8.10.2013 HANNAH CEREMONY BEFORE WEDDING
Hanna festivities are over! It was so much fun to immerse in modernized tradition, since pure tradition is not really my thing. My brother Mehmet and his wife Kezban came over to my mother's house yesterday for breakfast. There was a small glitch at the end of breakfast when my niece Melike, who is soon to be married called us frantically being concerned about a sensation in her eye and whether she'd be able to wear her contacts for the Hanna festivities and for her wedding in two days. Kezban, who is an anesthesiologist came to our help: She offered Melike to be seen at the hospital where Kezban worked. Pheww, that was quite a help. It turned out it wasn't anything other than dry conjunctiva.
Around 11:30 am, Mehmet drove me to Melike's house where we did some more last minute cooking and greeted and hosted Melike's friends that started arriving from multiple cities for her wedding weekend. Melike's maternal uncle and other relatives also joined us throughout the day. It was a strange feeling to be hosting a wedding, for the first time in my life. So far, I always went to weddings hosted by others. Having just one daughter, who is swamped with professional engagements, no wedding any time soon for her; and one niece, no surprise that this is the first time I am somewhat responsible to make sure others are comfortable at “our” wedding festivities. I am an aunt after all, in Turkish culture considered half-a-mother.
My sisters-in-law and I just before leaving for the Hannah festivities
One of the details about Turkish weddings is that core family members go to a beauty parlor during the day of evening festivities, and have their hair done. I am not much of tradition, especially of this sort, but have one single niece after all, I decided to join the crew. It was fun to observe the communal spirit of women beautifying themselves asking for opinions of the group members, feeling satisfied, when everybody verified, each member had a fantastic hair-do or make up. However, I felt more like an anthropologist than an aunt when all the rest was all about how they could be their best in appearance.
Finally, all of us improved in facade, returned home to have a late lunch, early dinner with all the food we fixed the day before. We had made turkish stuffed grape leaves, mixed stuffed vegetables, eggplant salad, barbunya beans, kiymali borek (pastry with ground beef and onions) and ispanakli borek (pastry with spinach and cheese, we made both), and desserts... it was great to see people enjoy our production as they scattered in small groups to all over the house with their plates and drinks. I had to take a nap before leaving for the "kir kahvesi" (country cafe) Atlihan in a village, famous for its kir kahvesi places, that are all multi-functional, nowadays I learn. They may serve as a breakfast place, restaurant, simple cafe, and lately, I guess, they also organize wedding ceremonies of small caliber.
Sure enough, Atlihan kir kahvesi was ready for us all. They had put out tables and chairs donned with white table clothes and chair dresses to the ground. Although what was underneath was simple plastic, the coverings made the chairs and the entire place look very elegant. The youngest females were assigned to be responsible for the candy and cologne job. In Turkish tradition, two-three young girls stand by the door/gate of where the wedding is held and offer guests a very light cologne with lemon scent and candy/chocolate. This lemon cologne actually may be served to guests under any circumstance, even when people visit one another in their homes. It is not very perfumy, especially in hot summer days, the alcohol in it evaporating rapidly gives a sense of refreshment. I personally like it a lot. Clearly everybody else did, too, nobody refused it. Hand full of lemon cologne found its way to the guests’ necks and arms helping them cool off a bit more. Serap. my sister-in-law, my brother, and Melike's inlaws-to-become were lined up at the entrance to greet the guests. I joined the crew being the only aunt Melike had.
I assumed people didn't know me, thus, I introduced myself to people as Melike's aunt, "hala". Turkish is very descriptive in that regard like Spanish. Every relationship has a different title, allowing one identify whether it is a paternal or maternal relative. It was cute to see the expression on people’s faces, one of “Oh my, so this is the woman” as if they had heard about me, “the woman, who is across the ocean and God knows when she will return for good” and finally here I was! This way, Mustafa, the groom's halas (paternal aunts) and teyzes (maternal aunts) introduced themselves to me, too in delight. I felt we were much more connected this time around. They seemed to be all well-intentioned, genuine people far from pretense. I liked Mustafa's family so far quite a bit.
Melike had made some nice touches throughout the place in her preparations. Evil eye beads were scattered across the tables around the central bouquets. She had us tie colored chiffon scarves around the posts all over the place, which purked up an all-white space. The hannah parade was something else. All single women were invited to go inside to prepare for the parade. They were all given a short bride's head piece to wear as well as scarves to wave during the parade. When the entire parade was ready, Melike led the crew with a semitransparent red scarf over her head and face, covering the upper half of her body. No wonder she had chosen a dark red dress, which was very becoming to her with her temporary scarf, now. One of Melike's friends was carrying the bowl full of hannah paste to be applied to Melike's hand then to be distributed to whoever wanted to apply it to their hands. Three candles lit on top of the hannah bowl were the only source of lighting all around us at that moment. As they started walking toward the stage, it turned into a traditional folkloric line dance, called halay in Turkey. After the youth all got on the stage dancing halay, we all joined in and made the line dance into an eternal circle wound into itself numerous times.
Finally, my dear Melike was "entrapped' in the heart of the circle. Somebody brought two chairs into the circle and had Melike and Mustafa sit side by side. As one of Melike's friends was applying hannah into Melike's palm, Melike's mother-in-law snuck in a gold coin into the middle of the hannah lump in Melike's palm! All was quickly wrapped with a piece of cloth and her hand went into a red semitransparent glove. This is traditionally the time, the bride is expected (!) to shed tears since this moment supposedly represents the fact that the bride is departing from her father's home and is moving into her husband's household.
Melike trying to heold her tears back: It is the tradition for the bride to cry!
As much as I enjoy the backdrop of certain traditions with some aspects, I can't help recalling what they actually represent in political economy context: All these rituals in fact refer to a young woman being exchanged between two households in the context of feudal relationships, after which she will become “working hands” for the husband's family. For the sake of that, the husband's family is expected to pay whatever it takes to get her! To pay dowry to the bride’s father, if not in western Turkey, in eastern Turkey for sure is still a common practice. None of this applies to Melike and Mustafa of course since they are just playing with the idea of traditionalism during their wedding, but it does apply to scores of women and men in more traditional settings in the country, not only that, all around the world.
Once hannah ceremony was over, we were back to dancing. Melike was in her element. Mustafa and she did two ballroom dances (apparently, it became a custom to take dance lessons for the bride and the groom to look professional during the wedding, each and every moment of which is video-recorded in Turkey, too, nowadays. In fact, there were times, I felt as if the hannah ceremony was being performed for a video-production rather than it being recorded in its natural course. Little did I know, the same will be repeated, much worse at the wedding itself. Once the traditional Turkish group dances resumed, the two sides of the families intermingled much better, dancing in mixed groups.I must say, everybody visited the stage to dance at least once, some of us, pretty much not leaving the dance floor. I wished my daughter had been there with us, she not only would have enjoyed herself thoroughly, but also would have made Melike much happier.
When I had to leave half an hour early since my mother wasn't able to hold up any more, this was the longest she could sit on a chair for a long time, the dancing was still continuing full fledge. I learned later on that the young people, the bride, the groom and their friends went to a night club to continue dancing until 4 am in the morning. I recalled fondly, the days, my friends and I used to dance until early hours of the morning a few decades ago. That is youth, I thought. as young at heart as I feel, my entertainment engagements usually end around midnight nowadays....
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| Just before the hannah application |
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