THE POLYNESIAN WEDDING: THE LEGEND SAYS…

Once upon a time, there was the wonderful princess Hotuhiva. She was a happy-go-lucky young girl growing up on her native island where she spent her time playing with a peer, Teaonuimaruia. However, a sad day, she had to leave her village to follow her father to Raiatea Island where he would become king.
Even surrounded by luxury and richness, Hotuhiva wasted away. All most capable healers on the island were called in vain, because the young girl seemed to be untreatable.
The cause of her pain was lovesickness: she left her heart with Teaonuimaruia on the island where she spent her childhood. The king, her father, had just to put her daughter on a boat hoping that the most favorable winds could carry her to the island where her beloved was.
But when she reached her birthplace, she was kidnapped by the warriors of a local chief who became infatuated with the wonderful stranger. However, when he soon realized that there was no place for him in her heart, he was so irritated that he forced her to spend every night with a different man. When Teaonuimaruia recognized that the wonderful young girl was the little girl he was used to play with when he was young, he killed the evil chief and married Hotuhiva.   

POLYNESIAN WEDDING: AN OLD TRADITION

White was a must for the wedding dress also in the Polynesian tradition. Precious textures decorating wedding pareos were spun by expert hands and were enriched by interlaced fern leaves. The bright multi-colored headdresses, rigid structures on which colored feathers were inserted, contrasted the whiteness of the dresses. The bouquets were provided by Mother Nature that, on these islands, has always offered flowers of different varieties, beauties and scents.
Nothing is more important than love, and Polynesian inhabitants, whose open and kind manners along with the joy that always characterized all customs and social relationships astonished even the cool Capitan Cook, know that very well. And, above all, the most important tie, i.e.  the marriage.
Wedding was considered as a real collective feast day that could last even a week. Days were marked by rituals and the arrangements for the wedding banquet started many months before. On the occasion of her visit to the future bridegroom, the bride brought her gifts with her. On the wedding eve, the couple entertained guests surrounded by all presents witnessing the fertility and wealth that this marriage would have brought them.
Contrary to the western habits, the banquet was paid by the bridegroom’s family.
Music and dancing accompanied, or followed, the most intense moments of the ceremony, such as the propitiatory rites formulated by the religious officer and by the bride and bridegroom’s parents, or the rich banquet hosting guests after the marriage. Curiously, on the wedding eve, a sort of “stag party” took place. In fact, on this occasion, friends and relatives threw together a real party enlivened by dancing and songs in order to celebrate the new life of their nearest and dearest.

© Tim Mc Kenna

© Tim Mc Kenna

Header image:
© Wimproductions
Body image:
© Dolphin Center

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