower were presented with a front region. My nieces and I knew of
the back region, it was implicit for us. In other words, there
is another 'front region' which would be presented to an audience composed of Sikh women, and still another region - the back region for the ghar thea bordea, the women of the house (i.e. the family in its broad sense of the several
lineages, considered immediate family). It is as if the 'stage' were divided into separate areas for each audience, the Western and the Sikh, as well as the backstage for the family. Each has its own language,.and its own cultural rules. It is especially interesting, too, for me to watch this communication process, the ease with which the transition from one perspective to another is made.
My nieces and I have an understanding that is shared.
That is, we 'know' or share a knowledge of multiple perspectives, each complete in itself. I know which perspective is being presented and participate in it as if by prior consent, but it is not discussed or perhaps even conscious, sometimes.
The disharmonies are in a sense made harmonious, sometimes by little deceits. - 96 -
I know I am affecting the situation at the shower, as
a relative of the bride-to-be, as a Vancouverite, as a former
acquaintance of a few women, and because of my status as a 14
student at U.B.C. In this setting we are there to converse
so it means interaction with most of the people here, whereas
at the temple work parties, there are other activities going on,
and I might influence the situation less.
After the shower,, I drive the young women back to their
home and after a brief discussion with them about whether I should
drive alone in the fog, late at night along rural roads, to the
home of my brother, I decide to stay overnight. Because the
house is crowded, two of us share a bed. We are all tired from
the activities of the past week; I feel uneasy about how welcome
I am tonight in an already crowded household. Everyone is
already badly in need of rest, and tomorrow we must spend the day
preparing for the sagan and gidtha to be held in the evening.
E. SAGAN TE GIDTHA
Family rite (including western-type shower) and Dance
The Scene:
The setting is the rural farm house as described for the maian
ritual. The house has an air of festivity, and the sweet spicy smell of
Indian tea and sweets permeates the air. A few women already dressed in saris are standing in the kitchen expectantly and others are in the - 97 -
bedrooms changing, after having spent the day preparing for the evenings
events. An atmosphere of joy, amusement, and tradition prevails.
SAGAN, GIDTHA AND WESTERN-TYPE WEDDING SHOWER
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Darshan Surjit
Gurdial Kuldip
Masi-ji
Darshan's masi (i.e. her mother's sister) Darshan's mamia (i.e. her three aunts, MBW) Darshan's pooah (i.e. her father's sister)
And, other closely related women of both lineages are present, as well as a very few unrelated (fictive kin) and white friends.
Figure IX
This is a multiple-event, condensed into one to meet the expectations of first, the India-born-and-raised B.C. Sikh women who value the traditional activities, and second, the Canada-born-and-raised women, who appreciate both the traditional sagan and gidtha, and the
Western style wedding shower, and third, the white relatives and friends who know the Western wedding shower but have not experienced the Indian ritual. - 98 -
Gurdial had explained to me earlier that only the household
B.C. Sikh women (ghar thea bordea) have been invited to this event.
As a formal event, many women in the community should have been invited.
But because the interval of time until the wedding is so short, and
because the house is so small, only the women of the Nanke and Dadke
are invited. (That is, the women of our lineage and that of Darshan's
15
maternal grandparents.) In order not to offend anyone, the family
have made it seem to have been staged impromptu. (There has since been
some criticism of this seeming exclusivity.)
When Darshan and I decorated the bride's chair this morning
(with yellow flowers and red streamers), she told me that the chair
should actually face east, to the rising sun. We could not accomplish
this without re-arranging the whole room, so the chair was left where it
was.
At about four o'clock in the afternoon, one of Darshan's aunts
(DMBW) arrived to help fry the samosas which Darshan and Surjit had made
and frozen about a month ago. Also, the pots were put on for tea and
to make sweet saffron rice. We got dressed in our saris about five
o'clock and shortly after that people started to arrive.
We heard them first from quite a distance, the Nankewalia, just
as one would in India, if they were arriving from another village. They were singing the Indian 'geet'. It was Masi-ji, her daughter, and three
daughters-in-law. Darshan let them in, and in fun, because her mamia
are her age, as is her masi, she lowered her head for the sehr parlos
(the blessing-greeting, given to children). Soon there was a houseful of women in sari's, salvar and kurtia, and Western clothes. We served the - 99 -
tea, and the laddu, barfi, mattar and pakoria were set out on the coffee table. The women have now started to sing the bvolea.
Then the shower gifts' are opened, but first, there is a paper plate onto which the ribbons and bows from the gifts are being taped, to make a hat with streamers. It had been passed around for each woman to sign, some in Gurmukhi, and some in English. After all of the gifts were opened the bride-to-be put on the 'hat' and she had her picture taken. Except for the Gurmukhi signatures, and the sparsity of bows
(there were few presents as many of the women tonight gave money, so they signed the hat), this part was similar to the Western wedding shower we attended last night.
The following is an excerpt from my journal, about the sagan and the singing and dancing that followed:
April 23, 1981:
The sagan is performed right after the shower.
The women had been singing the geet and bvolea all
evening and have now started up again. Then, the bride's
mother brings in a tray with five bowls of rice, coloured
with saffron. She takes one bowl and feeds the bride-to-
be seven teaspoonfuls. As she does this, the young
sister of the bride pulls the shawl from her sister's
shoulders and places it around her head and pulls it
forward over her face (quol cardne) a little. I think
this is to show the bride's changed status - she is and
has been in seclusion for the last ten days or more - 100 -
(officially) fbut also perhaps to show her that she will
have to be more reserved in her new home, and to be
aware of covering her head and face before many of her
new kinsmen. She will no longer be as free as she was
in her own 'village' (cum home in Canada), where the girls, because everyone is 'related' to them,had no need
to be so careful. She would have been comparatively carefree in that setting.
Next, the nani (maternal grandmother), fed her five teaspoonfuls of rice, then her mother's eldest brother's wife did the same. The remaining four bowls of rice were given to the bride's unmarried 'sisters' and to her young masi. We were then all served the rice, tea and samosas.
As the plates were taken away, the women lined up and, starting with the grandmother, they each circled the bride's head four times with a $10 or a $20 bill, pressed it onto her forehead, and then put it into the end of the bride's shawl which she held cupped in her hand. After this she thanked everyone. As we moved the coffee table, women started to sing the geet, first together and then in two's. Then the younger sister of the bride and her unmarried young aunt sang together and started the gidtha
(a folk dance). They did a shuffle step, clapped their hands, and sang a short refrain, which the women seated around the dancers took up as they clapped a fast beat. Now the - 101 -
dancers make a flutter sound with their lips. They go round and round and one suddenly throws her shawl up over her face, covering it completely - probably re• presenting a bride, while the other dances with her face uncovered. (The dance reminds me of a bee's circle dance.)
I think this is supposed to represent a man and a woman, man in pursuit of a woman, or bride by capture perhaps?
Two of the young newly married mamia (MBW) get up very shyly,and do a couple of turns around the floor before collapsing in their chairs in laughter.
Later the women start to sing "Let us nanand-perjai nautch", that was referring to Darshan's mother and I - this usage of kin terms which juxtaposes those relationships which are marked with tensions in everyday life,is a key feature of the wedding songs. I should explain that when I, as her nanand ('HZ'), and she as my perjai ('BW') get up to dance together we are showing, I think, that on this occasion
(and on numerous other social occasions) we have a commonality of interest, the wedding of a daughter of the family. We are presenting the public face of the family to the people invited.
The private sphere is masked for the duration of the wedding, the tensions inherent in this relationship, hidden.
We do get up and dance, I am totally inept at nautch- dancing but we do a turn or two around the floor - it was enjoyable, and satisfied those who called the husband's sister/ sister-in-law relationship into play. - 102 -
Later, one layer of the wedding cake I had baked is
brought into the front room and put on the table in front
of Darshan. She makes a first cut into it and then it is
taken back into the kitchen and I cut and serve it with the
help of my niece. I think there is some comment about the
thin strips of cake that I serve - one of the relatives cuts
a large wedge and serves it. I wish I had known this would
be considered skimpy; I feel embarrassed and would cut larger pieces but feel constrained because Darshan wants to save
one layer for herself for next year, their first anniversary.
The women go home fairly early - and as they leave we give them the bags of food for each family. Darshan had packed them this morning - from the boxes we prepared at the temple. Each family' received laddu, pakoria, mattar, and sakerpare (now referred to as korme by some families?), and pieces of barfi. During the wedding rituals, especially the women's gidtha and geet, there is a restructuring of the world of the bride-to-be through song. She has a knowledge of the content of the songs because of her participation in her culture - they are part of her worldview and ethos - the general set of ideas about her culture - but she has not experienced this firsthand before. Now there is a personal involvement in every geet and bvole. Her new role is played out in every song and dance at the several events prior to the wedding. - 103 -
Some of the songs are sung in her 'voice', that is to
say that in them, the singer becomes this bride. The singer
in one song sings it from the future time, when the bride
will be returning home after her maklava (the day or two
after the shadi, in the home of her in-laws). In the song,
the bride is relating'to her family and friends how she feels
about her in-laws. She says that her sus (mother-in-law) tells
her to call her mata (mother), but she says, "I call her old
woman". Her saura (father-in-law) tells her to call him
pitha-ji (father + honorific), but she says, "I call him old
man". Her nanand (sister-in-law) tells her to call her parn,
but she says, "I call her 'girl' ". Her jeth (husband's elder
brother) tells her to call him bere (brother), but she says,
"I call him 'boy' ", etc.
The song is a statement by the women at the gidtha,
that the bride's perception of her situation during the maklava and the early days in the new home is not at all unconventional or 'new'; that every newly married woman has at first felt these feelings of little genuine affection for these new relations. In another bvole, the bride is depicted as chiding her father. She tells him that his alliance (sikir with these new relations will come to naught (will break) if she dies of grief at being sent there so soon. In other words, she is saying she is not yet ready to be sent away in marriage.
I include these few examples, (there may be better ones) to show that they depict the tensions that might be experienced by the bride, and they are labelled in a way, as being common - 104 -
to all women in similar situations. The importance of the
bvolea, apart from their entertainment value, is that they
operate as a device which shapes the consciousness of the
person through the use of shifting perspectives. The bvolea
are sung from the different social locations the bride will
find herself in, vis a vis her roles with each new affinal
kinsmen, (or at least those which have the greatest potential
for tension), - those that have been mentioned in the first
illustration above. There is always tension between the
mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, between the daughters
of the village (in this case the husband's sister) and the
incoming brides, for brides are watched by their sisters-in-law
for any misdemeanour's. There is an avoidance relationship
between a bride and her husband's eldest brother and between
her and her father-in-law. So the bvolea can be seen to label
the important relationships.
The day after the rice-sagan at the home of the bride-to-be,
eight women go to the temple. They are making the last of the foods for
the women's reception-dance at the rented hall. As well, a meal has been prepared for those who are working and for them to take home to their families (to spare them that labour, later). The meal is khir (a rice and milk pudding), a lentil dal and rotis. From my field notes: - 105 -
:Three women are busy frying pakore for this evening's event. Pakore are spicy clusters of peas, onions and potatoes, in a pea flour batter to which hot spices such as red pepper, and mussalla, are added. Small amounts of this mixture are then placed into the hot fat and fried.
Because I have arrived late, I am served alone, a lunch of khir, roti, dal and pakoria. Afterwards, I sit and peel potatoes for the next day's meal. My aunt and masi-ji are peeling and quartering the onions. They usually peel and cut the onions because they say, "we are older it doesn't matter if our eyes get red and watery". There is usually a convivial atmosphere when the women are cooking, although it is not unknown for women to bring their personal enmities to these work parties.
The work today will end early. At six o'clock the bride's mother's brothers and their wives will take the prepared foods to the reception room at the Leisure Center. They have boxes of laddu, barfi, pakoria, tea and juice, paper plates, cups and napkins. But first, they will wait for the man who comes to make the jalebi's. (Jalebi's are a fried coil of pastry dipped into a syrup, which enters the inner part of the coil.
They are prepared especially for weddings. We do not attempt to make them because they require some skill to prepare.) - 106 -
F. GIDTHA
WOmen's Folk Dance
The Scene:
After parking in the large parking lot of the Leisure Center
(a modern community center building), one enters through heavy doors to a large room with a stage at one end and chairs and tables at the other.
