The Gaoche Wedding

Among the Gaoche, the “high carts” whom the later histories call the Tiele, a marriage was paid for in horses and cattle.^[1] The Wei Shu describes how the bride’s kin took the horses. They rode them bareback out of a pen while the owner tried to frighten the horses.^[1] On the day the bride was fetched, both families feasted in front of the tent all day.^[1] After the groom had taken her home, his own people went into the herd of her family and took the best horses.^[1] Therefore the horses went both ways.

The betrothal gift

The Gaoche paid the betrothal gift in cattle and horses. They counted it an honour.^[1] Once the two sides had given their word, the groom’s party drew up their carts to make a pen and penned the horses in it.^[1] The bride’s party could take what they liked.^[1] Each of them mounted a horse and rode it bareback out of the pen.^[1] The owner of the horses stood outside and waved his arms to frighten them.^[1] A rider who stayed on kept the horse.^[1] A rider who fell took another.^[1] The taking ended when the number was full.^[1] The text does not give the number.^[1]

The wedding day

The Gaoche had no grain and made no wine.^[1] On the day the bride was fetched, men and women went together. They brought fermented mare’s milk, 馬酪, and cooked meat cut at the joints.^[1] The milk is taken for kumys. The host received his guests without any order of seats.^[1] They sat in a crowd in front of the domed tent. They feasted and drank the whole day and stayed the night.^[1]

The next day the groom took the bride home.^[1] Then the husband’s party went back into the herd of her family and took the best horses they could.^[1] Her parents and brothers grudged it. None of them ever said a word.^[1]

Husbands and widows

The girls of the Gaoche had a ditty: “If you seek a good husband, he should be like Beihou.”^[1] It named Beihouli, chief of the Hulü tribe of the Gaoche, who went over to the Wei under the emperor Daowu.^[1]

The Gaoche were reluctant to marry widows. They treated them with kindness.^[1] Among the Göktürks the Zhou Shu records the opposite rule, the levirate. When a father, an elder brother or an uncle died, the sons, younger brothers and nephews married their stepmothers, their uncles’ wives and their elder brothers’ wives.^[2]

A husband in the wife’s house

The Sui Shu, describing the Tiele of the Sui period, says that their customs were for the most part those of the Göktürks.^[3] One of the differences was marriage. Once the wedding was over, the husband went to live in his wife’s family until a son or a daughter was born. Only then did he return to his own home.^[3] In the Wei Shu the groom takes the bride home on the day after the feast.^[1] The two histories describe the Gaoche of the Wei period and the Tiele of the Sui. They do not agree on this point.

The witnesses

The wedding opens the Wei Shu’s account of Gaoche customs. The account goes on to the rite at a place struck by thunder and to the burial of the dead.^[1] The Bei Shi repeats the passage of the Wei Shu.^[4] Its description of the customs was first translated into English in 1990.^[5] The chapter of the Wei Shu that survives was restored from the Bei Shi in the Song period. Therefore the two are one witness.^[6] Where the Wei Shu says that the guests carried, 持, the milk and the meat, the Bei Shi has 振, shook.^[4] The Wei Shu’s word is the one that fits the sentence. The Chinese does not name the one who rode out of the pen. The English translation of 1990 supplies the prospective groom as the rider. The sentence before it gives the choice of horses to the bride’s party, and that party is the usual reading of the rider.^[7]

The Tongdian of 801 shortens the description.^[8] It says that the more horses and cattle were given, the greater the honour. It leaves out the riding out of the pen.^[8] It keeps the feast and the taking of the best horses from the bride’s herd. It does not keep the silence of her parents and brothers or the widows.^[8] The riding out of the pen is known only from the Wei Shu and the Bei Shi, which are one witness.