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Wedding preparations
Anyone who knows Sudan will be familiar with the sensory overload that is a Sudanese wedding. The senses are bombarded with colours, smells, tastes, sounds and textures in whichever part of the country you happen to be attending this occasion.
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Anyone who knows Sudan will be familiar with the sensory overload that is a Sudanese wedding. The senses are bombarded with colours, smells, tastes, sounds and textures in whichever part of the country you happen to be attending this occasion. It is an organised cacophony the rumbles of which begin rolling weeks before the day itself, rising to a crescendo on the days of the wedding, jirtig and subhiyya. As the excitement fades out gradually over the following days, the slow meticulous post-mortem is performed by the close relatives who have stayed behind, lounging on their angarebs sipping coffee; how well was the wedding organised (or not), who came (or didn’t), and what they were wearing and most importantly, was everyone who came, fed?
While this rollercoaster wave of emotions brought on by this event is an enduring feature of Sudanese weddings, some of the traditions associated with the ceremony have died out or changed over time.
One such change has been what Sudan’s riverain bride, the arous, wears during the subhiyya, the traditional Sudanese ceremony when she dances the sensual ragis al arus. A bare-chested bride, dressed only in a rahat skirt of leather strips attached to a waistband, performing in front of male and female neighbours and relatives was the norm in the early 1900s. Then, the bride was put on display to show that she was unblemished and had firm breasts. By mid-century, the rahat gradually disappeared to be worn under a short dress that covered the arous’ breasts. With the State dictating what women wore from 1983 onwards, and the imposition of Islamic dress codes, the mingling of sexes at weddings was deemed unacceptable and dances were attended only by women folk and the rahat was eventually entirely dropped from the arous’ outfit. More recently, further daring and creative dancing outfits, showing off more of the arous have been making a comeback. This latest version of ragis al arus is strictly guarded by policewomen who confiscate the mobile phones of the female audience to preserve the bride’s modesty and stop the filming and broadcast of her scantily dressed body.
The leather rahat of olden days has gone and the degree to which an arous’ body is on display as she dances, has been changing, influenced by varying fashion trends or as a result of social, political and economic forces. But in the event of a total rupture to everyday life as a result for example, of the current war, how will this most vibrant of Sudanese living heritage be affected? Will the subhiyyah and ragis arous continue to be performed or will they be substituted by another form of cultural expression? And will displaced communities have the knowledge and collective memory to pass down these traditions? These are some of the questions that will only be answered with time. In the meantime, it is up to us to talk about, write and document how we celebrate weddings and to keep remembering all the smells, sounds, colours and tastes of the subhiyya and ragis al arous.
Anyone who knows Sudan will be familiar with the sensory overload that is a Sudanese wedding. The senses are bombarded with colours, smells, tastes, sounds and textures in whichever part of the country you happen to be attending this occasion. It is an organised cacophony the rumbles of which begin rolling weeks before the day itself, rising to a crescendo on the days of the wedding, jirtig and subhiyya. As the excitement fades out gradually over the following days, the slow meticulous post-mortem is performed by the close relatives who have stayed behind, lounging on their angarebs sipping coffee; how well was the wedding organised (or not), who came (or didn’t), and what they were wearing and most importantly, was everyone who came, fed?
While this rollercoaster wave of emotions brought on by this event is an enduring feature of Sudanese weddings, some of the traditions associated with the ceremony have died out or changed over time.
One such change has been what Sudan’s riverain bride, the arous, wears during the subhiyya, the traditional Sudanese ceremony when she dances the sensual ragis al arus. A bare-chested bride, dressed only in a rahat skirt of leather strips attached to a waistband, performing in front of male and female neighbours and relatives was the norm in the early 1900s. Then, the bride was put on display to show that she was unblemished and had firm breasts. By mid-century, the rahat gradually disappeared to be worn under a short dress that covered the arous’ breasts. With the State dictating what women wore from 1983 onwards, and the imposition of Islamic dress codes, the mingling of sexes at weddings was deemed unacceptable and dances were attended only by women folk and the rahat was eventually entirely dropped from the arous’ outfit. More recently, further daring and creative dancing outfits, showing off more of the arous have been making a comeback. This latest version of ragis al arus is strictly guarded by policewomen who confiscate the mobile phones of the female audience to preserve the bride’s modesty and stop the filming and broadcast of her scantily dressed body.
The leather rahat of olden days has gone and the degree to which an arous’ body is on display as she dances, has been changing, influenced by varying fashion trends or as a result of social, political and economic forces. But in the event of a total rupture to everyday life as a result for example, of the current war, how will this most vibrant of Sudanese living heritage be affected? Will the subhiyyah and ragis arous continue to be performed or will they be substituted by another form of cultural expression? And will displaced communities have the knowledge and collective memory to pass down these traditions? These are some of the questions that will only be answered with time. In the meantime, it is up to us to talk about, write and document how we celebrate weddings and to keep remembering all the smells, sounds, colours and tastes of the subhiyya and ragis al arous.