To the right of the main entrance, a hallway leads into a small kitchen area which has a pass-through (for serving food) into the room. A second entrance, from the interior of the large building is to be seen at the left of the stage, a red exit sign hangs above it. As one enters the room many women may be seen wearing colorful salvar and kurti with matching chunea. Others, a very few, are wearing saris and a few of the younger women are wearing langas. Some are at the center of the room, standing in a circle, watching the activity in the center. Other women are standing in small groups conversing, still others are in the kitchen making tea and putting food out in large bowls. The ceiling of this room is very high and makes all sounds echo. - 107 -
GIDTHA
CAST OF CHARACTERS
The women of both lineages (as shown in Figure I), and many other women who are related or are friends, from the local area (Fraser Valley), from Vancouver, New Westminster and from Victoria. A few people from longer distances (Montreal and Seattle) are also here tonight. Most of the children attend these functions with their mother.
There are a number of young men of the family standing outside the building, they have delivered the food and some of them will stay, conversing outside with friends, ready if the women need to send them on an errand. The white caretaker comes through frequently, curious, watching the activity with interest. Part way through the evening a belly dancer arrives to provide entertainment.
Figure X
Journal, April 24, 1981:
When I arrive at the hall with my young niece, it is
8:30 p.m. and already there are about one hundred women and
children there. The women are in a large circle with an eight
foot area in the center for the dancers. We push to get near
the front where two dancers are doing the nautch dancing or
gidtha, and singing bvolea. All of the women on the
periphery clap out a beat and sing the refrain over and over.
I find it useless to try to tape the music - the
echo in the room is so bad that one can hardly make out the words of the songs to pick up the refrain to be sung. This - 108 -
is why they crowd into the center so much.
At nine o'clock my friend, who is a belly dancer,
is ready to enter the circle. She enters the dance circle with cymbals ringing out a fast beat. At first there is a
stunned silence, then the women pick up the beat and all
clap to her beat loudly and with obvious enthusiasm. The dancer uncovers her face and the women are quite obviously
surprised (perhaps they consider it immodest to be so bare?).
The older women are very keen and laugh and clap throughout the dance. Some of the women are not enjoying it - at least that is the impression I get as I watch them. Perhaps it is strange and they are trying to make sense of it - it is not part of their cultural experience.
Then the dancer gives the mother of the bride a rose and everyone claps. I put some money into the dancer's bra strap and many of the 'women of the household' and a few others follow saying it is sagan. Just then a lone man is pulled into the hall. He is the youngest of Darshan's mother's brothers.
He is pushed into the center of the circle and told to put some money into the dancer's skirt. He attempts to, but turns away as if in embarrassment. He is very shy. Later, Gurdial explained to me that someone said the Nanke had sponsored the event and she wanted to set the record straight.
This is the evening all the young women have waited for, they have planned their outfits with great care. I watched one - 109 -
night as two of them modelled their 'Punjabi suits' for us and asked us to decide which were the most attractive.
The three mamiya (MBW's) then come out of the side hall, singing. The eldest has a pot on her head, on the lid of which are seven large glowing candles. She enters singing
"Jago Ve, Jago AiHa..." I missed the first few words but know that she is singing as if she were in the bridegroom's village and is telling him "to wakeup, the woman who awakens has arrived..." The three women then dance in the circle, the one with the pot just circling, as the other two nautch. Once these two dancers leave, the woman with the candles remains in, still circling and two other women enter singing a different refrain, clapping and nautch around her. This continues for some time. Then the pot is transferred to the head of the younger mami (MBW) and a new set of women dance around her.
This process continues until finally the pot has been transferred to the head of the most recently married mami, she is very shy and stays in the center for only a brief turn or two.
During the gidtha, it seems that sometimes the two women represent a man and a woman. In one gidtha pair the 'man' is making hand motions indicating he is drinking liquor and 'he' is in pursuit of the woman. Unfortunately, the echo in the room prevents me from hearing the bvole that would explain the dance. - 110 -
At about 10:30 p.m. the women start to serve the food.
We are each given a paper plate, napkins, and a paper cup.
Then the food is served from large bowls. .." Tea or juice is
served from large jugs.; The foods are the mattar, pakoria,
jalebis, barfi, sacrepare, and laddu. It is fresh and tasty.
(The jalebis were made late this afternoon, by a man who
specializes in making sweets. He went to the temple today,
after we had left.)
Soon after the food is eaten, the women start to leave.
At the door Gurdial and her sister-in-law (her husband's sakhe
bhain), are standing with the prepared bags of the wedding foods
which go to each family in the community. As the women leave,
they press money into Gurdial1s hand, usually $10 or $20, but
a few are larger amounts as well. These are wedding gifts, and
the amounts of each are recorded for future transactions.
At 11:30 p.m. the eldest and closest of the women
relatives leave for the home of the bride-to-be. Darshan had
not attended tonight's dance, but had remained at home.
G. NAI THOI
The Ritual Bathing of the Bride-to-be
The Scene:
The rural farm house is crowded with 'women of the household'-
The scene is a very emotional one. It is very late, on the evening before - Ill -
the shadi. This is the ritual bathing of the bride, conducted by the 15 closest of the women relatives in Canada.
NAI-THOI
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Darshan Gurdial
Surjit Masi-ji
Darshan's mother's brother's wives, her three mamia Darshan's father's sister, her pooah Darshan's mother's sister, her masi
A number of other elderly 'aunts' from both lineages are present, as well as young women cousins. The eldest of Darshan's mother's brothers is also present.
Figure XI
Journal, April 25, 1981:
After the women's reception, the women went to the
bride's parent's home for the ritual bathing of the bride
called nai thoi (bathing the bride). This is when the bride's
clothes are displayed (her dehj). These items which make up
her dowry, are from her sauri (Ideational for husband's
parent's village), from her nanke (maternal grandparents - 112 -
village) and from her own village, which after her marriage will be called her pake. The following is a partial list of her gifts:"1"6
The gifts from her sauri (.in-laws) are:
1. Seven suits each consisting of a salvar, kurti and chuni 2. Mehndi - henna, to be applied at her nai thoi 3. Two dorian - decorated wool strands to be braided into her hair. 4. One set of gold jewelry - necklace, earrings, ring, gold bracelets 5. Shoes
The gifts from her nanke:
1. One chesterfield suite 2. One set of gold jewelry 3. The Guru ka Langar: the meal at the temple on the day of the wedding. It is for the whole congregation. 4. For the mother of the bride (their daughter): one 'suit', shoes and dorian 5. For the bride: nine 'suits' 6. For each of the bride's aunts (pooah): one 'suit' 7. For the brothers and their wives, of the father of the bride: one suit each 8. For the bride's younger brother: clothing 9. For the bride's younger sister: one suit
The gifts from her aunts (pooah's) A and B
A - The aunt who is the father's sister: 1. Five 'suits' 2. Two saris 3. One set of dishes (breakfast set) 4. One sewing machine 5. For the groom, one pair of slacks and one shirt B - The aunt who is the father's father's brother's daughter: 1. A bedspread 2. The Honeymoon trip to Victoria (travel, ferry, hotel and costs) 3. For the groom a gift of fifty dollars - 113 -
The gifts from her parents: This is a partial list for most of the expense of the wedding was theirs.
1. One set of gold jewelry 2. Thirty or more 'suits' 3. Twenty saris 4. Shoes and purses 5. Lingerie 6. Linens: (sheets, pillow cases, comforters, table cloths, etc.) 7. The groom's expenses to Canada 8. A firebird costing $11,000
The gifts from the remaining friends and relatives:
There were also clothing from the mother's sisters (this includes both sakhe (consanguineal) and fictive sisters. Other gifts came from the mother's nanke (MMF's village), and from the households of her father's brother's (elder and younger) and their families.-'-"''
There were other gifts from the members of the community, to be opened after the wedding.
After the women had inspected the gifts, the bride-to-be 18 was sent to begin the nai thoi. I was told that in Canada, a bride usually bathes herself. In Indian villages (Punjab), the custom is to have the nai draw the water for the bath.
Then, the women, usually close relatives of the bride, make a buttona, a mixture of oat flour (jewa the atta), oil, and haldi
(tumeric). This mixture is rubbed on the young woman's skin to cleanse it.
This procedure was not followed by Darshan. She bathed herself and put on her new bright pink silk 'suit'. Then her mama (MB) carried her out to the women, waiting with the gold bracelets, necklace, and earrings, the dorian, and the mehndi - 114 -
(henna) from her sauri (in-laws). The women were singing very emotional, sad geet (ballads). Darshan's mamia (MBW's) started to dress her, they combed her hair, braiding in the dorian from her in-laws (this pair is of red strands of wool, for her wedding). The songs are so sad that Darshan and the other women cried throughout the bathing and dressing. The geet are rich in the use of metaphor. Gurdial explained one song to me, it is about all of the unmarried girls of the village being like a bouquet of flowers, and that tonight one single flower has been taken out of the bouquet. The singers continue with the song saying that at a time such as this a mami is needed by the bride (i.e. to dress, console and advise her).
Darshan's mamia combed and braided her hair with the dorian, put the red chewra (bracelet from nanke, a traditional gift) on her wrist and the gold bracelets. Then, mehndi was put on her hands in a daub on each palm. Around this, the sister of the bride put the remaining mehndi in a dot- pattern on each joint of her fingers,and around the center daub.
Then, the mother conducted the sagan, she came into the front room with a plate on which there were five laddu. She broke one and fed some of the sweet to Darshan. Next, the women each rose by turn and circled her head with money and put it into her lap. - 115 -
The women sang the sad qeet throughout the evening.
They left at 2:30 a.m. Darshan's newly married cousin (FZD)
stayed the night with her and they sat up and talked about
old times, and gossiped about school chums (Darshan told me
later).
Above, I have described the ritual bathing of the bride as it was told to me first, by Darshan, and later by her mother and Surjit.
It was checked still later, when we looked at the coloured photographs of the event. (The photograph as document and as a check should not be overlooked.) The list of Darshan's gifts was carefully constructed by
Darshan, her mother and I.
Since I could not attend the nai thoi, I had reflected on past events. From my field notes of April 25, 1981,
I remember parts of Sikh weddings I attended when
I was a child and a young teenager. One was the wedding of
a friend on Lulu Island. A marriage had been arranged between
a local Sikh woman and a man from the United States. The things
that stand out in my mind are the bathing of the bride as a
"ritual". She was seated in a large galvanized tub and two
women bathed her. I remember that they rubbed a flour and water
paste-like substance over her face and shoulders and washed that
off. It stayed in my mind because I was concerned for her,
there she sat, crying, before all of us, slightly screened
off by a towel. - 116 -
It was during the same wedding that I saw the women
dance and sing. They were careful to pull the -blinds and
curtains so that no one could see into the house. Then they
began to 'nautch'. It was from this wedding that I remember my impression, reinforced by comments made by my mother and
aunts, about the awkward situation women got into when
singing the bvolea, the bawdy refrains which were made up
impromptu about the various people who are the primary 'actors'
in the wedding performance, and sometimes, about the bride's new affinal relatives. The songs are usually a two or three line refrain, which through the use of metaphor or ambiguous expression (double entendre) suggest something of a sensual nature about someone. If you are good at making up the songs, you provide a good deal of fun and laughter for the women in the immediate situation. But, later, this aptitude may provoke gossip.
There was an 'understanding' that the songs would not be retold in inappropriate settings, but sometimes they were.
Therefore, a younger woman, although she may have had the aptitude to make up songs, was more careful of the content of her bvole than was the older woman. The older woman had less to fear in the way of gossip if the song was retold outside of original setting. There was the assumption that during her life she had acquired a great deal of life experience.
A younger woman was expected to be modest and to at least exhibit an unawareness of the improprieties mentioned in the songs. - 117 -
Some of the more daring young men would try to get
near enough to the house to hear the songs, so the singers were always a little apprehensive.
The women always put pressure on each other to get up
and pa bvole (pa = put in, bvole = to speak). If all the women were implicated, then there was less to fear in the way
of gossip.
