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NOTES AND QUERIES
laughter, gonging, shouting and shoving. The men either kept out of the way or were completely unmoved by what was going on.
(III) 16th November, 1975
I observed a bridegroom from a fishing family being escorted along the causeway at Island House presumably to the hut or 'un-boat' of his bride's family. He was preceded by two youngish women with sticks, with which they were pretending to pole or paddle along a 'boat' followed by another two women carrying two baskets of gifts each on carrying poles. The bridegroom was being led along by two men. He himself was wearing a black hat and walking under a black umbrella, over which a red sash was fastened. His face was carefully concealed behind an extended paper fan so that he could not see where he was going and had to be led by the hand. He was followed by gongs and drum.
It was obviously a good time for weddings, because the next day I witnessed another assault by two boats in succession on another group of boats. The assault craft were manned by women in the manner in which I have previously described in my preceding notes; a group leader in a frenzy at the bow, a gong beated in a frenzy on the roof, and the women rowing in a curious bouncing rhythm. When they reached the target boat, presumably the bridegroom's boat, there was a mock battle and an attempt to repel boarders. The bridegroom's boat had hoisted on it a red cloth on a pole and a basket upside down on another pole. Furious gonging took place throughout the occasion.
I have at other times seen the bride going off to her husband's boat, dressed up in her finery of blue embroidered gown with an elaborate head-dress, sometimes of silver, sometimes of intricately plaited rushes or grass. Often her face is hidden by a black coil-like head-dress projecting in front of her about eighteen inches with only a narrow aperture through which to see. When wearing this head-dress the bride has to be led along by her chaperons, edging along the gunwale of her fiance's boat without any assistance from him or his family.
Island House, Tai Po, N.T.
Hong Kong, 1976
D. AKERS-Jones