Indigenous and traditional wedding traditions: rites and customs

Indigenous and traditional weddings belong to specific peoples and places, and no single description holds. They often join two families and two lineages, involve the community, and may include gifts, song, dance and a blessing from elders or ancestors. Each page is specific to a people, and care is taken to write what that people has chosen to share.

Families and community

Among the Maasai, the Zulu, the Yoruba and the Igbo, the wedding is a negotiation and a celebration between two families, with gifts, songs and a long meal. The Zulu umembeso is a ceremony of gifts to the bride's family, and Igbo couples perform the wine-carrying, igba nkwu, in which the bride finds her husband in the crowd with a cup of palm wine. The Yoruba ceremony includes the introduction, the engagement and the traditional wedding, with matching aso ebi cloth.

Other continents

In many Native American nations, ceremonies may include a blanket, a pipe, a basket or a corn ceremony. Among the Navajo, a wedding basket of cornmeal mush is shared. In Aboriginal Australian communities, practices differ by nation. Among the Maori, the Pacific and the Sami, custom is shaped by whakapapa, kin and place, and the Sami may wear gákti and silver brooches. In Papua New Guinea, bride price in the form of pigs and shell is exchanged.

Respect and law

Some customary marriages are recognised in law, as in South Africa under the Recognition of Customary Marriages Act, and others are not. Many communities now hold both a customary and a civil wedding. Some practices, such as forced or child marriage, are illegal and are being challenged by the communities themselves.

About this page

Written by the EveryShaadi desk with AI assistance. Background on Indigenous and traditional (faith). Customs differ from place to place and family to family. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

Betashar: Steve Evans, CC BY 2.0, source

Baci: Dalbera, CC BY 2.0, source

Ukusina: Vulane Mthembu, CC BY-SA 4.0, source

Bread and salt: Olli Niemitalo, CC0, source

Gele: Royalesignature, CC BY-SA 4.0, source

Rushnyk: Pavlo Boyko, CC BY-SA 2.0, source

Alpana: Tripan123, CC BY-SA 4.0, source

Navajo wedding ceremony: Neeta Lind, CC BY 2.0, source

Mantilla: Museu Valencià d'Etnologia, CC BY-SA 2.0, source

Marriage coin charm: Scott Semans, CC BY 3.0, source

Slametan: Unknown author, CC BY-SA 3.0, source

Kenduri: Andreasprasetya, CC BY-SA 4.0, source