My impression from listening to the bvolea from India, recorded in March, is that there is a sense of greater freedom of expression in that setting. Masi-ji said the young women in India, learn them in school now. Of course, the content is quite different.
Perhaps the early immigrant women were more inhibited by their small numbers. There were only about twelve women in all at the wedding I am recalling. Also, the immigrants were mostly of the same age group, so they were missing the uninhibited older women and were in a sense replacing them in these actions.
I can remember the women consulting each other about how to do certain things and how there were adaptive strategies being developed all of the time, as there are today. In the early
'40's, the war years, the majority of women being fairly young had to rely not on a great reserve of knowledge which is the property of many elder women in India, but on the imperfect knowledge of their own few. - 118 -
Summary
In this chapter, I have' described the main sagan (rites)
19 which preceded the Canadian Punjabi Sikh wedding of my niece Darshan.
Although one or several of these sagan may be omitted, and in fact are. for less formal weddings, the betrothal sagan described in the previous chapter and the nai thoi presented here, are seldom left out. The elaborateness of their celebration will of course differ according to the wealth or the wishes of the family. - 119 -
FOOTNOTES
Sagan are life cycle rituals which are performed at various times in a person's life. Those mentioned here are some of the sagan performed at the time of betrothal and marriage by the Punjabi Sikhs from the area close to and in Ferozepur district of Punjab, India. These rites are not religiously prescribed, in fact they appear to be "secular" rites.
In the interests of our 'truths' one can,in the field work situation,keep up a running set of subsidiary notes correcting first impressions. Just a few weeks later, I am to find that this account contains a perfect illustration of impression management which I had not yet penetrated. The 'closeness' and 'fondness' which I observed was perhaps a part of the sagan and the wish to provide a good atmosphere for good omens, and/or a united front to me. Later, I found there are some tensions in the family relations. As in any family there are underlying conflicts. I still do not know specifically what they are,but I have been told how they are manifested (this was a personal communication by another family member). As well, there have been guarded remarks by others. I doubt if any 'outsider' will tell me because I am considered an 'insider' of my family by other Sikh families.
There may be two events embedded in the context of this sagan. First, the maian sagan, and a second event signalling a change in the status of Gurdial's lineage vis a vis ours. To explain the latter, when a woman marries, her parents and family, do not visit her. If they do, they are careful not to take anything from the village she marries into, in fact they rarely accepted even food or water from her affines. Traditionally, only the brother(s) went to her husband's home, and then usually only to take her back to visit her parent's home (her pake). However, once she reaches an age where she has reared her children to marriageable age, there is an end to this asymmetry. Thus, I think that when the brother, his mother and sister have this meal in Gurdial's home on this occasion, it signifies an end to the inferiority or asymmetry in the relationships between their village as wife-givers and ours as wife-receivers.
With this wedding the nanke have discharged their debt to their daughter (Gurdial), and her brothers have discharged their debt to their sister's daughter. As I have stated previously, the daughter's claim to her father's property seems to be two- generational .
I do not know if this latter event is 'rationalized', but it appeared to me that the meal was served as if it had special significance. - 120 -
The women use the English work 'suit' when referring to a Punjabi costume consisting of a salvar Ca full pant-like garment), a kurti Ca shirt—like tunic length, top), and a chuni Ca shawl, sometimes referred to as a dupatta by Hindus and Eastern Punjabi people).
In the villages in Punjab which I visited in 1979, very few of the women made the traditional handcrafts. The young women were attending school and did not have time to make them. More importantly, with textile mills producing fabrics which are more highly valued, the hand loomed and dyed items are not produced. They did not last as well, were difficult to maintain, the colours ran and faded. The young women prize the synthetic fabrics.
A gold 'set' as it is called, usually consists of a necklace, earrings and a ring.
It has occurred to me that pali may be a contraction of the word parlli meaning to have finished raising (female gender) referring to a person. I have not asked an informant because usually they agree if I suggest it may be the case. I was not given a meaning for pali, other than that it is a sagan.
This use of uneven numbers occurs over and over again in many contexts. When I was given laddu to take home, Gurdial asked me how many I wanted. I replied "Oh, one-half dozen". She said, "No, you never take six, take-seven or take nine". The pali, for instance, was taken over five days before the wedding. (Dr. Brenda Beck has told me this usage of uneven numbers is pan-Indian).
Sometimes a neonda 'comes' as an invitation to a meal, in which case one reciprocates at a later date.
Most of the available women work at local canneries, on shift work.
As I have noted before, most of the work of cooking at the important events, preparing foods such as the 'sweets', which is done in India by a particular caste, becomes the work of women in Canada. The women comment on this quite frequently.
It is in these situations that we see that Sikh women have the power to initiate direct and carry out much of the activity from the betrothal through to the wedding itself. The food preparation and other similar instances draw Sikh women together in Canada and some semblance of the unity of women in India is retained here inspite of the divisive forces such as nuclear family life, and the entrance of Sikh women into the labour force. - 121 -
Berreman sums this up with:
Behavior that differs before different audiences is equally revealing, equally true, in each context...From his behavior, inferences can be drawn about the nature of the pressures upon him in each situation and ultimately about the social system in which he functions, if not about the 'true1 feelings he harbours. (Berreman, BMA-393, p.24)
I think the women at this shower perceive me as an 'educated, urbane, outsider1.
I want to emphasize here, what I showed diagrammatically in Chapter II, that our 'villages' and their boundaries cognatively extend and encompass us as if we were in our villages in India - this is real, it is encoded in the way of talking and it is natural to make references such as the woman of our 'pind' (village), here in Canada, referring to the location in India. I have come to realize how much of this is unconscious.
This constitutes part of her dowry, and as shown above it is given by a wide range of kinsmen. They, in turn will be entitled, to assistance at the marriages of their children, both material and in terms of labour during the preparation of the sagan (rites), and at the temple meal. This detailed information and the following footnote are a response to questions raised by Dr. Cyril Belshaw.
After marriage, the gold jewelry and a woman's personal effects are part of her property. The money received at the various sagan and later, at the temple; the vehicle and other gifts become part of the conjugal estate. A major difference between a Canada-born-and-raised Sikh woman and her Indian counterpart should be pointed out again. The Canada-born woman has put the money into a joint account for she knows how, and does the banking. She also knows how to drive and has arranged the licensing and insurance for the car. She will see to it, too, that the common property is legally conjugal. In this way she can maintain some power in their life choices and decision-making. An India-born-and-raised woman can only assume the property is conjugal. In the early years she would not know how to effect joint ownership, and she is a dependent in the widest sense of the term. ..Her position vis a vis their estate is legally disproportionate to say the least.
Either this is a contraction of two words - _a - bathe, tho - wash, or and more probably, it could refer to the water the nai (barber caste) traditionally draws for the bride's bath and for which he is given money. The later is probably the case because I was given this information in another context as well. - 122 -
Although each rite is presented in this thesis as a separate event (and sometimes, several days lapse in between), it occurs of course in the wider contextual setting of everyday events in the life of a Sikh family. Some people go to their jobs in banks, canneries, mills or farms. While on the family farm Arjun and the hired farm labourers attend to the maintenance of acres of strawberries and raspberries. Children attending schools are taken to the bus stop, or to school and to other of their activities such as Kung Fu lessons or to piano lessons. The women at home, wash, iron, sweep, clean and cook as usual. And, they prepare for the events presented here. - 123 -
CHAPTER III
THE SHADI (WEDDING),
In the previous chapters I described how marriages are
arranged by Canadian Punjabi Sikhs and how a number of pre-wedding
rituals are conducted by women, centering on the home, the private
sphere of life, as the focal point for their performance. In these
rites the participants were selected by the bride's family from their
closest kin. As stated before, these rites appear to have an ancient
origin, they do not invoke the power of any deity, their expected
outcome is good fortune in the life of the bride-to-be.
In this chapter, the wedding celebration is described.
Following the general format developed in the preceding chapters, the
wedding, and the post-wedding rituals (at the home of the bride), are
the concluding parts in this cultural performance. As in the preceding
'acts', I will present the scene and the performers. First, and as
prologue, the physical layout and the social characteristics of the
temple are described (see Illustration IV).
The Sikh temple presented here is a two-storey wood frame
building which houses the kitchens and the dining rooms on the lower floor,
and the temple on the second floor. This temple follows one of the
important characteristics of the Hari Mandir (Golden Temple) at
Amritsar, India, as well as many other Sikh temples, in the placement of four doors entering into the temple area. These doors signify that
Sikhism is open to people of all four castes. At this particular
temple, however, these doors are now frequently kept locked because - 124 -
Priest
"7T V A Pans of- Guru Prashad Granth Sahib
Cloth •Musicians covered Bridegroom area for donations Bridesmaids
Bench
Shoes Box with scarves -(head coverings)
Second Floor Plan of Sikh Temple
ILLUSTRATION IV - 125 -
they open inwards disturbing those already seated inside. This is a
recent development and a response to the crowded temple facilities;
this congregation has increased in size significantly in the past
few years.
The back of the temple is raised three steps above the floor
where the congregation sits. A raised, canopied dais is centered here
and is tiered down the underlying stairs. At the foot of this, a
sacred cloth is spread for donations from the congregation.
On the dais, covered with an altar cloth, is the Sri Guru
Granth Sahib. Guru Gobind Singh (the 10th and last of the human gurus),
institutionalized the Sri Guru Granth Sahib (the sacred text), and the
Khalsa (the congregation), to be the Guru of the Sikhs, after his death
(thus ending guruship by succession). Since that time, Sikhs do not
have an hierarchical ecclesiastical structure. Usually, in a temple,
a gyani (a learned person) or a garanthi (a person learned in the
scriptures) reads the Sri Guru Granth Sahib, assisted by a number of
lay readers. The musicians, other lay priests, and the attendants sit
near the stairs close to the Guru Granth Sahib and the officiating priest. On the left of the dais, are the pans full of prashad (degh), which will be served to the congregation at the close of the service.
On the right of the dais, on the platform area above the three steps, is a microphone. And, during a wedding, the sikhia and other poems and stories are presented from this location. After the reading of the
Guru Granth Sahib has been completed the secular part of the proceedings are usually conducted from here; the donations read out, and the three- - 126 -
man temple committee may raise any temple business which needs to be
brought before the congregation.
In the temple, men sit on the right hand side facing the dais;
women and young children are seated on the left. Older male children
frequently sit with their fathers but are free to move back and forth
between their parents. During the long temple service, people shift
positions or otherwise go in and out of the temple as they have the
need. Mothers often take children out part way through a service; many
other people such as those preparing and serving the langar (communal meal)
will come upstairs to partake in at least a part of the temple service,
leaving in time to relieve others in the kitchens and dining rooms, who
may want to do the same. Sometimes, too, an older sibling will be seen
taking a fussy younger one outside for a walk or a drink of water.
Rarely is there silence in the temple. Usually a soft hum
pervades the temple service, as people come and go, shift positions,
greet one another, briefly visit, pass on messages, etc. Sometimes
if a crying child is becoming bothersome to the congregation, one of
the lay attendants will speak up over the intonation of the priest,
and suggest that the mother of the fussy child take it outside. She
may or may not comply, depending on whether she can quiet the child
with a toy or a milk bottle.
Sikhism is open to all four castes, and to people from all
four directions of the world. Nevertheless, there are some prescriptions
for Sikhs which were instituted by Guru Gobind Singh (1666-1708).
He asked Sikhs to wear the five K's: kes, unshorn hair; kanga, a comb to keep the hair in place and to keep it clean; kara, a steel bracelet, - 127 -
a symbol of God; kacha, or drawers to symbolize chastity; and kirpan, a sword or dagger to symbolize Sikhs resistance to evil.
Most B.C. Sikhs show an elective affinity1 to the five K's, and this is seen most clearly at the temple. There are signs outside the temple which say that anyone attending a religious service :nust- have a head covering, and take their shoes off before entering the temple.
Intoxicants and cigarettes and their use are also proscribed for anyone entering the temple. Outside the main entrance to the temple is a box containing assorted cloths, scarves and handkerchiefs which may be used as a head covering by those who did not bring their own.
