Buryat Wedding Ceremony And The Social Role Of Conversion Studies

Wedding ceremony is one of the most important parts during one's lifetime. It is of necessity that people should experience wedding ceremony from birth to death. Wedding is a cultural phenomenon concerned with human race's propagating itself and the development of the society. It is a window to see through the national culture and psychology. Wedding ceremony in Buryat tribes of the Mongols is an integrated cultural structure. It consists of engagement, bridal procession, marriage and presenting'Hexige', which is so integrated that it possesses distinctive national and regional characteristics.This paper focuses on the wedding ceremony of the Buryat Mongols, which is called'Les Rites De Passage'by anthropologists and folklorists, based on the research done by Tianye and some other documents. This paper analyses the integrated cultural structure in the Buryat traditional wedding ceremonies, further explains the role change of the major members for the family and the society. Especially, this paper concentrates on the leading roles, the bride and the bridegroom, and their behavior. By several ways of act, they separate from their parents, and own their new family identity and social status after the complicated ceremony. It means they accomplish the wedding trilogy: initiation rite, rite de marge and polymerization etiquette. Wedding ceremony for the Buryat Mongols plays a significant role in their social lives, which makes the new nuclear family be accepted and recognized by the ethnic groups.This paper's data comes from a research on the wedding ceremony in the Xini River Town in Evenk Autonomous Banner, Hulunbuir City, combined with some relative documents. This paper records and combs the wedding ceremony customs in this Buryat region comprehensively. This paper also deeply explores the role change in the ceremony, analyses and interprets the ceremony from the angle of ethnology, and discusses the role change, landmarks and medium in the ceremony. Chapter1focuses on the background of the ceremony, introduces the origin of the culture habitat; chapter2, according to the material researched by Tian Ye, males an overall description of the wedding ceremony procedure; chapter3, based on the analysis of Tian Ye's materials, using the 'Les Rites De Passage' theory, interprets the role change in the ceremony and explain it from different angles, such as switching process, cultural symbols and so on. In conclusion part, the writer summarizes the Buryat wedding ceremony and initiates deeply thinking on how to protect this wedding customs.