VESKELI  

VESKELI  is  an  Udmurt  wedding  ritual chant (see Family and household ritual poetry). Before the bride leaves her parent’s house, a chest with her dowry is taken to the middle of the house. At this moment women begin sing­ ing farewell V. song. The bride goes 3 times around the table in the Sun direction, then she is brought to the chest and the chest is places on the wedding cart. Singing a chant (see Lamentation) women take the bride’s hand through the shawl and take her around all house premises: “From the black forest, black storm is coming. / Did you think, fella, that it would come without rain? / When we were coming noisily, /You thought that we would pass by, didn’t you?”

T.G. Minniyakhmetova