During the 1940's and 1950's men who had cut their hair could enter the temple with uncovered heads although there was some negative comment about it. Now the rule is strictly enforced by the members of the congregation and the priests. When I asked about this, a twenty- five year old woman said:
The priests want us to follow the .rules, it is more strict now...five years ago Sant Singh came and spoke to us, many people rejoined the religion - they drank amirt, and have let their hair grow again...since then we have been told to follow our religion more closely.
Most people do want to follow the rules of the temple, as evidenced by the fact that most or all of the men that I saw in the temple wore head coverings. Although the majority had their hair cut, they covered it with a square scarf or handkerchief folded in half
(forming a triangle) with the ends tied together at the back. Of the sixty or more men in the congregation in the photographs of the wedding - 128 -
at least forty have this type of head covering, while the remaining
twelve or fifteen are wearing turbans.
One forty-five year old male informant told me that the men with their hair cut did at one time tie turbans if they were going to
the temple, but now, most of the younger men prefer the scarf - it
flattens the hair less. I think that very few of the Canada-born and
raised men would have the expertise to tie a turban - that is an art in itself.
Most of the women have long hair and wear a scarf (chuni) over their heads. The costumes range from Western dress, to salvar, kurti to saris.
Many men and women wear karas, the steel bracelets. I am told that some wear the kacha (shorts), but they are people who are very religious or have just come from India. This is a very full garment not suited to wear under the Western style pants worn by men. It does fit under the women's salvar with fair ease. The kirpan is not worn, being forbidden by Canadian law. In the temple however, the lay priests or attendants do sometimes wear them symbolically.
All in all, there is a fair amount of divergence from the Five
K's. Most of this divergence is by males who find that adherence to some of the symbols hinders freedom of economic action; and, because it make Sikhs highly visible, might also invoke prejudice and discrimination from other groups.
In the foregoing paragraphs I have described the physical layout , and some of the social characteristics of a Sikh temple and of Sikhs.
With this background I now describe the shadi (wedding) presenting first, the scene and the cast of characters. - 129 -
The Scene:
The temple as just described is the setting for the shadi.
It is early morning.
THE SHADI
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Darshan Harjit
Surjit Darshan's brother Gurdial Kuldip Arjun Masi-ji
Darshan's maternal grandfather
Three of Darshan's mother's brothers and their wives, and one unmarried mother's brother Darshan's mother's sister
Darshan's father's brothers and their wives and children Darshan's father's sister, her husband, their children, with husbands and children
As well as many other friends and relatives from the Fraser Valley, Vancouver, New Westminster, Victoria, Seattle and Montreal
Figure XII
My field notes for April 25, 1981, 6:30 a.m. read:
This is the morning of the wedding. The women who are
helping to prepare the Guru ka langar (temple feast) are - 130 -
probably already at the temple mixing the kata (sour cream,
buttermilk, pakoria'softened in boiling water and cooled,
and spices), making the dais, the dough for rotis, and the
sweet saffron rice.
My middle brother's daughter, my youngest brother's wife
and their son (my nephew), and I arrive at the temple at 9:30 a
We go upstairs into the temple early, in order to be seated
near the front so I can observe the ritual.
The temple is small, it soon fills up as men, women, and
children, alone and in small groups, walk up the center rug to
the raised dais. Here, they put their donation down, kneel
and touch their foreheads to the floor, stand, join both hands
in brief prayer, and then turn to find space on the carpeted
floor on which to sit. The men sit on the right facing the dais, and the women sit on the left. The Sri Guru Granth Sahib the holy book of the Sikhs, is on top of the raised platform and is covered with a red altar cloth. Over this is a cloth canopy held up by four wooden pillars.
We sit against the wall in order to have a back rest, another of our reasons for arriving at the temple early.
Soon, the room is packed with people. It begins to get stifling hot, the children are uncomfortable and start to move about, the general ambience is one of expectancy.
The women sit together, against each other and even leaning on the knees of those behind, goodwill permitting.
By 10:00 o'clock people start to shift positions to relieve stiffness, still the wedding party has not arrived. - 131 -
When we arrived at-9:30, one man was beginning to play
a long instrument which looks like two long (28") pieces of
metal about 2" inches wide, joined together at one end.
They each have small circular cymbal-like pieces welded onto
them which when brought together, issue a ringing, clapping
sound. The beat is very repetitive, some of the children are
already asleep across the laps of their mothers. Soon a
drummer joins in and together, they start to sing some savad
(hymns).
The groom comes in at about 9:45 a.m., led by the bride's
mother's brother. He (the groom) has the glittery forehead
covering called a sehra pinned to his turban, the streamers
falling over his face so that we cannot easily see his face.
He is seated on the right, on the men's side of the temple and
» facing the women's side.
At 10:35 a.m., there is a murmur and we know the bride's,
party has arrived at the temple. The bridegroom is led to, and
seated before the Guru Granth Sahib and his forehead covering
(the sehra) is removed (see Illustration V)- Darshan arrives
with her father and he guides her as they pick their way through
the seated sangat. Darshan had been afraid of this, that the
congregation would not leave the aisle area open and, sure
enough, the bridal party are having to step around the people
sitting tightly seated in the small temple. They have a
difficult time, they come in, in single file. Darshan's nana
(MF) follows her, her father precedes her. Her three mamian - 132 -
ILLUSTRATION V
REMOVING THE SEHRA FROM THE BRIDEGROOM SEATED BEFOPE THE GURU GRANTH SAHIB IN THE TEMPLE - 133 -
(MBW's) are behind her. The eldest, who is her chief attendant
is wearing a dark blue and silver silk sari, the middle mami
Cwife of middle MB) wears a red and green plaid-like silk sari
with an overall floral design. The bride's sister and her masi
(MZ) are in green and pink floral printed matching saris. Two
little flower girls in yellow gowns are already seated in the 2
congregation. The mother of the bride is wearing a blue and
turquoise salvar and kurti with a matching chuni. The bride's
grandmother (nani) is seated with us, as is my 'cousin' (DFZ)
and her three daughters. The four mame (mother's brothers),
dressed in white tuxedos, come in after the bride and her
attendants. With them,are the bride's young brother and one of
her cousins (MBS), dressed in maroon tuxedos with white shirts.
We were seated close by, but against the wall. When
the wedding party arrived, they asked me to sit with them. I
tried to refuse but could not, they and the others around them
(the elderly aunts and Masi-ji) were insistent, so I moved up
and sat with the mamian. Traditionally, that is in India,
I would have been living in the same house as Darshan and would have come to the temple with the wedding party.
Remembering this, I moved up; to refuse would have created a
further disturbance and might also have provoked comment about why I did not. I was relieved too because now I could watch the ritual more closely.
The wedding starts when the priest, seated cross-legged on the dais with the Guru Granth Sahib before him, starts to - 134 -
recite a prayer. The bride, her attendant, the bridegroom
and the bride's mother stand. Then, after it is finished they
are seated again.
The priest uncovers and begins to read from the Guru
Granth Sahib. This wedding service will be very short, it
has not been the usual two or three day long continual reading
of the Guru Granth Sahib. I was told the service had been
started about a year ago, when Harjit's arrival in Canada had
been imminent. When it was learned that he would not be
arriving until later, the service was stopped at a certain
point which was recorded and now it was resumed from there.
Since there are so many weddings and other phog at the temple
these days, families often have the service read ahead of time
(during the week), with just a short service left for the
actual day.
The priest is wearing a blue turban, a sign of the more
orthodox followers of Sikhism. He is sitting cross-legged
behind the Guru Granth Sahib. Behind him, a man stands slowly
waving a long stranded white wisk-like object. As this section
of the Guru Granth Sahib is read and finished, he ends with a
3
"Vah Guru Ke Khalsa, Vah Guru Ke Fateh".
Then with a short benediction first, the priest begins
the sikhia (the teaching or instructions to the bride and groom),
saying this is the Anand Karaj (wedding) of an educated couple, both of respected families; it is the joining of both pati
concerned, and between them and the Guru Granth Sahib. He - 135 -
wishes them a long full life. He addresses the groom and
tells him to respect and listen to her parents, it is his
duty. They are told they are two sarir (bodies) which sit
together with piar (love). The priest talks about apni jiwan
(your lives) and tells them to consult each other if they both
have to work var (outside) away from home.
She is told her husband is her imam (teacher, priest,
leader). She is to serve her in-laws for they are her parents 4
now, her sathi (her group), her pathi (simply, husband).
Thus will they prosper.
Then the savad (hymns) are begun and the bride's father
gives her one end of a red cloth (palla) and gives the groom
the other, thus joining them. The priest then says, "the lavan the pat will begin". He advises the bride and groom to circle the Guru Granth Sahib to their left (clockwise), bride following the groom, then to sit and listen to the pat (service) after each phera (circling). The lavan are four marriage hymns or short couplets, composed by Guru Ram Das (1534-1581), for the circumambulatipn at Sikh weddings. After each one the bride and groom return to their starting place and each says a short prayer. After the priest recites each lavan, the singers sing it to music. This happens four times.
As the music and the lavan the pat begins, the bride's uncles and other close male relatives are standing behind the
Guru Granth Sahib, facing the congregation. As the bride does each phera (circling), following the groom, her relatives take her by the shoulders, each passing her along. - 136 -
The four marriage couplets in English translation are as follows:
THE MARRIAGE HYMNS (LAVAN)
har pehladi lanv parvirt
By the first nuptial circling
The Lord ^shewth ye His Ordinance for the daily duties of wedded life:
The Scriptures are the Word of the Lord, Learn righteousness from them, And the Lord will free ye from sin. Hold fast to righteousness, Contemplate the Name of the Lord,
Fixing it in your memory as the scriptures have prescribed. Devote yourselves to the Perfect and True Guru, And all your sins shall depart. Fortunate are those whose minds Are imbued with the Sweetness of His Name, To them happiness comes without effort; The slave Nanak proclaimeth That in the first circling The marriage rite hath begun.
(ii)
By the second nuptial circling Ye are to understand that the Lord
Hath caused ye to meet the True Guru, The fear in your hearts has departed;
The filth of selfness in your minds is washed away, - 137 -
By having the fear of God and by singing His Praises.
I stand before Him with reverence,
The Lord God is the soul of the universe: There is naught that He doth not pervade. Within us and without, there is One God only: In the company.of Saints
Then are heard the songs of rejoicing. The slave Nanak proclaimeth
That in the second circling
Divine Music is heard.
(iii)
In the third circling There is a longing for the Lord And detachment from the world. In the company of the Saints, By our great good fortune, We encounter the Lord. The Lord is found in His purity Through His exaltation, Through the singing of His hymns.
By great good fortune we have lighted, On the company of the Saints Wherein is told the story Of the Ineffable Lord.
The Holy Name echoes in the heart, Echoes and absorbs us: We repeat the Name of the Lord, Being blessed by a fortunate destiny Written from of old on our foreheads.
The slave Nanak proclaimeth That in the third circling
The love of God has been awakened in the heart. - 138 -
(iv)
In the fourth circling
The mind reaches to knowledge of the Divine and God is innerly grasped:
Through the Grace of the Guru
We have attained with ease to the Lord; The sweetness of the Beloved Pervades us, body and soul.
Dear and pleasing is the Lord to us:
Night and day our minds are fixed on Him. By exalting the Lord We have attained the Lord: The fruit of our hearts desired: The Beloved has finished His work. The soul, the spouse, delighteth in the Beloved's Name. Felicitations fill our minds; The Name rings in our hearts: The Lord God is united with His Holy Bride. The heart of the Bride flowers with His Name. The slave Nanak proclaimeth That in the fourth circling We have found the Eternal Lord. (Trilochan Singh, et al, 1973)
My notes for April 25, 1981 continue:
After the fourth circling and during the singing of the savad (hymns), the priest brings the marriage register to the couple seated once again before the Guru Granth Sahib. They both sign it, the eldest mami witnesses the signature. - 139 -
Immediately thereafter, the bride and groom exchange wedding rings.
The priest goes back to the dais and then announces that there will be a number of talks (songs and a story) by friends of the family, he then repeats this in English.
As well, he tells the congregation that there is a Guru Ka
Langar (the communal meal) ready downstairs. He asks that the speeches be kept short. That they should finish by twelve o'clock . (noon). He then announces that the shadi ho hate
(shadi has been finished, the wedding ceremony has been completed).
