How Many Pigs?
Big pig
(Maya) Weddings in Papua New Guinea are very different than in the US. We visited two villages and learned about the wedding customs. Many men in PNG have 2 or more wives. We met a village chief who has 5 wives. He said he was around the age of 80. One of his wives is 30 years old and he has 16 children.
A bridal veil
A bride does not wear a dress, she wears a grass skirt with two open holes on either side of the waist, and a knitted rope as the veil. There are two parts to the wedding process; the negotiation and the wedding. The groom has to pay the bride’s parents for their blessing to marry the bride. The groom offers to pay the father and mother with pigs and kina (the currency). In earlier times, people used cowrie shells as the currency and some tribes still do. Once the groom makes the offering, the bride’s parents argue whether the offer is good or not.
Little pig
In one of the demonstrations the mother started hitting the groom because she didn’t accept the offer. If the bride thinks the offer is a good offer she will move to the groom’s side but in this case, the groom and father are still fighting. Finally after all the bickering, the chief of the village steps in and makes things fair. The offer he presents is 30 pigs: 10 big pigs, 10 medium, and 10 small. In the demonstration we saw, all the problems were worked out and they got married.
Thanks for your blog, nice to read. Do not stop.
Maya love the wedding stories, they remind me of when Chad and I married. Nothing says “I love you” like a herd of pigs. So I am wondering if a man can have multiple wives, can a woman have multiple husbands. It seems their may be some men with no wives to average out those men with many wives. At least young women don’t have to worry about all the good ones being taken, they can still be wife number 3, or 4, or 5… I am appreciating PNG more and more the more I hear. Xo Mrs. M
Hi Maya,
Despite my aversion to pigs, I liked your story about pigs and weddings. From your account of the process, there is a lot to learn about negotiation and compromise. I am sure you did.
Wow, Maya, what do you think about this?
I will ask you when i will meet you.
This is interesting according to their culture, for me it’s good that give’s a certain value to the bride . in my country it’s about cows.
but both side they have to find a strong agreement.
And the parents of the girl are very proud of this even the girl her self
Maya- How many Pigs do you think Parker should pay for Sydney?