求婚禮俗

以前在談婚事的時候，男方會到女方家裡，雙方家庭會一起討論婚事，像是聘禮要準備什麼，還有時間要訂在什麼時候等等。有些聘禮代表了身分和地位，所以準備的內容會不太一樣。

在準備的過程中，部落的人也會一起幫忙，大家一起完成這件大事。婚事的討論完成之後，男方家族要到部落傳統領袖家中進行除喪儀式 semupulju，儀式的目的是希望能夠讓整個部落的人一同來為即將到來的喜事共同的祝福。

在這一次的畢業展前，我們蝴蝶班的全體師生就有共同到 vavulengan 傳統領袖家中進行了這項儀式，為我們的畢業展祈福一切順利。

在現代，有些人會用比較簡單的方式，例如用金錢代替一些禮俗，或是在教堂舉行婚禮，流程也變得不太一樣。我覺得不管是以前還是現在，結婚都是一件很重要的事情，只是表達的方式不一樣。

In the past, when discussing marriage, the groom's family would visit the bride's home. Both families would talk through the wedding — what betrothal gifts to prepare, when the date should be set, and so on. Some gifts represented status and rank, so what each family prepared could be different.

Throughout the preparation, the whole tribe would help; everyone joined hands to complete this big event. Once the discussions were done, the groom's family had to visit the traditional chief's home to perform the semupulju mourning-cleansing ceremony. Its purpose was to gather the tribe's collective blessing for the upcoming wedding.

Before this graduation exhibition, our Butterfly Class — all of us, students and teachers — visited the vavulengan chief's home to perform this ceremony, asking for blessings that our exhibition would go well.

Today, some people use simpler approaches — replacing certain rituals with money, or holding the wedding in a church with a different flow. Whether ancient or modern, I think marriage is something deeply important; only the way of expressing it has changed.