Gurdial who had been seated just behind the couple, rises with the many har (garlands) of tinsel and flowers. She hands them to close relatives to be put around the necks of the bride and groom. Some of the garlands of tinsel have pictures of various Sikh Gurus pendant from them, others have a portrayal of some religious event. After placing the garlands, the relatives circled first, the groom's head with money, then dropping it into his lap, repeated the process with the bride.
After this, the remaining friends and relatives come up and circle the heads of the young couple with money.
Then the sanghat the maya (the donations from the congregation to the temple) are announced. The prepared program is in three parts. First, there is a song which was composed about the groom's family and about the bride's family respectively. In it, each of us is named, and are said to - 140 -
have some special attribute which is part of the whole that makes up everything necessary for the familial life of the young couple. The song; composed by a well-liked family friend, is very touching.
Harjit told me later that this song is of the genre known as sara, a lesson to the groom, just as the sikhia during the religious part of the temple ceremony is addressed more to the bride. Following this last song is a long moral tale about Guru Amar Das and Bibi Amro. This is a lengthy presentation, presented in a vigorous style. Part way through it, someone in the congregation stood up and with hand clasped in front of him asked the speaker to shorten it. This was done politely and with respect. The story-teller replied that if the congregation could be prevailed on to listen for just ten minutes more, he would be finished. The last piece was an emotional song which everyone enjoyed, about a bride who asks her father not to send her away, to keep her home one more day.
During this, I am reminded of the power of ritual to engage people who did not even want to come to the wedding service at the temple. (Several relatives were prevailed upon to come, initially they would have gone only to the reception.)
Following the emotional song, another story teller and singer are heard. Then the man who was conducting the 'program' thanked the speakers. Then we all stand for the ardas, the common prayer which the congregation knows and recites with 5 the priest. For the ardas the priest asks if someone would - 141 -
help the bride and groom to stand, they have been sitting
cross-legged on the floor for so long that they might fall.
The priest says the ardas is for this jborde (pair).
Then the priest speaks a very short prayer invoking the blessing of the Dasma Padshah (tenth guru) Guru Gobind Singh.
The congregation loudly proclaims Vahi Guru (praise God!).
The priest blesses all the people named in today's wedding celebration. At this point he once again declares the shadi is now complete. After asking for a blessing for the bride, her mother and father, the groom, and his parents, he announces the degh (the sacremental food sometimes called the prashad), is on their behalf.
The congregation then recites a short prayer which ends all services. The priest reads from the Guru Granth Sahib.
This is a random selection, traditionally one which the bride and groom listen to very carefully, for meaning for their lives.
The priest loudly shouts Vah Guru ji ka Khalsa! Vahe Guru ji ke
Fateh!
After he has said still another short prayer, the altar cloths donated by the family, the rumalla and the phuT-k-a are put on the dais. Then the priest announces that the degh is served, thus closing the temple ceremony.
In preparation for receiving the sacramental offering,
6 everyone is given a paper napkin (because degh is very buttery).
Then, several pairs of men make their way through the congregation; one holds the large degh-filled pan by the handles, the other - 142 -
serves the degh by handfuls. The people receiving the
sacrament must present two hancs cupped together, as if in
prayer, to receive it. The priest announces again that the
communal meal in the kitchen is open to one and all, and
repeats this in English announcing it as "...the free kitchen,
take according to your needs". Once the wedding service is
complete, many women come up to the relatives wishing us all 7
vatheigna (congratulations). I feel quite surprised when
I'm first congratulated, but quickly realize that the
congratulations are due to the closest relatives, the members
of the three lineages, that of the bride, the maternal grand•
parents and that of the groom. We stay seated for about ten
minutes while the crowd comes up and then disperses.
It is interesting to note that the parents, maternal
grandparents, mother's brother's and their wives, and the
father's sisters are all included in those to be congratulated.
According to my'understanding, the marriage is the social
achievement of the lineages directly affected, and the
congratulations go to the people directly involved and not
just to the two individuals just married. In fact, very little
is said to them at this point.
After the congregation has dispersed, some to visit
outside, others to go into the dining room for the langar; we, the family line up on the staircase going into the temple
for family photos. We are showered with confetti by joyous relatives and friends as the photographs are taken. - 143 -
The photographer is well known and liked in this
community. To get the crowd to smile he says in Punjabi
"Ek...do...(one, ...two...)"and everyone smiles at his usage.
Or he says "coca cola!" with a Punjabi accent, and people
laugh recognizing that he is good naturedly imitating their
English. They know and frequently deal with him so they do not mind his imitation, I look around, uncertain, to see if anyone looks annoyed; no one seems to mind at all. Then, after shaking hands with some of the guests, the wedding party leave for formal studio photographs. The remaining crowd of relatives and friends speak to one another, visit or stand watching and talking as the wedding cars disappear. Later, they too will go to the dining rooms for the meal.
The wedding has ended at close to one o'clock in the afternoon. The wedding party will return to the temple for their meal after the photographs have been taken. Many of the people leave before they come back, the wedding is over for most of the congregation.
I go back to my brother1s house to change for the reception which will be held in honour of the bride and groom at the bride's parent's home later this afternoon. At the i same time I am packing my bag for the trip to Victoria where the couple will honeymoon. I will drive them to Victoria. - 144 -
The Wedding Reception
The Scene:
The family home as described for the maian sagan. The house is bustling with activity. Men are standing around in small groups outside, near the liquor bar that has been set up. The women are in the house making tea, sitting in the kitchen and in the front room in groups of three or four. The bride and groom and the attendants arrive at about four o'clock.
THE WEDDING RECEPTION
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Darshan Harjit
Darshan's parents, sister and brother Darshan's grandparents, their sons and their wives and children Kuldip
Darshan's father's brothers, their wives and children Many other relatives are present Darshan's mother's sister
Figure XIII - 145 -
The field notes read:
At three o'clock there is a small family reception.
The weather is agreeable, the men congregate outside, where
a bar has been set up for them. The women are in the house,
crowded around the bridegroom and the bride's three mame
(MB's). There is a good deal of teasing going on and the
bridegroom replies with good humor. This is a traditional
event, when the bridegroom is at the mercy of the women of the bride's household. I am told to tell him that he should have
taken his shoes off before coming into the house. He replies
"I cleaned my shoes Aunti-ji". The other women chime in with criticisms of him such as "...even the churas and the chamiars know enough to take their shoes off outside." He sits smiling sheepishly, unable to reply at once to all of them and to all of the playful criticism. Next, one of his wife's
'sisters' (his sali)(FZD) approaches him with a thai (tray) on which a metal bowl (stainless steel) has been overturned
(see Illustration VI). He is asked to turn it over, right side up, using just thumb and little finger, of course he cannot
(the bowl): has been oiled), and the women laugh and chide him for his awkwardness, until finally he does it.
Another of his wife's 'sisters' (DFZD) comes up to him and asks him to open his palm and she puts a dollop of mehndi on his little finger. I don't know the significance of this yet except that it should have been put in the middle of his - 146 -
ILLUSTRATION VI
BRIDEGROOM PLAYING TRADITIONAL GAMES WITH HIS SALIS AFTER THE WEDDING - 147 -
palm (later, he too, asked the significance of this, and was
told that it was an inappropriate thing to do, to put it on
his little finger).
During this teasing,, the other women were making fun
of him, or teasing the men who sat with him. It was good
fun and he took it with good humour, replying to the women on occasion.
Meanwhile the bride was being dressed by her mamian.
She would be wearing a dark red sari for the honeymoon or the maklava. When she was dressed, she waited in the bedroom for the sagan for the groom to be completed.
This sagan conducted by Gurdial, was watched by the women of both lineages. Only five men were present, the four mame and a young man who was recently married to Darshan's cousin (FZD). For this sagan, Gurdial first put raw white rice on a stainless steel thai, a coconut tied with red twine 9 and five laddu were added. Then she went to Harjit and put the coconut into his lap, fed him with bits of one laddu and put two other laddu into his lap. He had a towel draped over his right shoulder with the lower end of it cupped in his right hand to receive these items. After that, each woman rose and circled his head with money, touched his forehead with it, put the money into his lap and touched his head with her hand as a kind of benediction and in affection.
While the preceding events were taking place, a table had been set outside in front of the lilac tree. A handwoven - 148 -
cloth from India, cross-stitched with red flowers and green
leaves, had been spread on the table. The three-tiered
wedding cake, two juice filled goblets and a be-ribboned
knife were set on the table.
Some of the family, concerned that the couple still had
a long trip before them, were starting to ask that the cake be
cut as soon as possible. Then the bride came out of the bedroom
dressed in a dark red and gold sari, her wedding ensemble.
But, before the bride and groom went outside, another sagan was performed, this time for both of them. The door was daubed with oil on either side; and the bride's aunt (FZ) went out before them with a tray on which a handful of raw white rice was placed. She threw this over them and into the house, some of
the rice falling on them, as they walked through the doorway
to the crowd gathered on the lawn near the table.
As they went outside to the table, Darshan's youngest mama came up to them to tell them where to stand, placing
Darshan on the left of her husband (she had stood on the right at first). The young uncle handed them the knife, once again placing the bridegroom's hand over the bride's. This was the first time that their hands were joined. They tried very hard to cut through the icing and finally with coaching from everyone, along with good-natured joking, they succeeded in making the first cut. They fed each other a bit of cake amidst our laughter and the picture taking. Once they had accomplished this, the cake was cut and served to the assembled guests. - 149 -
Meanwhile, the family had loaded the suitcases into the car in preparation for the., trip to Victoria.
Traditionally, this is the point at which a Sikh daughter is taking leave of her parents to go to her husband's home where she will live in the future . Usually, she spends only a night or two away, returning home for a short while, before leaving more permanently.
This leave taking was very emotional, the bride's sister and young aunt were already crying. The women were singing the sad geet which are traditionally sung at this time. The mother led the way to the car, she had the sagan items on a thali; two laddu tied with red twine, raw rice and a gardbi (nickel-plated goblet) of water. The crowd of women followed the bride and bridegroom to the car and sang a traditional refrain. The words of this song are about a bride who is leaving, in her wedding palanquin, who cries to her father to let her stay at home one more day - she does not want to leave. At this time, many of the women are crying as they accompany the pair up the walkway to the car. Once the couple are seated in the car, the mother of the bride places the two laddu (wrapped with a single strand of red twine) into the bride's lap, then she gives
Darshan a drink of water from the gardbi. (Surjit had explained to me earlier that water means life.) The mother then hugs
Darshan and patting the couple on their hands, leaves. Then, each of the mother's brothers come up to Darshan and hug her, they too are crying. Then the cacha (FFByS) shakes the groom's - 150 -
hand and hugs the bride. Lastly, the father of the bride
pats them both on the head and says to his daughter with
emotion, "chunga, Beti" (Well, Daughter...). All the while
the women have been singing the geet, it is a very poignant
moment. Now, nearly everyone is crying including the bride.
I quickly start the car and we drive off while the families
wave.
As we leave, the bridegroom gently puts his arm around
the bride and quietly talks to her in a whisper. We drive for
a short distance, about fifteen miles and as he talks to her, she
stops crying and they talk softly to each other. Then, about
one-half hour later Harjit makes us laugh by telling us that he
usually walks very fast and that when they were doing the
circumambulation in the temple, around the Guru Granth Sahib,
he realized that he was hurrying and slowed down - Darshan said
"Yes! and then I stepped on your heels", he replied "yes!" and
we all laughed. The mood changed, and for the rest of the trip
they conversed easily.
Once on the ferry we sat in the lounge and talked about
relatives, schools, weddings here and in India, and other trivia.
For having just met the couple do not seem to appear uncomfortable.
In fact I think there is a good deal of romance in the situation
as I watch how very easily she reaches and brushes the
confetti from the carnation in his lapel. We arrive at the
ferry terminal at Swartz Bay, it is quite dark, but once in
Victoria, we find the hotel quite easily and check in. We say goodnight to each other. - 151 -
In the morning, after breakfast, I showed them the
location of the museums and the Parliament Buildings; then
I look my leave and went back to my room.
The honeymooning couple returned to my room later
for tea and I told them about the location of the three
Indian restaurants in Victoria. They decided on one close by
and I made their reservation, telling them that they should
go by taxi.
