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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