A Traditional Navajo Wedding Ceremony 7-18-2009

This was a wonderful experience. We were invited to attend the ceremony. The couple had been married for a few years...........but the family wanted to perform a traditional ceremony for them. The parents are members of our ward - Laverne & Darryl Bennett and the grandmother is also (she is custodian for the church). Her name is Annie Parker - the wedding took place out on her land - she has a pretty spread in a pretty setting............. The groom rode from the highway down into her property on a horse (belonging to Bishop Willie) with an escort.....in his full marine uniform. It was neat..............

The grandfather on the father's side is a medicine man and he performed the ceremony. The groom went into the shade house (built by all the nieces and nephews and bride's father) they cut the logs, stripped them, and built it in the shape of a traditional hogan, except that it was open.....then the day before the wedding they cut oak and covered it with those limbs so it provided shade...........

The bride was in a traditional rug dress (it was beautiful) and she came into the shade house after the groom - they had rugs prepared for them to sit upon. There was a small fire in the middle of the hogan shade house. After people were seated the medicine man knelt in front of the couple and did a song - his wife also sang along with him. Then the mother of the bride carried the "wedding basket"..........they have prepared corn meal mush which the bride and groom take from after the blessing by the medicine man..........The shade house is open on the East because they feel that that is where diety live.......so they open that their spirit can come in. The corn meal is put into the basket and taken by small handfuls (first from the east, then the west, north and south and finally from the center)........the bride fed the groom and he fed the bride.............East of the positions represented a quality - wisdom, spirituality, etc. until the middle portion represented unity............After the bride and groom had taken they asked all couple who wanted to renew their covenants to come forward and they knelt in front of the bride and groom and they prepared it for them to take...........many people did this.........After they had a man - John Yazzie who explained the ceremony to all of us who were not participating. He was excellent. Everyone was so kind to us...........Then they had our Bishop Willie come in and help them exchange rings and we all sang "I Am A Child of God".............we were surprised at how many sang and knew it...........