For the next few days they spent their time together, coming to my room for tea in the afternoon. They went for walks, to the tourist spots and in the evenings they went out for dinner to the Indian restaurants.
They were obviously enjoying their time in Victoria.
Late in the afternoon of the day before we were leaving to go back to the mainland, we went shopping for souvenirs for Darshan to take home to her family. She selected a silver charm bracelet for her sister, a figurine for her niece and some T-shirts with 'Victoria' on them for other young relatives. It was interesting to watch the couple as they consulted each other about the gifts and made their decisions about the choice and the prices. They did not seem to be uneasy with each other.
In the morning the weather is so bad that we decide to take the early ferry home tomorrow. We called Darshan's parents everyday and they have asked us to return home early in the day, for the next sagan, the one for the returning bride.
We leave on the morning of the third day, my field notes of that day read: - 152 -
April 29, 1981;
I wake at seven o'clock in the morning and bathe, have
tea and toast and take my things out to the car. I have
phoned Darshan and Harjit to wake them (7:45) and asked them
to have breakfast in my room. When they arrive, they are eager
to go home and have already called their parents.
Since they were ready very quickly, and I had the tea
ready and the bread in the broiler to toast, we decided that
if we did not linger, we could go home on the 10:15 a.m. ferry.
We leave the hotel at 9:30 a.m. and do in fact board the early
ferry.
We sit in the front lounge this time. Darshan is wearing
a lovely turquoise and gold sari and. all of her gold jewelry for
the trip home. She comments that she feels overdressed.
People do look at this couple, he in a bright pink turban and she in her traditional wedding sari, so early in the morning.
As we sat and talked, reminiscing about Darshan's many sagan, Harjit told us about 'his' ritual bath and I realized once more how one-sided this account is. He said that he went upstairs at the nanke and bathed himself while the mamian and nani sat and sang geet downstairs. In India, the lagi would have drawn the water for his bath, and, he said, he would have been bathed and had besin (chickpea flour) rubbed on his body to really cleanse it. This would have been followed by the breaking of the lid of an earthen water jug. Then, one rupee would have been placed under it (perhaps for the lagi?). - 153 -
Here, he said, he bathed himself and got dressed while
the women of the household (.at nanke) sat and sang the
appropriate geet.
I suddenly had a sense of his nostalgia, of what events
he had anticipated and he must be missing by this marriage
so far from his home. He said with a smile, that he would
have been involved too, in a lot of fun with his college chums.
10
I asked him about his wrist ornament called a gauna.
(see Illustration 6) He said normally a sister (a sakhe bhain,
consanguineal sister or a 'fictive sister', or a FBD) puts it
on the wrist of her brother when he is getting married. He said
"I tied my own". His sister is in India and he probably has not
yet had time to establish 'fictive' sisters.
In India there would have been a dance for the groom
prior to the wedding. It is a traditional Punjabi men's folk
dance called the pangara which is accompanied by bvolea and geet.
As well, there would have been a sagan,and he would have been
given money.
Later, Darshan and Harjit went for a walk on the deck,
they are anxious now to get home. Darshan said that when she
called home yesterday, they were having sag (a curried puree of mustard greens or broccoli). We laughed and said we wanted to
hurry home - this is a favourite food! Today we have been
joking that it will be gone by the time we get home. Darshan
said no, her mother assured her there would be enough for us when we get back today. - 154 -
Once at the mainland side, we leave the ferry and drive
home to the Valley in the drizzling rain. When we arrive home,
Gurdial and another woman are there and before the bride and
groom enter, they oil the door on either side with droplets of
oil. Gurdial has a thai with five laddu, jalebis and barfi on
it. She breaks one laddu and puts a bit into the mouth of the
bride and the groom and embraces them.
Within minutes Darshan1s father comes home from his walk
in the berry fields and Darshan runs to embrace him. It is an
emotional reunion. Harjit goes to the door and shakes hands
with his father-in-law. They excitedly tell him about the trip
to Victoria and talk about a return trip in the summer.
Later, Gurdial shows me the room that has been prepared
for the newly weds. It is hung with the garlands of flowers
they wore in the temple. There are new sheets, a new comforter
and pillow shams and it looks very comfortable and home-like.
Three weeks after the wedding, when I telephoned Gurdial, she asked me to help make more sweets. When I asked what the occasion was,
she replied it was the pagee that had yet to be made and distributed.
She later explained that when, after a wedding in India, the women who had come home to their natal village for the duration of the wedding return to their husband's villages, they are given sweets to distribute to all the sikiria (kinship relations). In this way she said
"sada nam vadtha ha" (our name 'becomes extended', i.e. becomes known or 'gets larger'). - 155 -
This pagee which we prepared^ consisted of laddu, barfi and other sweets. I was told that 1—1/4 maunds (approximately 100 lbs) of pagee were delivered to Darshan's'Nanke so they could distribute it to their sikiria. (.Specifically, Gurdial said that pagee would go to her cace (FyBs) , thias,. (FeB's) and their children, to pooahs (FZ)and to the masia (MZ). Gurdial received a 'suit' in return from her parents. The rule that a daughter cannot'take a gift from her affines to her parents, without a return gift, has'been observed. A daughter is always a 'gift' in marriage. For her parents to accept anything from her affines might suggest a payment was made for her, so families go to great lengths to return a gift. Although I have previously stated that there may be ah end to this asymetry when a daughter's daughter marries (see footnote 3,
Chapter II, Page 119), on this occasion the asymetry is observed once again, perhaps showing the power of the rule).
This distribution of pagee marks the last distribution of the wedding foods, the guests have gone home and the young couple, incorporated into new roles, have begun their married life.
Summary
In this chapter, after presenting the physical layout and some of the most important social characteristics of a Sikh Temple, the wedding ceremony which constitutes the concluding part of the cultural performance; the Canadian Sikh Wedding Ritual, has been described. Also described as part of the performance have been the post-wedding sagan, one for the bridegroom and several for the wedded couple. - 156 -
While most of the temple wedding ceremony, held in the public
sphere of Sikh life, is conducted by a priest as the religious
specialist, a number of male friends and relatives attend to the songs
and talks which make up the informal 'program'. At this time certain
ideas and stories are commended for consideration by the bride and
bridegroom, in their life together. These stories draw their moral
authority from certain passages in the Guru Granth Sahib. Some of them
may even draw from the Hindu epics (i.e. the stories about Ram and Sita),
the lives of the Gurus, or they may be poems composed about the
genealogies of the participants in the wedding. They are often told or
sung with musical accompaniment. Although men predominate at the temple
function, very occasionally, a woman of proven religiosity may sing a
savad, accompanying herself on a musical instrument.
The post-wedding sagan, (as in the pre-wedding rites) are held in the home (the private sphere), and here the women are the ritual functionaries. These last rites differ in that one is for the bridegroom and the others are for the couple. They differ too, in the addition of certain items of paraphernalia: the coconut, the raw rice, the gardbi of water and the two laddu tied together with red twine. - 157 -
FOOTNOTES
By elective affinity I mean people choose to be drawn to some of their symbols more than to others.
The idea of flower girls,ushers and a best man are an accretion from Canadian white weddings which many of B.C. Sikh weddings have incorporated into their tradition Calong with a tiered wedding cake, confetti, bouquets of flowers etc.)
This means: The Khalsa is God's as is Victory over sin.
In Hinduism according to Karve (1968:95), this is a term not only for husband, but from its use in other context denotes 'master'. "The simple word pati indicates some type of possessive rights over a woman who is wife". The word patni means wife but does not carry the same kinds of connotation, although Karve states that in the rgveda the term grhapatni meant first lady of the household and that it meant the woman who in the ritual context performed the rituals with the husband. As Karve states (p.96), the grammarian Panini "enunciates the rule that the feminine of the word pati can be effected by suffixing the syllable ni only when the wife takes part with the husband in the performance of a sacrifice." I doubt if this orthodoxy applies in Sikhism, but the borrowing of terms such as this may suggest these ideas were part of Sikh assumptions too, in an earlier era.
I think the ardas emphasizes the fact that Sikhs are enjoined to pray with the congregation, even though they may pray individually.
It is also delicious if served warm as it usually is.
Vatheigna thonu, I translate as congratulations to you (plural). Vatheigna means to extend, to increase, thonu means to you (plura meaning the family.
Churas and chamiars are the sweeper castes and the leather working-castes.
The coconut is a fertility symbol throughout India. Dr. Brenda Beck in a recent talk suggested that it represents the womb. The two laddu tied with red twine also suggest fertility. The shape of the gardbhi is also -laden with symbolism of a similar nature. - 158 -
A sister usually ties this on her brother asking his protection. It is significant, I think that she ties this on his wrist on his wedding day as if to ensure his continued support of her ,in spite of the fact that he has taken a wife. It may also be a reminder not only of their affection but of the fact that in the future he will assist her children at their weddings. - 159 -
CHAPTER IV
CONCLUSION
In this concluding chapter, I summarize and reflect upon the
preceding chapters. The objective of this study, to present the first
extended description of a Canadian Punjabi Sikh wedding ritual, was set
out in the Introduction. My dual perspective as a Punjabi Sikh woman
and anthropologist was discussed. The validity of this document was
raised by posing two questions: Is it an accurate portrayal of what
actually took place, and In what ways did my presence alter the events?
These questions allowed me to state the data collection techniques, to
record the limitations of the data, and to discuss the ways in which my
dual perspectives affected the selection and use of the data presented
here.
My methodological approach, that is, the means by which I produced this ethnography from the field notes, was influenced by the
ideas of Geertz (1973), Redfield (1960), and Frake (1972). Milton Singer's idea of 'cultural performance' has been used throughout (Singer, 1973).
The 'problem' I entered the field situation with was a general one, to describe a B.C. Punjabi Sikh wedding ritual. This 'problem' was, quite frankly, the only one that occurred to me that seemed to be the most appropriate given the suddenness with which I left for fieldwork. The instructions of my graduate committee were that I do no reading but produce a draft work of description, written solely from the data collected during the fieldwork. This draft, a work of 'thick description', was accepted as a basis for this thesis. My hesitation to attempt to formulate a more - 160 -
narrowly defined problem came out of one other constraint, that of the
short period available for fieldwork, making it doubtful that I could
observe other Sikh weddings. I felt that without a lengthier stay in
the field I would not be able to generate sufficient date to address
a more narrowly defined problem. As it turned out, the problem selected
enabled me to collect data about a large number of events. As I began
to write the field notes, I realized that it would be valuable to our
discipline if I, as a Punjabi Sikh woman and an anthropologist, were to
provide a detailed account of a single wedding.
Retrospectively, I am confident that the problem selected
allowed me to make the best use of the bulk of the facts collected. The
benefit of this approach was that it allowed for the potential of
serendipitous findings. It was thus that I recorded the vast number of
events called sagan which occurred in my notes as small packages of
consecutive data, ordered in a chronological way, based upon B.C. Punjabi
Sikh categories. It was a fortuitous decision, to record things as they
happened; that I did not impose any theoretical framework on the data,
and set out not to collect certain facts but to let my informants inform me of the sequence of occurrences which they considered to be
significant during the performance of this wedding.
Chapters I through III constitute the ethnography. In them I
describe the wedding and events surrounding it as exemplary but singular,
since none of these events had previously occurred precisely as they did now. A stranger to the culture, however, could with this ethnography as a guide, 'anticipate' the next event (Geertz, 1973:26; Frake, 1972:221). - 161 -
Chapter I describes the mungna (betrothal). Using Barbara
Ward's concept of 'conscious models', the ideal Sikhs have of marriage
arrangements was discussed. The strategies for marriage arranagements
as they are actually carried out were described as the 'actual or
immediate model' with mention that this later model is affected by
the Sikh 'observers' model, that is, the B.C. Sikhs notions of Anglo-Saxon
culture.
Now, retrospectively, I would like to briefly explore Barbara
Ward's (1965) three-part concept of 'conscious' models. Ward (1965:135)
suggests these models as a formula with which she can account "...for
the uniquely widespread uniformity and long continuity of traditional
Chinese society and culture..." and at the same time "...explain the
continued existence of quite considerable variation within it". She
applied the model to the Kau Sai people of China, to show how, in spite
of many differences in their day to day lives, they are similar to other
Chinese, and how they retain their "Chinese-ness".
