Mbuji Wa Nyima, the goat received after the wedding (photo from Nigeriamasterweb.com)
Sitting with my uncle on a Sunday afternoon, I ask him how he got married. My aunt and him had recently celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. His face lits up and he says:
“We got married on a Wednesday.”
O.k.! So back in the days, people got married on Wednesdays and today many Christian weddings occur on Saturdays. No big deal.
No, my uncle explains, Saturday weddings were called “Les mariages a Njiji,” the weddings of flies, of insects. People who got married on Saturdays were not virgins. These were people who lived together and even had children already.
So if you were virgin (especially the woman), you got married with dignity on Wednesday and the bride got to wear a white veil. We are talking about a religious wedding here; so even in the 1950s, religious weddings in the Congo looked very much like any weddings in the West.
While a white veil and a Wednesday wedding were the Christian rewards for virginity, among the Baluba (particularly the Bakwa Dishi people), you get a goat. Not just any goat! It’s the “Mbuji Wa Nyima,” the goat that is given after the wedding.
Here is how it works. Soon after the consummation of marriage (which determines with certainty that the woman was indeed virgin), the husband has to bring a goat to the woman’s family to thank them for having raised their daughter well.
Now, you see, my Mom was both a Christian and a Mukwa Dishi. She had her Wednesday wedding with a white veil in a Catholic church in Liege, Belgium where my Dad was studying medicine. Since they were in Europe, my Dad decided they would wait until they returned to the Congo to bring a goat to her family.
Years passed by and two children later, my Dad kind of forgot about that obligation, until my Mom suddenly shouted,
“And where is my goat?”
My Dad with all his medical degrees and high social status, had to go back to my Mom’s village and present the goat to her family as a thank you.