Marriages In The Koumama Family

Garfa Koumama, the youngest daughter of the late Mohamed Koumama and Hadija, and Elhadji Koumama’s half-sister, will soon be married in Agadez. She will be the bride of Makawu, her cousin on her mother’s side of the family. It is very common for Tuaregs, especially those in the Inadin or blacksmith class, to marry cousins.

The daughter of Elhadji’s brother, Bouta, and the son of his brother, Sidi, will be married at the same time. In these difficult economic times it is fairly common for two or more couples to marry at the same time so that the cost of the wedding can be shared. The festivities will last seven days with most of the activities in the first three days. They will follow the old traditions of the Tuaregs.

The day before the first events the older women will build a traditional tent in the desert for each couple. The tent frame will be made of sturdy acacia branches bent to form arches. They will then lash palm frond mats over the framework. Mats will be laid inside on the sand. The beds are made of four wooden pillars with carved indentions in the top to support wooden poles horizontally at the top and bottom and several that run vertically. The “mattress” is a thin woven mat. Even people who live in town follow this custom.

On the first day of the marriage the women in the families of the brides and grooms and their friends will gather at the Hadija’s home. They will hold a “tom tom,” dancing to the beat of a drum. The brides will be present at this ceremony. Drums are made of different things. Sometimes it is the wooden mortar used to pound millet with leather stretched over it. A very loud drum is made from a calabash floating in a bucket of water. At other times they use an overturned steel bowl. Sometimes a woman singer entertains the guests with traditional songs accompanied by her small string instrument. The women gather in a circle and each takes her turn at jumping into the middle and dancing for a few seconds. There is much laughter and clapping. Guests reward a good dancer by slipping money in her skirt. The money is then given to the brides.

After the dancing the women will share a meal, usually macaroni or couscous made with a tomato sauce. Since no household has enough forks or spoons to serve a crowd they will eat with their hands from the platters of food set on mats in the sand.

The men also dance and feast on macaroni and couscous on the first day. Since women do not attend the men’s festival with the groom I cannot describe in detail what they will do. Generally the men’s style of dancing is more vigorous than the women’s intricate footwork and swoops with their scarves. Men run and do wild jumping steps from one end of the circle to the other.

In the early evening both men and women will gather to eat and for the grooms’ henna ceremony. Their feet will be covered in henna and then encased in plastic bags to make it set.

There will be no sleep for anyone on the first night. The men will dress in their best clothes and indigo tagelmusts (turbans) and spend the night with the grooms. They will chat, play games and give advice to the men whose marriages will be “fixed” the following day.

The women will spend the brides’ last night as single women with them. They too give her advice, chat and generally enjoy themselves. They will braid the brides’ hair and each others and apply henna to their feet and hands.

On the second day of the marriage the parents of the couples will go to the mosque to meet with a marabout, a holy man, to fix the marriages. The bridal couples will not attend this ceremony. Since I have never attended this event I am not sure what happens or whether there is a written record made of the marriages.

Again on the second day the women gather at the brides’ family homes. The brides will be covered with a sheet. Family and friends will laugh and tease the girls about their wedding night to come and give more advice.

In the afternoon the women from the brides’ families, but not the brides, and the grooms’ families gather at their separate homes. All of them dress in their best festival clothes. They walk through the town singing and laughing. The brides’ families carries bowls of water. When they meet in the center of Agadez near the Grande Mosque the thinnest woman in each of the grooms’ families is presented with the water. Since women consider plumpness to be beautiful it is a great insult, but all in fun, to receive the water. The women return to the brides to help them bathe and dress in their fine new clothes.

Then the women join the men for a meal and to remove the bags from the grooms’ feet and wash off the henna to show the newly blackened feet. There is much laughter and teasing of the new husbands. Later in the evening each bride’s male relatives take her to the tent for the wedding night. The couples spend the night together but the husbands must leave early in the morning before anyone catches them. They return to their family homes.

On the third day the brides, their families and friends gather to inspect the trousseaus given by the grooms. They consist of many clothes, jewelry and sometimes lotions and other toiletries. These things are expensive and it may take several years for a man to earn enough money for the gifts. An egourou, a large diamond shaped pendant on black and silver beads, is always among the presents. Sometimes it is called the marriage piece.

In better times the marriage might have included camel dances in the desert with women singing and drumming while young men dressed in their finest danced their decorated camels around them and then shot off into the distance to again make a grand entry when it was their turn to strut their stuff. There also would have been more tom toms on the third through sixth days of the festivities. Now those days are relatively quiet with the bride and groom spending the night together and separating before dawn.

The seventh day is the final and biggest event of the marriage. The new husbands are each expected to take seven goats to his wife’s house to be slaughtered for a huge feast. Finally the new husbands and wives will appear together in public and eat together. Since the Koumamas are no longer nomad the couples will leave the tents in the desert and move into their own houses or more commonly the home of the bride’s parents. If the family is traditional the couple will stay there for one or more years, until the bride’s mother is satisfied that the marriage is on a solid foundation and that the husband is treating his wife properly.

I have described the upcoming marriages in the Koumama family. If a family is very poor, or if it is the second marriage for the bride, the ceremony may only involve the families going to the mosque to fix the marriage. Marriages are expensive so some families only have a meal of macaroni or rice after the parents return from the mosque.

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