In exploring this model in relation to Sikh immigrants in
Canada, I suggest that Ward's 'ideological' model will have more heuristic value if broken down into two parts. First, the model that
B.C. Sikhs have of their traditional (in India) social and cultural life. Second, the model they have in their consciousness of the 'actual or immediate model' of Sikh life in Punjab, India as they have lived it, and now remember and try to reproduce it in Canada. B.C. Sikhs, as they attempt to retain and reproduce their traditional culture, talk of keeping the pichlea gula (the ideas 'behind' us). This term has two referrents, one, to ancestral ideas and second, to the ideas from - 162 -
'back home', that is, from the remembered and lived everyday life in
Punjab. I suggest that this further breakdown of Ward's ideological
model will be of value in explaining change and variation amongst the
various waves of Sikh immigrants from India. Similarly, Ward's concept
of 'internal observer's' model (which I refer to as the B.C. Sikh 'observer's'
model in this thesis), is in need of re-conceptualization before
application to the situation of overseas immigrants.
In Chapter I, the marriage rules were discussed showing the
four lineages which are prohibited as marriage choices. I stated that
there is an assumption that the lineage of the man's side is of a higher
status than that of the bride. This higher status is not part of a formal
hierarchical ranking of Sikh goth, but is defined locally based on past
alliances and changing economic circumstances.
Most B.C. Punjabi Sikh marriages reflect this system of
preferential kinship alliances, where the marrying couple are incorporated
into an extended family with strong ties to the lineage. Although most
young couples soon find separate residences, the ties of affection and
obligation remain. It has become apparent to me, during the course of
my research that the variables of sex, education, age at marriage, country
of birth, and the size of the kinship network in Canada are important and
that different combinations of these variables produce a different set of permutations with regard to strength of beliefs, attitudes and values regarding Sikh culture. In marriages,the different combinations of these variables each have profound implications for, and indicate fundamental changes to the Sikh family in the future. - 163 -
One .fundamental change is in the roles of women. While the
cultural rule that women must be under the protection of the father,
brother, or husband is still an ideal, in actual practice some Sikh
women in Canada must have the freedom to work outside the home, to
drive cars to meet such family needs as shopping and taking children to
and from school, and to interact with the members of the family who are
dispersed over wide areas. They also have the need and some freedom to
move with the members of the opposite sex for educational and economic
purposes. In other words, in actual practice, Sikh women, like most
Canadian women, must learn to look after themselves. Unlike many other
Canadians, however, they move with the knowledge that their movements are
more closely watched and sanctioned by others. This chapter indicates the
deep emotional conflicts and the adjustments that men and women in the
B.C. Sikh community face, and the profound changes that are made.
In this chapter, I have also discussed how space and kinship
terms play an important role in B.C. Sikh culture. There is a strong
identification with the villages of the paternal and maternal lines which
is expressed in kinship terms,amongt Sikhs. In Canada, this expression is
retained although there is a change in residence pattern so that lineage members are dispersed over many rural and urban areas of B.C. I have
shown that each home becomes looked upon as if it were in the village in
India. In the counsciousness of the people it is as if the boundaries of the village extend and encompass them in Canada. Although the lineage members are dispersed, the solidarity with one's lineage members continues and is expressed at the many ceremonial occasions, it is manifested by the seva, the donations, the obligatory exchanges, the wedding gifts, and attendance and involvement in the sagan and wedding. -164 -
I also argued in this chapter that B.C. Punjabi Sikh culture
has flexibility and adaptability, both important attributes for an
immigrant group. It has been demonstrated in this thesis that B.C. Sikhs
have many adaptive strategies which they employ to get done what they
need to get done, sometimes by abrogating cultural rules. It is apparent,
too, that Anglo-Saxon beliefs and values along with North American material
goods are becoming inextricably entwined with Sikh life increasingly with
the passing of each generation. At the same time Sikh values from India,
some of them also showing evidence of change,.. are brought to Canada with
each new immigrant. There is, therefore, an ongoing synthesis of Sikh
and Canadian cultures.
The arrangement of marriages by Sikhs raises many questions for
further research: How. do second generation Sikhs arrange marriages? To what extent do they seek partners in India for their children? Are there
any similarities emerging between Sikhs and other ethnic groups (e.g.Jews) who arrange marriages for their children?
Chapter II described seven pre-wedding rituals which occurred between the betrothal and the wedding. It is a significant point that
in the private sphere of life, it is the women who provide most of the continuity with past forms, who pass on the traditional culture, who evaluate and set the standards for what will be retained, changed or dropped from the cultural repertoire. They also allow accretions from the dominant Anglo-Saxon culture that their children insist upon. The women know"all the while that they do not share in the experience of these new values and try not to allow borrowings that would lead to - 165 -
conflict in values or which would sharply separate children from their
traditions.
Although men are often given the credit by the women as being
the enforcers of tradition, it can be readily seen that women spend the most time with the young and are the major influence in their
socialization. By their evaluation of each others performance, through both criticism and active support, women pass the Sikh culture on.
Chapter II describes how interpretations of social institutions, behavior, and attitudes are passed on through the use of traditional sagan and the metaphoric use of songs (geet and bvolea). How, for example, the solidarity of the lineage is expressed to its members and to others during the performance of a wedding.
Chapter III provides a description of the temple and the wedding held there. Here, in the public sphere, the men are the chief functionaries.
A priest officiates and the men of the lineage perform traditional functions.
The discussion of the social characteristics of the temple shows how Sikhs worship;' as a brotherhood, and the five K's, symbols which are enjoined upon all Sikhs, are discussed. I note how religious symbols are mani• pulated and selectively followed in the context of the religious life at the temple and in everyday life. And it is the men who show more of an elective affinity to traditional religious rules. Because they are more involved with the Anglo-Saxon culture in their day to day economic activities, most Sikh men remove their turbans and do not closely follow the visible Sikh religious prescriptions. The women, especially if they are recent immigrants or are India born and raised are the traditionalists, that is, they are much more prone to follow the cultural and religious expectations. - 166 -
Canada born and raised Sikh women, on the other hand,
respond in a variety of ways to their traditions. One can ask at this
point,what: model will a newly married couple such as the one presented
here adopt as representative of their cultural beliefs? What will they
present for their children to follow? We may guess that there are
profound changes in the beliefs passed on by such a couple based on personal selection of attributes considered to be important. Thus
there is the potential for great inconsistency or lack of continuity in the passing on of traditions. In the particular case presented here, with an extensive network of kinsmen to aid in cultural transmission, this may not be a problem, but in many other cases it may be one. What the mix will be between Sikh and Canadian values and beliefs depends on the parental mix, whether either was born and raised in India, or whether both parents were raised in Canada. We may also ask, What is the cost in terms of personal conflict for the children and how may this conflict be reduced or prevented?
Now, to conclude this final chapter and the thesis, I wish to examine the usefulness of the methodological approach I adopted, one designed to work towards 'thick description'. By entering into detailed description, by making the events the center of the narrative, and by commenting on them where necessary, I hope in a small way to have furthered anthropological understanding of the Canadian Punjabi Sikhs. By using this mode of reporting, I have attempted to reach deeply into the attitudes and beliefs of this cultural group. We can attain a better understanding of behavior, values, and beliefs by this method of presenting an inside view of a culture, by 'thick description'. Hopefully, - 167 -
these data may also be used by others, possibly using other theoretical conceptions, who wish to make comparative studies.
I do not derive any general conclusions from data gathered during a brief period of research, focused on one particular family.
But, I do suggest, and hope that a few issues have been exposed and that hypotheses for future research can be generated from this document.
I hope also that in some modest way this study will contribute to the anthropological repertoire of knowledge on Canadian Punjabi Sikh culture, and thus to a better understanding of an ethnic group that has and continues to play important roles in the histories of India and Canada. - 168 -
GLOSSARY AND TRANSLITERATION
In the glossary I have attempted to emphasize the meaning
in the translation. This has sometimes meant that a word may be
glossed with a sentence, or conversely a concept may have a single
word gloss.
I have chosen to transliterate only those words which I
think may be mispronounced by a Western reader. I have used the
words as pronounced by my informants, who are women with a village
background and a low level of literacy. Often the letter v becomes
slurred to a b, or a ph sound (English f) is pronounced with a p. Thus,
my transliteration may not satisfy the reader who is interested in the
Sanskritic transliteration. At times., the Punjabi word may have
an Urdu (Arabic root) origin, or there may be several words from
different dialects, these have posed some difficulties. I generally
report the word most commonly used, though I sometimes show the lesser
used word as well (i.e. degh and prashad).
C. Shackle's Punjabi (1972:5) , has been used as a guide to the transliteration. The relevant section is reproduced here,(p.179) .
Chapter I of Punjabi (pp.1-17) is a helpful reference for pronunciation. - 169 -
GLOSSARY
Gurmukhi Phonetic Script Script
(a)
achar pickles anand karaj a wedding apni own ardas the name of a special hymn
(b) barfi a milk sweet barrda courtyard barthai to serve, portion out beti M daughter bhain sister bhir v\r brother bordea w women bund to distribute
T buttona £C2T?> an oat flour and oil paste bvole (s) bawdy song ,s g bvolea (p) c^MT^/Vr bawdy songs - 170 -
(c)
cacha uncle (FyB)
cachi aiqfl ______aunt (FyBW)
chand moon
chewra QKP bracelet
chunga C?K\qd good (i.e. O.K.)
