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munity, the life of royalty was looked upon with awe and admiration. The people emulated their royal rulers and assumed the identities and actions of princes in various traditional events. In ancient times a young woman was usually abducted by the man who wanted to marry her. Only then would the two warring sides, her family and that of her abductor, begin negotiations. When these were completed to everyone’s satisfaction she was usually ransomed, married, and peace would be restored. In the folk tradition the memory of these real events of the dis tant past remained only as a colorful ritual. As a girl was growing up she was expected to pre pare her wedding trousseau which consisted of, among other things, embroidered ritual cloths and shirts. The number of objects or lack of them in a young woman’s wedding chest testified to her wealth or poverty, to her industriousness or laziness. Some girls had up to 30 embroidered shirts in their trousseau, a number which sufficiently lasted them all their lives. An important assignment of each young bride was to embroider a shirt for her intended. The wealth of embroidery on the shirt testified to the extent of the girl’s love for the young man. Engagement The engagement was like a little wedding which brought together the young couple, their parents, brides maids and grooms. Here the ceremony of wooing was repeated again. The rituals in this event served as a rehearsal for the actual wedding. The house was deco rated with bunches of rye stalks, placed in the corners. The parents blessed the young couple with bread or bunches of rye stalks. Today, the bride and groom are blessed with an icon. Holding on to the ends of a ceremonial scarf or a ritual cloth which was in the hands of a “starosta”, the young couple were led to the “posad,” seat of honor, under the icons. When everyone was seated, the cele bration began. There was food and drink, gifts were exchanged and there was dancing. All along songs were sung which explained the action in the premarriage drama. Many songs described the future fate of the bride-to-be. In the wedding songs of the early Christian era the meeting of the young man and woman is attributed to the intervention of God. In older, archaic songs the couple is compared to the moon and a star. A very important part of the engagement ceremony is the inspection of the wealth of each of the young people. Much haggling goes on back and forth as to who gets what once they are married. Preparation to the Wedding Of paramount importance in the preparatory stage of the wedding ritual was the baking of the korovai, the О. Кульчицька. Плетуть гірлянди. 1940. Weaving of the garlands. O. Kulchytska. 1940. wedding bread, as well as all the other appropriate breads for this occasion. At this time the wedding wreaths were made and personal invitations to the wed ding were delivered. A wedding could not take place without a korovai. In ancient times this bread was probably offered as a sacrifice to the pagan gods, as well as given to everyone present at the event as a communion in participation in the wedding feast. The mother of the bride invited other women of the village (must be an uneven number) to come and help with the baking. The participants in this ritual had to be happily married women. All others, such as widows, gossips, unhappy women, etc., were not invited since it was believed that their state may cause a badly baked wedding bread, thus foretelling an unhappy life for the bridal couple. Each woman who took part in the baking had to bring some ingredient necessary for the korovai such as milk, butter, eggs, etc., from her home. When these women were all together, they asked the “starosta” to bless them for the job ahead, washed their hands and donned periwinkle wreaths on their heads. The starosta “НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ЧЕРВЕНЬ 1992 19
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