June – the month of weddings (and the month of brides) – is here bringing to mind the life changing marriage of pen to paper.
The world of literature is replete with various types of marriages and coloured in with stories of challenges and a mixture of beauty and lamentation.
The literature of Guyana has its own share of stories of weddings and marriages, some strange, others edifying. For instance, when you becomes Of Marriageable Age (by Sharon Maas), there may be The Marriage Match (by Jan Lowe Shinebourne) leading to a Barriat (by Wordsworth McAndrew) and The Wedding ( from ‘The Ventriloquist’s Tale’ by Pauline Melville) and hopefully you may be saved from becoming The Shadow Bride (by Roy Heath).
But long before the long talk amounting to long pages and long books, there were the words of wisdom packages effectively in proverbs selected from The Proverbs of Guyana Explained by Joyce Trotman and A Plate-a Guyana Cook-up by Allan Fenty.
Not all man a-courting, a marrid.
De mout man tek foh courting ooman foh put am a-he house, nah de same mout e tek foh put am a-doo
Handsome face gaal, not de besses kin-a gaal
Man gat two houses, he sleep hungry
Good ooman tek caiman teet mek suga cake
Marrid nah gat baakdoo
Wen man of 60 marries girl of 25, is like buying book foh odda people read
Talking about book and reading, let’s go back to the above mentioned selections that would serve as our wedding reading list for the month of June.
Of Marriageable Age by Sharon Maas.
This is a huge book with its canvas spanning three continents – Guyana, South America; London, Europe; and India – covering five decades with the story of three lives affected by traditions like arranged marriage, and other challenges like class constraints, oppression, rebellion and liberation (sexual liberation).
The Marriage Match by Jan Lowe Shinebourne
This is a story about an arranged marriage between two Chinese families, one of the Punti group who came voluntarily to Guyana and the other of the Hakka group who were mostly indentured to Guyana. One of the families was more creolized than the other adding a bit of scepticism to the affair which was overcome by the children (with modern ideas) involved in the marriage match.
Barriat, Wordsworth McAndrew
In Barriat, Wordsworth McAndrew inadvertently gives a glimpse of an Indian wedding ceremony as only ‘the observer from a different race’ instead of describing a baryaat/barrat meaning the groom’s wedding procession going to the bride’s location for the wedding ceremony.
The Shadow Bride by Roy Heath
The Shadow Bride by Roy Heath, set in the late 1920s British Guiana, is a big book in many regards that tackles issues of displacement and adjustment, identity, liberation and independence, among others. This novel is centred around Betta Singh, a medical doctor returning home to a mother who came to Guyana from India and found the situation fertile to assert her influence thus dominating and attempting to dominate everyone thereby stealing the show, so to speak. Literary critic, Ameena Gafoor describes the book as ‘a classic document of psychic devastation and tragic psychological disintegration of an Indian woman shipwrecked on an alien shore’.
‘The Ventriloquist’s Tale’ by Pauline Melville
The Wedding ( from ‘The Ventriloquist’s Tale’ by Pauline Melville) may be labelled a shadow wedding for the wedding of Danny and Sylvana is overshadowed by the incestuous marriage of Danny and his sister, Beatrice, which occurred during the 1919 solar eclipse.
Of course this list is not comprehensive; it is like something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue – part of the bride’s retinue. This is a whetting of the appetite, inviting you to add to the conversation.
Responses to this author telephone (592) 226-0065 or email: oraltradition2002@yahoo.com