chuni 9& O I veil, shawl
sweeper caste women churia (f)(p)
(d) grandfather (FF)
dada _____ grandmother (FM)
dadi ______village of patrilineal grandparents dadke a soup-like lentil dal curry
tenth dasma a firm, pudding-like degh communion food served at Sikh temples
dehj dowry
dorian ond^ multi stranded wool ties to braid into hair
(g)
garanthe a Sikh priest gardbhi a small nickel- plated water vessel - 171 -
gauna a multi-colored many stranded tie. The word is also used to refer to a ceremony prior to a wedding when a sister ties a gauna onto the wrist of her brother in return for his protection
geet songs, ballads
ghar house
ghee clarified butter
gidtha folk dance of Punjab mainly performed by women
gora (s)(m) white man
gori (s)(f) white woman
goth aT~3 clan (Punjabi speaker)
gotra clan (Hindi speaker) guru 3B>—: teacher, disciple gurudhwara Sikh temple
(h)
haldi tumeric
halvai a confectioner har UTB garland
(j) jat y%*L a north Indian caste jeth '^j S brother-in-law (husband's elder brother) - 172 -
jewa jewai son-in-law ji honorific particle (i.e.sir, madam) jiwan tlfefr life (k) karahi . slope-sided pan kata sour cream (often with chick pea flour dumplings and spices) °\ ke ~5T of khandan ~t| 'AoU'fl family khir a pudding-like dessert made with milk, rice and sugar (almonds or raisins are sometimes added) s koa a dessert made of cooked cream korme small squares of fried and sugared pastry (sometimes called sakerpare) kurta (m)(s) ML a tunic-length shirt• like garment worn by men kurti (f)(s) a tunic-length shirt• like garment worn by women - 173 - (1) laddu a sweetmeat lagi a servant langa a floor length skirt and tunic costume worn by women langar a communal meal served at a Sikh temple latte to indulge lavan ler TO fight (m) mai mother, old woman maian a life cycle ritual for women held shortly before marriage mama (s)(m) uncle (mother's brother) mame (p)(m) uncles (mother's brothers) mami (s)(f) aunt (mother's brother's wife) mamia(n) (p)(f) aunts (mother's brother's wives) masi (s)(f) yrff\ aunt (mother's sister) masia(n) (p) (f) aunts (mother's sisters) mata mother matar peas mehndi henna - 174 - milni formal meeting of bride1s parents and bridegroom's parents at the time of the engagement mor a coin-like gold piece with an imprint sometimes given instead of the rupee at the time of betrothal mungna xfer?? yr\9r\q ha betrothal, engagement (literally, to ask) (n) na bathe nai barber nana 7m grandfather (mother's father) nam 777% grandmother (mother's mother) nanke maternal grand• parent 's village nankewalia (f) women of grand• parent's village nautch dance neonda fat invitation to activate exchange relationships, invitation 0 . noha (p) daughters-in-law noh (s) daughter-in-law - 175 - CP) Up put pa pake natal village (married woman speaking) pakoria deep fried pea flour bits pala ornate end of sari, or veil pali ritual giving of sweets to maternal grandparents to signal the wedding of a grandchild pangara vigorous folk dance of Punjab, traditionally performed by men parlos OS ruffle (i.e. hair), pat the head patasa (s) small wafer-like candy patase (p) small wafer-like candies path church service patheji niece (BD) pati lineage perjai sister-in-law phera 31" circumambulation phog a sponsored church service phulka a small ornate altar cloth phulkarie handwoven, dyed, embroidered taspestry- like shawl - 176 - pind village pitha (ji) fa? ftfl) father pio fat father pooah g-wf aunt (father's sister) prashad sweet, firm, pudding• like communion food served at Sikh temples guest (used most prona frequently in reference to bridegroom) (q) quevildar the one who possesses the attribute of keeping his word, making good his promises, being good in reciprocal exchanges quevildari possession of the attributes above s rok o *S to stop, to stand in the way of roti ^ unleavened bread rumal altar cloth (the large center cloth flanked by two smaller cloths called phulka) rupee a coin of approximately 1/7 of a dollar value - 177 - (s) "JT-J1 sag puree of a green leafy vegetable, usually curried TOT?; sagan a rite sahali girl friend sakerpare small deep fried squares of sugared pastry sakhe consanguineal sala brother-in-law sali M1^ sister-in-law * samosa deep fried savory tidbit sangat congregation sanyahe a message delivered verbally sari a wrapped woman's garment sarir body saura «HdcT father-in-law (woman speaking) sauri village of father- in-law savad hymn sehr head sehra a crown-like head piece traditionally worn by groom seva service shadi wedding * salvar a full, pant-like garment - 178 - sikhia a lesson sikiria kin relationships, alliances surma ^^yP~ powdered antimony used as a cosmetic for eyes surmadani a container for surma sungali a chain-like necklace sus mother-in-law (t) tabar family taiya T J'fdrt1 uncle, father's elder brother taiye r r 3'^}-yr aunt, father's elder brother's wife thai 1 i ' platter <=^ the *3~ of >—i tho IT wash thonu you (formal, i.e. French vous) (v) vah praise var h\l z) PHRASES asav lainthe ha she is taking an account of (i.e. groceries) usen puch pai se we asked for aina par quorn chuke who can carry such a weight? jewan the atta oat flour Ik Cm Kar God is one quol cardna To pull the shawl over one's head (in obeying avoidance rules) pichlea gula the words behind us (i.e. the ideas beind us) GUIDE TO TRANSLITERATION (.Shackle, 1972;5).: velar palatal retr.illex- .l.-Iltul lal.inl Ikl : : voiceless .'.'/ •.-}'jj>i ... stops aspirate /kh/ /ch/ •r;IW • ,'ph./ voiced 1*1 m HI /V nasals I'l /*/ 111 . /-/ M flaps and trills I'l laterals IV ( voiceless. /»/ /•I siuuanis* (voiced M fricatives m I'l aspirate M semi-vowels M - 18D - BIBLIOGRAPHY Ames, Michael M. and Joy Inglis 1973 - 74 Conflict and Change in British Columbia Sikh Family Life, IN B.C. Studies, No. 20, Winter 1973-74, pp. 15-49. Bartie, Philip 1978 Urban Migration and Rural Identity: An Ethnography of a Kwawu Community, Obo, Ghana, Unpublished PhD., The University of Ghana, Legon, Accra. Berreman, Gerald 1962 Behind Many Masks, Society for Applied Anthropology Monograph 4. Reprinted A-393 Bobbs-Merrill. Buhler, George 1886 The Laws of Manu, IN Sacred Books of the East, Volume XXV, Max Muller ed., Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1886 Chaudhray, Roop L. 1961 Hindu Woman's Right to Property, Firma K. L. Mukhopadhyay, Calcutta, India. Frake, Charles 0. 1972 A Structural Description of Subanun "Religious Behavior", IN Reader in Comparative Religion: An Anthropological Approach, 3d. ed., William A. Lessa and Evon Z. Vogt, eds., Harper & Row Publishers, New York, pp. 220 - 231. Geertz, Clifford 1973 Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture, IN The Interpretation of Cultures, New York, Basic Books, pp. 3 - 30. Goldschmidt, Walter 1969 Kambuya's Cattle, University of California Press, Berkeley. - 181 - Jacobson, Helga 1979 Immigrant Women and the Community: A Perspective for Research, Resources for Feminist Research, Vol.VIII, No. 3, Part Two, November, 1979, pp. 17 - 21. Karve, Irawati 1968 Kinship Organization in India, Asia Publishing House, New York. pp. 104 - 162. (1st ed., 1965) Kolenda, Pauline n.d. Sibling-set Marriage, Collateral-set Marriage, and Deflected Alliance among Annana Jats of Jaipur District, Rajasthan. Reprint sent by author shows no date. Leaf, Murray J. 1974 Ritual and Social Organization: Sikh Marriage Rituals, IN Frontiers of Anthropology, Murray J. Leaf, ed., D. Van Nostrand Company, New York, pp. 123 - 162. Nikhilinananda, Swami (trans.) 1959 Upanishads, Vol. IV, Bonanza Books, New York, pp.299 - 300. Redfield, Robert 1956 The Social Organization of Tradition, IN Peasant Society and Culture, Phoenix Books, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp. 40 - 59. Shackle, C. 1972 Punjabi, The English Universities Press Ltd. London. Singer, Milton 1972 Search for a Great Tradition in Cultural Performances, IN When a Great Tradition Modernizes, Pall Mall Press, London, pp. 67 - 80. - 182 - Trilochan Singh, Jodh Singh, Kapur Singh, Bawa Harkishen Singh and Kushwant Singh, (Trans.)' 1973 The Sacred Writings of the Sikhs, Foreword by Arnold Toynbee, Unesco Collection of Representative Works. London, 1960, 1965. Turner, Victor 1967 The Forest of Symbols, Cornell University Press, 1967, pp. 84 - 91 Ward, Barbara E. 1965 Varieties of the Conscious Model, IN The Relevance of Models for Social Anthropology, M. Banton, ed., A.S.A. Monographs (London), pp. 113 - 137. - 183 - APPENDIX I. Chronology of Events. Events Place March 29, 1981 - Wedding cakes delivered today Fraser Valley 12 pages of double spaced notes on a variety of topics such as changes in cooking utensils, factional disputes, changes in foods, arranged marriages, etc. Time: 1 hour travel to Fraser Valley 3 hours with my nieces and brother 1 hour travel time back to Vancouver 2. April 10, 1981 - Family returns from India with the groom-to-be Fraser Valley April 11, 1981 - Short long-distance telephone conversation 36 pages of double spaced notes re: betrothal of one niece, meeting with groom, met a new bride from another family and saw her dowry. Variety of other topics such as foods. Social change noted. Time: 1 hour travel to Fraser Valley 4 hours of participant-observation in a large family (8 women, 3 children, 7 men) 3. April 13, 1981 - Random thoughts at home. Reflections on boundaries, Vancouver space and time, kinship and the adjustments made by people in the Canadian setting. 12 pages of double spaced notes. 4. April 14, 1981 - Telephone conversation LD to Fraser Valley Vancouver 10 pages of notes, double spaced, re: wedding arrangements to be made, the groom etc. April 15, 1981 - At UBC invigilating until 4:30, then drove to FV Fraser Valley 2 pages of random thoughts, single spaced 21 double spaced pages of notes re: temple, weddings, food, clothing, betrothals, and SAW THE PERFORMANCE OF A SMALL RITE FOR THE BRIDE. Stayed overnight. 4 double spaced pages of random thoughts, reflections April 16, 1981 - I drive the women to Vancouver to shop today Fraser Valley 9 double spaced pages of notes on betrothals, food, clothing to Vancouver for the wedding, etc. (honeymoon), meeting with Dr. Ames. to Fraser Valley Drive back to FV and then back to Vancouver. to Vancouver April 17, 1981 - Some thoughts on insider anthropology Vancouver 21 double spaced pages on the honeymoon, the groom, their future living arrangements, wedding invitations, on my position as a single woman, family conflict, another rite to be performed, was discussed yesterday. April 18, 1981 - LD phone call to FV Vancouver 5 double spaced pages on telephone conversation 3 double spaced pages on reflections l*i double spaced pages on problems in fieldwork April 19, 1981 - Random thoughts on earlier immigrants and our experiences Vancouver 10 double spaced pages 10. April 20, 1981 - Reflections on an Indian wedding I attended as a child Fraser Valley 8 double spaced pages. Drove to FV 6 pages of notes - a complete list of all the groceries for the temple wedding meals and the women's dance - 184 - 11. April 21, 1981 - Notes on wedding invitations, on Indian medicine, Fraser Valley Village Punjab vs town Punjab, new styles of behavior, etc. Wrote wedding announcement for newspaper 14 double spaced pages of notes on clothing Indian vs Western, honeymoon, place of residence after wedding, etc. 12. April 22, 1981 - Up at 6 a.m. First day of cooking at Temple then Fraser Valley go to wedding shower (western) at 7:30 p.m. 18 double spaced pages of notes on cooking foods at the temple - Barfi, Laddu, Pakoria, etc. STARTED WITH A SMALL RITE. Recorded women's conversations, re: India, messages from India, gossip, illness, work, etc. Leave temple at 6 p.m. drive to neighbouring town back to Darshan's hometown - to wedding shower. Return 12 p.m. stay overnight too foggy to go home. 13. April 23, 1981 - Rise at 6 a.m. Cut the seven large trays of Barfi, Fraser Valley Go to temple, to neighbouring town, back to Darshan's home in time for the 1 shower'/wedding rite/women's dance with ballads and bawdy songs. Ill to emerg. at 2 a.m. 8 double spaced pages of notes. 14. April 24, 1981 - Not at all well - Go to temple to help peel onions, Fraser Valley potatoes, etc. Preparation of food for this evenings. Women's dance at rented hall. 16 double spaced pages of notes 15. April 25, 1981 - Day of wedding Fraser Valley 26 double spaced pages of description of temple ceremony to Victoria 10 double spaced pages of reception at home 2 pages of English translation of part of the Guru Granth Sahib. Victoria 16. April 26, 1981 - Drove the couple to Victoria last night arrived 10 p.m. 10 pages doubled spaced of recollections about my use of Punjabi, the ease with which I can use it: Some thoughts about Indians and how they 'receive' translations of western medicine. Thoughts on dangers of insecticides used by farmers, etc. Saw bride and groom only briefly today, for breakfast at the Empress and for a short walk. Still unwell. Victoria 17. April 27, 1981 - Honeymoon in Victoria 3h pages of double spaced notes - saw couple for tea in my rooms. Little to report. Victoria 18. April 28, 1981 - Honeymoon over! to Fraser Valley 10 pages of double spaced notes on conversation with bride and groom re: education in India, employment, SMALL RITE ON RETURN HOME. 19. April 29, 1981 - Listen to tape of temple ceremony and women's songs Vancouver 20. April 30, 1981 - Read bulk of notes Vancouver Vancouver 21. May 1, 1981 17 double spaced pages of notes (Misc., recollections of how the temple rules have changed over the year) 5 double spaced pages of Random thoughts Fraser Valley 22. May 15, 1981 - To FV to prepare pagee to distribute to kinsmen Return to Vancouver in Fraser Valley - 185 APPENDIX II - A PUNJABI WEDDING SONG (GEET) Mother: Kooethe parne paranthiea, thu marl, marl par na tho Bhagi chamber1 kidaria, thu backe har pero Daughter: Sornne Mai merea, mere babul nu sumja Thea hoia latvavaria, quise nokar the lardla Mother: Some thea marea, thu ede vol na vol . Jithe gujare bara vare, uthe che mehine hor (repeat once) Daughter: Bara vare mere inj vethe, mere babul na piar Horn na ra sa ek cardee, mera unjal hoia thear (repeat once) Mother: Kooethe parne paranthiea, thu marl, marl par na tho -W^r--^Sr^rlr^"^^^^^ Bhagi chamberl kidaria, thu backe har pero.