Wedding Customs
01 · Historical Records
The marriage customs of the Xibe people have a long history and still rest on two layers of foundation: the wedding culture formed in the age of fishing and hunting, and that formed later when the people turned to farming. Marriage is monogamous, a patriarchal form in which the wife moves into the husband's household; intermarriage observes generational rank, and the principle that people sharing the same surname do not marry is upheld. The sequence of marriage broadly passes through a series of distinctive stages — matchmaking (shuoqin), engagement, the Ajisalin (small banquet), the Anbasalin (grand banquet), and married life. Weddings are mostly held in late autumn or early winter and generally last three days, constituting the highest expression of marriage among this people.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Xibe traditional marriage customs are mainly practiced in the Xibe settlement areas of Xinjiang. In nearly all places where the Xibe live, their own marriage customs are preserved; among the Xibe scattered outside Urumqi and the Ili region of Xinjiang, the ethnic marriage customs also survive. The marriage customs of the Xibe have a long history, and within the traditional marriage practices the wedding culture of the ancient fishing-and-hunting age and that formed later when the people took up farming are still preserved today. Xibe marriage is monogamous and belongs to the patriarchal form in which the wife moves into the husband's household. Intermarriage observes generational rank, and the principle that people sharing the same surname do not marry is upheld. The sequence of Xibe marriage broadly passes through a series of distinctive forms: matchmaking (shuoqin), engagement, the Ajisalin (small banquet), the Anbasalin (grand banquet), and married life. Because the Xibe population is small, the people have always attached great importance to their own reproduction and to social development, giving rise to the custom that when a family takes a wife, everyone contributes money and goods to help. Thus it is not only a 'once-in-a-lifetime affair' for the marrying couple themselves, but also a major event for the majority of members of both families and clans. The wedding is the highest expression of Xibe marriage; weddings are mostly held in late autumn or early winter and generally last three days. After the wedding, the newlyweds, led by their parents, go to the ancestral graveyard to offer sacrifices to the ancestors. The mother-in-law also leads the new bride to relatives' homes to offer cigarettes and be formally recognized as kin; on the ninth day the newlyweds visit the bride's natal home, and after the full month the bride returns to her natal home to stay for the 'duiyue' (counter-month). Only at this point is the entire wedding ceremony considered complete. In Xibe marriage customs, song-and-dance performance runs throughout; a wedding usually begins with song and dance and ends with song and dance. This has given rise to folk songs such as the 'Matchmaking Song', the 'Dingba Song', the 'Bride's Weeping Song', the 'Persuading-the-Bride Song', and the 'Salinwuchun' (wedding songs). At present, many original elements of Xibe traditional marriage customs are being lost; wedding rituals and articles have all changed, evolving toward modern wedding ceremonies. Xibe living in cities hold traditional weddings in ever fewer numbers, and even in the countryside traditional weddings are now rarely held.
The proposal and the dingba songs
The first stage is the proposal, carried by song from the man's family; the opening of the dingba song settles the tone of everything after.
The betrothal
The families exchange promises, and because the community is small, the whole clan contributes money and goods to the marriage.
The small feast, aghiselin
A small feast follows the betrothal, modest in scale but attended by all the kin, and it is the first occasion on which the couple appear as a pair.
The great feast,ambaselin
The great feast runs for three days in late autumn or early winter to music and song, the wedding salin songs welcoming the new and releasing the old.
The weeping and urging songs
On the eve of the wedding the weeping song and the song of encouragement answer each other, letting both reluctance and resolve be voiced.
Visiting the grave and greeting the kin
The couple worships at the family grave and the mother-in-law leads the bride to pay respects and offer tobacco from relative to relative.
Visiting the bride's home on the ninth day
On the ninth day the couple visit the bride's home, and after the first full month she stays there for a month, closing the sequence of rites.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Xibe traditional marriage customs are mainly practiced in the Xibe settlement areas of Xinjiang; in nearly all places where the Xibe live, their own marriage customs are preserved, and among the Xibe scattered outside Urumqi and the Ili region of Xinjiang, the ethnic marriage customs also survive. After the wedding there is a further series of extended observances: the newlyweds, led by their parents, go to the ancestral graveyard to offer sacrifices to the ancestors; the mother-in-law leads the new bride to relatives' homes to offer cigarettes and be formally recognized as kin; on the ninth day the newlyweds visit the bride's natal home; after the full month the bride returns to her natal home to stay for the duiyue; and only then is the entire wedding ceremony considered complete. Song and dance run throughout, and a wedding usually begins with song and dance and ends with song and dance.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Wedding Customs · Wedding Customs · Wedding Customs · Wedding Customs · Wedding Customs · Wedding Customs · Wedding Customs · Wedding Customs · Wedding Customs · Wedding Customs.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
This situation is creating many difficulties for the protection and transmission of the content of the marriage customs, their rituals, and their cultural connotations. Safeguarding them has become an extremely urgent task in the work of intangible cultural heritage protection.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Anfucheng 04-1986
- Mojinghai 05-3058
- Lan Yugen 05-3059
- Lei Qisong
- Wu Yumei
- Fang Weihua
- Guojinglin
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
This static English edition is rendered at the edge for search engines, AI crawlers and readers without JavaScript; it mirrors the bilingual dossier. 阅读中文版，或返回 英文名录。