A Marshallese Wedding and Stick Dance
A Marshallese Wedding and Stick Dance
Originally published in the Spring of 2004
Last week some of my Marshallese friends dropped by my apartment to talk story and happened to mention that the residents of Roi-Namur had been invited to a wedding on Enniburr (3rd Island, Santos). The bride to be was the daughter of my friend Larry who had passed away about a month ago (Larry not the bride). Larry was a friend to everyone he met here. I had not been to a wedding here yet and wished to honor Larry’s memory so I decided to make the trip over. … To get to third Island one usually takes the LCM. This particular LCM is fitted with a large water tank that we use to haul water to third Island. There are no public utilities on Enniburr. Roughly half the people there have a generator for electricity. There are no phone lines but I think some folks have cell phones. Water is either brought over from Roi via the aforementioned LCM or else some is caught from the rain and stored in large storage tanks similar to how it done on Ailinglaplap. I do not believe there is any trash pickup and no sewage system. The homes are usually constructed from plywood. My friend Bedi graciously allowed me to stay in his home for the night as the wedding was to last past the last LCM run at 8:15.
I was told the wedding would start at 6:30 so I arrived on the 5 o’clock boat. I hung out at Bedi’s house for a while then told them I was going to the wedding at about 6:30. I found it curious that no one else in the family seemed inclined to go but off I went. Larry had been a Roman Catholic and the wedding was to be held in their church. There are 4 congregations that I know about on the island. Traditionally Marshallese are either Roman Catholic or “Protestant” with the larger percentage falling in the Protestant church. But when they say Protestant they mean what we call Congregational. I believe that some of the first missionaries had been Congregationalist and it pretty well stuck as the main church here. Another of the early settler’s here was a Portuguese man named DeBrum and I suspect his family and others of his crew were largely responsible for the growth of the Roman Catholic Church. On Enniburr the Protestant church dominates the skyline if you care to call it a sky-line (that is a bit generous). It is a white building with a tall steeple. The second largest congregation on the island and perhaps the fastest growing is the Assembly of God church. My friend, Pastor Antonio is the pastor for this church. It is pretty new and is located on the far corner of the island and is pretty much open to the outside as I remember. It is quite modern and fairly nicely appointed considering the rest of the island. The fourth church I think is a fairly new Charismatic church. I do not know where they meet. The Roman Catholic Church looks like a large house that is fairly long. It is open on one end as it is not large enough for very many people to attend. I would say the main room is about 20 by 30 feet. They do not have their own priest, only a layman prayer leader but a priest came up from Ebeye for this occasion.
So I arrived punctually at 6:30. I’ve lived in these islands for 2 years and I still haven’t caught on to island time. There were no signs of a wedding starting. I sat down with some people who were hanging around in the area outside the church. My other friend’s daughter Daisy came along with me to keep me entertained. Daisy is 3 years old and has adopted me. She is extremely cute, perhaps the most adorable non-relative 3 year old I have ever met. We didn’t have anything to do so we played a game that Daisy created. I’ll try to explain it to you and hope you do not lose yourself in the details. Here is how it is played; Daisy would toss a marble onto the ground in front of me (a little out of reach so I would have to lean forward to get it). Then she would shout “waajaa” (something like that which is Marshallese for gimme). Then I would pick it up and toss it back to her and we would repeat this cycle. Were you able to understand all of that? It is a bit complicated. We played that without interruption for about an hour while I waited for the wedding to start. I guess you could say I was hard up for entertainment. Around 7:30 some more people started to show up. There were some seats set up outside the church building for the overflow. There was only enough room in the church for the immediate family. A seat was brought for me to sit in. I tried to offer my seat to some ladies who were standing but it was made clear to me that I was required to sit. I was the only haole there so I received special honors. The people of these islands are extremely gracious and hospitable. If you ever go to one of their events they go out of their way to make you feel welcome.
