Marriage Custom

Long time ago when our people still practicing pagan's religion and by that i'm saying about our ancestors, we have our own marriage custom.

Some still practice it up till now even though they are Christians. Recently, I witnessed it myself during my aunt's and my cousin's wedding. The wedding ceremony was held at Kg.Patau, Tambunan.

First let me explain you briefly about the custom through what I seen during my aunt's wedding ceremony.

Things that are required for this ritual are known as "kirai"(hand made tobacco), "sireh" and "pinang".

There would be a chanting prayer ceremony on the groom and bride. I found it's weird and I cant understand any of the chants but the language used was very old one. Both are required eat the sireh and pinang also take one shot of smoke from "kirai". After that the ceremony done. It was very simple, and maybe they just done small part from the actual ritual. The actual one could take long but since we are now in modern society they were really not bound to it.

Next one was during my cousin's wedding.

This kinda like a "hide and seek game" but  it is a custom where this must be held at the bride's house. Empty rooms are required and the bride will be at any one of the room. The groom has to guess where is the bride in any rooms and he will be escorted by the others(the bride and groom's family).

During my cousin's, 8 rooms were used (those rooms are bedroom). So one person will be placed on each rooms and I was placed together with the bride in my aunt's room. My another cousins was placed at the other rooms.

Before the "hide and seek game" starts, the groom are required to answer a random riddle in poem form (the riddle was in dusun's language) and the groom managed to answer it. Wheew, he's good! (He is a teacher anyway and so my cousin is).

After that the groom was brought around the house to let him guess which room the bride would be. We heard footsteps towards our room. Dang, once again! He's good. He guess so fast. By the way, if he pick the wrong room then the punishment would be to drink a glass of "tapai" (rice wine).

But my cousin didnt let him to guess that fast, she hides at the back of the door and when the groom opens up the door, he was like "Opsss...!! I guess this is the wrong room...!!" and I told him to search at other room. However, he sensed something. He knows my cousin was behind the door and pull her out, "Ahhh!! There you are!!"... Everyone was like, "Aww...that was so fast..."......

Then, after that there is another "hide and seek game" but this time the thing that they hide is the bride's left side heel. I remember my aunt decorated the heel and it really looks like a bunch of flowers in a pot. She hid it on a vase. The groom even couldn't recognize it. He thought it was flowers but they give him clue and finally he made it.

It is an old tradition and I dont know if other regions in Sabah also practicing this custom. I would like to hear from others.