08 janvier 2008

Peranakan wedding baskets. Again!

Je suis follement heureuse que mes billets sur la culture Peranakan aient pu m'amener de nouveaux amis de Malaisie et de Singapour.
I am so glad that my posts about the Babas and Nonyas bring me so many new friends who knows a lot about the Peranakan customs, and even have experienced it.

I haven't say yet that this fabulous, rich, beautiful culture has passed away, fading into time, the Babas and Nonyas were confined to three places, Singapore, Melaca and Penang, they were not a lot of them. These people had always been very open to the rest of the world, it was their loss too, because they mixed, and married stranger and foreigners to their clan and slowly mixed to their country fellow and to the rest of the world (for example: my two children).
But a few descendant are still there, trying to revive their own grand parents civilisation.
Alice wrote this to my comments yesterday, thank you so much Alice.

alicesg a dit...
Hi, the baskets come in two or three tiers too and some are big and used in Chinese Weddings too. I remembered my grandmother put some oranges, dried longan, red dates, and other gifts during my uncle's wedding long time ago. A rooster and hen will be placed on the top tier of the basket accompanied with a pair of coconuts and sugar cane. The rooster and hen are meant to lead the way and the return gift of a rooster and hen from the bride's family will be put under the bridal bed back at the groom’s home. It was believed that the firstborn will be male if the rooster came out first. Nowadays some dont used the rooster and hens anymore. They used red packets (ang pows) to represent it.

Je n'avais pas encore dit que la Culture Perankan s'était doucement dissoute au 20éme siècle, elle s'était developpée à Singapour, à Malacca, et sur le territoire de Penang, ils étaient peu nombreux et leur ouverture d'esprit a été leur perte aussi, ils ont continué à se meler au reste de la population, locale, et extèrieur, (Julien et Hélène par exemple).

Il n'y a plus aujourd'hui de véritable Babbas et Nonyas, mais leur culture est une riche part de l'histoire de la Malaisie, et leurs descendants essaient de la garder vivante.

Alice, de Singapour me dit qu'elle se souvient parfaietement que sa grand mère disposait des oranges dans un des plateau du panier, des longan sechés, des dattes rouges, lors du mariage d'un de ses oncles il y a longtemps déjà.

Sur le dessus du panier on mettait une poule et un coq avec aussi de la noix de coco et de la canne à sucre (très important le symbole de la canne à sucre) c'était un cadeau de la famille de la mariée et on le mettait dessous le lit dans la maison du marié.

La croyance disait que les jeunes époux aurait un garçon en premier si le coq sortait en premier de dessous le lit!

Alice dit encore, qui le croirait? qu'aujourd'hui on n'utilise plus la poule et le coq pour connaître le sexe du premier enfant.

En tout cas, on a pas fait ça pour le mariage de mes enfants.
Et Nyonya Pearl m'a écrit aussi, je remarque qu'elle écrit Nyonya, avec 2 Y, et moi j'ecris, Nonya, je crois que les deux orthographes sont bonnes.

I am glad you love our Nyonya stuff. It is a dying breed and only very few nyonyas stuff are appreciated by us Malaysian locals. No doubt, you can know more about us and our food from my web site. I love my nyonya heritage.pearl

6 commentaires:

none a dit…

Fascinating. I especially liked the part about the rooster and hen under the wedding bed.

I guess we learn something every day.

tweetey30 a dit…

That is ineresting history lesson. You know those are things i think that should be part of fun history for kids in school. Plus the serious stuff too.

Parisbreakfasts a dit…

These ARE amazing!
I'm not sure I've ever seen them before.
Thank you so much for the dear comment you left on PB Kitem!

Kind regards,

Carolg

Anonyme a dit…

You are right. My Grandma is a Baba, however my Grand dad is not. But actually babas are mixtures of Chinese and Malays (That was what I understood). So I think maybe it is their culture to mixed around. I guess. :)

This article reminds me of my grandma. She gave me one of this basket with lot of things in it before she left this world. :) They are beautiful.

Alexander
Alex's World! - http://www.kakinan.com/alex

alicesg a dit…

I am glad of help with the information,Jan. Your blog is wonderful and am glad to find your blog. My late mom still had one of the basket on the left of your photo, it is with my brother. I hope it is still in good condition, so will try to look for it. Mom (not nonya) had a photo wearing those nonya dress and had a very beautiful belt tied round the sarong but alas that belt was to be inherited by son not daughters. I love the design of the belt (I will try to get brother to take a photo of it).

Mélanie a dit…

J'adore ces paniers de mariage ...fabuleurx post pour nous faire partager cette cukture . Merci, Kitem