Mordvinian wedding is one of the most original events in Mordvinian community. The wedding rites of both Moksha and Erzya people are notable for considerable complexity and great variety. The whole process of traditional wedding in some way resembles a dramatic folk musical performance, where dramatic scenes of bride’s leaving home and parting with her parents are combined with those joyful taking place in the house of bridegroom.
Striking a bargain about marriage was traditionally the business of parents and relatives. As a rule, when choosing a proper match, they paid much attention to the health of the would-be bride, her diligence and the prosperity of her family.
Contracting a marriage was usually quite a long rite; the traditional Mordvinian wedding had several stages, each one with its own order, strict rules to follow and unique system of typical symbols and images. The first step was multistage matchmaking – ‘ladyama’ (in Moksha) or ‘ladyamo’ (in Erzya). Young people were considered engaged for good only after the third stage of matchmaking; a girl stopped attending the so-called ‘posidelky’ (countryside young people's gathering, especially in winter) and got down to making wedding presents. The last stage of matchmaking, called ‘shin putoma’ (in Moksha) or ‘chin putoma’ (in Erzya) was fixing the day of the wedding. Since that day and till the very wedding the girl ought to bewail her parting with home and her happy girlhood.
The main event of the wedding took place in the houses of bride and bridegroom. The ceremony started at the bride’s place, where she was treated to ‘kasha’ (cooked cereal) by her relatives. This ritual is called ‘yam yartskhama’ (in Moksha) or ‘kashan yarsamo’ (in Erzya). One more widespread rite was washing the bride in the bath-house (or ‘banya’ in Russian), called ‘styren banya’ (in Moksha) or ‘teyteren banya’ (in Erzya).
In the wedding morning female relatives of the bridegroom backed wedding pies – about 5-9 ones.
The first acquaintance of the young took place at the bed, which was usually made, there being no special separate room, in the stable or in the barn, both in winter and in summer. The bridegroom was the first to come. People brought the bride there and repeating “Wolf-wolf, here is your lamb” slightly pushed her to her husband to be.
The information was prepared and provided by the members of THE POVOLJSKY CENTRE OF FINNO-UGRIC CULTURES.
