ZULU WEDDING AFRICAN CEREMONY ZULU WEDDING

The Wedding

On the wedding day, the bride is decorated with white and red ochre. She ties bags of pebbles on her feet to create rhythm when dancing. She wears a veil made of beads and twisted fig trees, ties oxtail fringes on her arms and knees and wears goatskin on her neck. She then carries a miniature knife pointed upwards as a symbol of her virginity. While the groom wears material that covers the hair, shoulders, buttocks, ankles, chest and wrists.

A ceremonial wedding dance competition is performed, The dance is the highlight of every Zulu wedding ceremony. It comes with dance-off between the groom’s and the bride’s families. The two families must present a ritual antagonism since one is losing a daughter and the other is gaining her. It shows she is disconnecting from her ancestral lineage and joining her husband’s lineage. Of course, the two clans have to fight for their own, who wouldn’t’? The bride then dances the cultural way by herself kicking her feet up to show her mother that she is a proud virgin.

Eventually the groom’s family will slaughter a cow and the bride puts money on the stomach of the cow. It shows that her new family welcomes her to join them and she willingly accepts.

The families pour beer on the ground to signify that ancestors of both families are welcomed into the marriage of the bride and the groom. The wedding ceremony ends with the bride giving gifts in the form of blankets to her new family. This tradition is called “Ukwaba”, and the groom's mother rubs butterfat on her new daughter-in-law at the end of the ceremony.

Nowadays, modernised Zulu brides have a ‘white wedding’ as well as traditional wedding (umabo). What often happens is that the ‘white wedding’ will happen in the morning, while the traditional ceremony will occur later in the day, the next day, or whenever the couple is financially ready.

Article by Adam Ali