I struck up a conversation with Larry’s brother who lives on Ebeye and had come up for the wedding. He was a very nice guy and took pains to spend a lot of time talking to me even though I felt he probably had things he needed to do for the wedding. Eventually around 8 o’clock or so the wedding finally got started. The bride did not wear a white dress, as is our tradition but instead wore a flowered muumuu. This is very typical here and is not because they have a hard time finding a virgin. The groom wore a matching flowered aloha shirt. The bride’s maids and grooms men were similarly clad and had leis made of flowers and leaves I think. I missed some of the ceremony because part of the building was obstructing my view (I was sitting outside). Larry must have put in a good word with the Man Upstairs because the weather was absolutely perfect that night. The service was in Marshallese so I did not understand very much of it. Just occasionally I would hear the word Christ or family or some other word I understood. The priest was from Fiji. I watched him shaking his finger at the congregation and figured he was exhorting us to be faithful to our spouses or else to bring up our families in a Christian manner. Occasionally he would pound the outside of his hand against his extended palm. As I mentioned, I could not understand the sermon so I could only profit from the hand gestures. Instead of kissing the bride or giving her a ring the groom put a lei over her neck and she did the same for him. I felt very touched because I could see Terry (the bride) wiping her eyes. They both looked very happy. After presenting their gifts to each other they appeared to go over to different family members and present them with a gift as well. I had a hard time seeing some of this. There were some songs sung in Marshallese. I did not recognize these songs but I am a protestant myself. Eventually the ceremony was over and they got to work on the dinner. A band had come up from Ebeye for the occasion. This wedding was a much bigger deal than most weddings here. It is very typical just to have a small civil ceremony. The dinner resembled a church wedding in the states with a number of the local ladies pitching in to serve the food. A long line was formed for the people to pick up their food. I sat in my seat and some lady put a cloth around my neck of muumuu material. I was concerned that this was some sort of you’re getting married next rite similar to our tradition of throwing out the bouquet or worse yet a proposal (I didn’t really think that because I’d never met this lady and she looked like she was already married). The next day I asked some of my Marshallese friends the significance and they described it as a gesture of welcome and was the same as giving a lei. I was hungry but was worried that the food had not been properly refrigerated so I was going to pass on the meal. No such luck, someone brought out a plate to me with a number of food items on it. Actually everyone was served in a Styrofoam container. On my plate was baked chicken, spam, a rice ball, some kind of potato concoction, and some other food I was not able to identify. This last item was brown and roughly the consistency of rice mixed with applesauce. It had a slightly fruity taste and was ok if eaten in small portions but if I didn’t alternate it with other items I would grow quickly weary of it. They did not give me any eating utensils. Using the fingers is accepted etiquette here. So I was eating the chicken and getting greasy fingers when the bride walked up to me with something white in her hand. It was dark so I did not identify it right away but falsely assumed that it was a napkin. I started to wipe my hands on it when I noticed it was actually a beautiful hand made pillowcase. It was a very typical Glenn mistake. I was quite embarrassed but my one hope was that she did not notice me doing it. I wasn’t real obvious. She gave it to me as a sign of gratitude for coming and for the small present I gave the couple. I tried to put it on a pillow today but my pillow was too big. My fingers didn’t seem to leave a spot on it. The good news is that over a week has gone by and I have not come down with any food born illness.
I also considered introducing the American tradition of kissing the bride but the people here are very conservative and might not appreciate an innovation in their customs. They might not understand the innocence of it. So I made it through the night without any further guffaws.
I was down on Kwajalein on Saturday for band practice but for some unimaginable reason our singer said he couldn’t practice because he hurt his knee. I never noticed needing to use your knee when singing but then again, I’m not the best singer in the world. But a Marshallese friend of mine named Barney invited me to go down to Enon beach to watch a traditional stick and drum dance that was to be performed. It was suppose to start at 5:30 and I made to leave to go but Barney told me it would not start yet (when will I learn). Sure enough we got there around 6 and music from one of the local Marshallese night clubs on Ebeye was being performed but it was several hours later before the dancers did their thing. The dance troupe was composed of a bunch of lean young men clad in grass skirts with a necklace of either shells or grass and a wreath on their heads. They were accompanied by a couple of people playing traditional drums and two young ladies singing and a gentleman singing too. One drum was about 4 or 5 feet long and roughly hourglass shaped. It was held in the middle and beat on one side. The other drum was similar to a bass drum but made of local materials. The ladies are fond of singing in a minor key as I have mentioned before and have high- pitched voices. The male dancers cavorted around banging sticks against each other. The sticks were about a meter long and had grass or something affixed to each end. It was more impressive than I described. The steps were very intriquete. They asked that there would be no flash photography so that the dancers would not be distracted and accidentally stab each other. The whole dance tells a story but if you were a haole you would never guess the story unless someone told you first. My friend Barney explained the story to me before hand but in his broken English I had some difficulty following it. I gathered it had something to do with someone coming from the underworld up a well. He slept for 3 months. The dude was lakatu (handsome) so the kari (women) there had the hots for him. But the other dudes were jealous and so they stabbed him with the sticks. He had a number of hand gestures that he made to show me what was happening. His grandfather told him the story he said. Before the performance a haole guy got up and explained the story to the audience and it was roughly as Barney told me. Someone came up from the underworld and was very handsome and the ladies were attracted to him. For some reason he slept for a long time, I’m not sure of the significance of that but both guys told me that. The men became jealous and murdered him with the sticks. The dance tells the story.
I should also mention that as the night wore on my friend consumed a large quantity of beer. I do not enjoy being around drunken Marshallese men as a general rule. Well, I hate to generalize about any nationality but I have observed that Marshallese men are more openly affectionate than American men. When they shake hands with you they do not let go right away like I want them to. The drunker they are, the longer they hold your hand. I am uncomfortable with this. On this particular night as it got later Barney had his arm around me and was telling me his marital problems and asking me to help intervene because his wife respects me. He was telling me these problems in close proximity to my ear. When you are the sober one and another dude is drunk it just isn’t the most pleasant experience. But now that it is another day and I’m by myself writing to you I can laugh about it. I would have agreed to anything to get him to move away from me some.
But the performance was quite good. They are attempting to raise money to travel to
One Response to “A Marshallese Wedding and Stick Dance”
 Comment by Richard Jones July 30th, 2007 at 1:47 pm |
This has to be one of my facorite stories so far!!! The best part is, knowing you, I can absolutely visualize you telling this story. BTW, somehow the formatting got a little bit messed up on this one, paragraph breaks in odd places etc. |