In December 1686, the French Huguenot, Durand de Dauphiné, observed
an Algonquian wedding ceremony at the Rappahannock River village of
Portobacco. With the village assembled, “the young man, after
choosing her he wishes for his wife, gives her a hind [female deer]
or hart [male] foot, while she offers him an ear of Indian corn,
signifying that the husband will provide the house with meat & the
wife with corn.” See Durand de Dauphiné, _A Huguenot Exile in
Virginia, or Voyages of a Frenchman exiled for his Religion with a
description of Virginia & Maryland_, trans. Gilbert Chinard, from the
Hague edition of 1687 (New York: Press of the Pioneers, 1934), p.
153. The exchange of a deer’s foot for the corn’s ear was a simple
ceremony that symbolized the ancient responsibility and proper
relationships between men and women. Both were necessary to ensure
the peoples’ survival.
Structurally, the Algonquian ceremony was not too different from what
Pat and others have described for Europeans.
Best,
Ed Ragan
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