Native American Weddings

After a Navojo Wedding

Like in most cultures, Navojo Indians have a certain traditions that they keep to after a wedding, but some of them are very unique compared to western customs. After the wedding, the bride and groom are separated to be prepared for a feast. During the feast, the couple is at a table where only they sit at the front of the room. The bride sits at the right hand of the groom. This represents that he is virtually useless without her. Though he is useless without her, he is still the head of the household and of higher rank, so his seat is more elevated than hers. After the feast, there is no honeymoon. Honey moons are considered to be frivolous and are looked down upon by tribe elders. The couple immediately moves in to a home built or purchased by the bride’s parents. The house is considered to be a sort of dowry. The newlyweds are expected to do some forms of community service are give charity. Among the most popular are preparing meals for the sick and elderly, giving clothing to the needy and giving gifts to friends and family. The couple does this as a way to present themselves to the community. Gifts would come to the couple up to two years after the event of the wedding. Gifts of food, children’s clothing, jewelry, tools, and weapons are most common. The Navojo Indians have many unique customs that are still, even after hundreds of years, being closely followed and loved.


Planning a Native Indian Wedding

Native American Weddings may take a long time to plan, but there are several steps that make the process so much easier. Most couples choose to be married at their villages’ most spiritual place. This would be like a Christian getting married in a Church or a Jew getting married in a Synagogue. In a Native Indian wedding, the tribe’s high priest would marry the couple. He would have to recite a prayer to the “Great Spirit” to bless the couple. The couple must choose the prayer they want to be recited at the ceremony. Prayer themes include happiness, love, and fertility. The priest will announce the wedding at a village assembly. In most cases, there are no invitations. The whole village is present when the Priest announces the wedding so therefore everyone is expected to attend the event. A season before the wedding, the bride must go to the groom’s female relatives and ask for their help to make her wedding robes. The groom will hunt for hide to make her dress and for hide to make his pants and moccasins. The bride must go to the priest and ask for three blankets to be prepared. Two small blue ones and one large white ones. The blue ones represent the sorrows, pain, and mistakes that the couple made before they were joined as one. The white one represents the purity, happiness, and sanctity of marriage. There are many steps in planning an Indian wedding, but the end result is worth the weight and means a lot to the bride and groom and to the community.

Hopi Wedding Traditions

A Hopi wedding is very different from other Native American events. The Hopi tribe has unique traditions that are different even to other Native cultures. If a Hopi boy wants a girl to become his bride, he makes her a fine pair of moccasins. He hand makes them and hand beads them. He leaves them on her doorstep and waits for the girl to come out. If she accepts the moccasins, she also accepts him. If she accepts him, she must go to the groom’s uncles and ask them to weave her wedding robes for her. In the Hopi tribe, men are the weavers. Only blood family members are allowed to attend the wedding ceremony, but the whole village is encouraged to attend the following feast. A Hopi wedding takes so long to plan, the couple may already have several children by the time the wedding takes place. The children are highly involved and even have a roll in presenting the bride with her wedding bracelet-a beaded strip of yucca root that represents the union to her husband, which is tied to her wrist and may not be taken off as long as the two are married. This is not taken lightly, considering how serious a Hopi wedding is. A Hopi wedding is such a serious event that the bride may not even smile during the ceremony. It is considered disrespectful to the groom’s family. Hopi wedding are very serious, there is no tribe that has such a greater need for family and love, making a Hopi wedding an event that is one in a million.

The Wedding and Marraige of Pocahontas

Pocahontas was the favored daughter of a great Powhatan Chief. They lived in what is now Virginia, near James Town. She met a man named John Rolfe who fell in love with her. He wrote to the Governor of Jamestown permission to wed her. He wrote of his beliefs that the wedding would save her soul and he was not requesting to marry a heathen to “satisfy savagely carnal desire”. He was granted permission as long as she was baptized into the Church of England. They traveled to England to be married. Pocahontas was christened as Rebecca Rolfe. She was married on April 5, 1614. She was nineteen years old when she married. This was considered old for a beautiful Native American princess. On her wedding day she wore an English dress of fine muslin, a long veil, a Native American robe, and a necklace of fresh water pearls that were a gift from her father, Chief Powhatan. . Her uncle and her two brothers traveled to England to attend the wedding, but her father refused to go. But he didn’t want his beloved daughter to think he didn’t love her for leaving the clan, so he gave the couple land north of Jamestown. They moved back to America and built a house on the land. They also started a tobacco plantation. It was named Varina Plantation for the sort of Spanish tobacco Rolfe grew. They had one son, Thomas Rolfe, born on January 30, 1615. Pocahontas “Rebecca” Rolfe died March 21, 1617 at the age of twenty two.


Coming of Age

Coming of age is very important to Native cultures and in most cases is taken more seriously than a wedding. Coming of age is when a boy or girl may begin to court. Unlike in most cultures, Native American coming of age is not a predetermined year. A girl may begin courting after she has begun menstruating. A boy may begin courting when his father deems him mature enough to join on a tribal hunt. A girl’s coming of age is taken way more seriously than boys. Feasts may be held up to a month after she begins to menstruate. Clans make it particularly easy for teens to begin courtships. Dances and parties are often held for teen to meet, flirt, and begin courting. Girls were encouraged to marry early in order to have as much time as possible with her husband to have many children. Though girls were encouraged to marry early, they were never married against their will. Sometimes, girls were also encouraged to stay virgins until their wedding night. If they did not, they were at least encouraged to maintain an innocent appearance so that tribe elders would not look down upon them. In other cases, love affairs were openly embraced. They may or may not be followed in marriage. In most cultures, the wedding is most focused on, but the Native Americans believe what leads up to the wedding is just as important.