Typical offerings in wedding customs of the Black Thai

The wedding ceremony is a really special milestone in the life of each person. There are two parts to a Black Thai’s wedding ceremony. In the first part, the groom’s family brings offerings to the bride’s houses and invites the bride’s relatives to a wedding feast. From then on, the groom becomes an official member of his wife’s family. Therefore, he stays with them for a period of time according to the agreement reached by both families. During this period of time, the husband learns how to be a breadwinner, while the wife learns to cultivate and breed domestic animals while continuing to foster her parents and looking after their children.

For the Black Thai in Son La province’s Yen Chau district, one of their wedding customs involves making offerings for the bride’s ancestors. Photo: VOV

In the second part, the wife’s family organizes a ceremony to take her to the husband’s house. They make thorough preparations of offerings to the husband’s ancestors.

The offerings to the bride’s ancestors must include the head, tail, and four legs of a pig. These offerings are placed on a silver tray with newly-cut banana leaves. Apart from these offerings, the groom’s family has to prepare a pair of boiled chickens, pairs of bamboo tubes filled up with pickled fish meat, and small baskets with smoked fish. The fish must be caught from a spring and washed with rice wine. 

As someone who is familiar with the Thai ethnic minority group’s customs, elderly Lo Van Pho in Huoi Mong village, in Yen Chau district’s Chieng Hac commune said that the offerings also include betel, areca, and a silver necklace. These bear a wish of lasting happiness for the couple. Other offerings include small bags containing seeds, ginger, and chicken eggs with a hope that the couple will do animal husbandry and cultivation to earn their living.

The offerings are significant because they bear wishes for the couple’s happy life and gratitude to their ancestors for their due care and protection.

According to Ha Thi Mai, Chairwoman of Chieng Hac commune’s People’s Committee, these beautiful wedding customs have been carefully preserved by the Black Thai people. The local authorities are encouraging local people to build a new cultural lifestyle while preserving such nice cultural traditions.

Translated by Mai Huong