To describe my personal experience in five words or less, I
would describe my experience nothing short of being thrown into the deep end
and being expected to swim or drown. So basically when you have become a Xhosa
wife, you actually are regarded as a wife from the day the Labola negotiations
start, there is no specific order as some families perform this umakoti custom
I am about to describe either before you are legally the wife or after.
Now this may differ from family to family, but in essence
you would come with the clothes you are dressed in, you are told to take all of
your clothes off and you are then dressed in brand new makoti attire which your
in-laws provide you with. This whole process marks the stage where you are no
longer considered a girl, but a wife; thus the taking off of the old clothes
which you will no longer be allowed to wear again, (as these will be given to a
female in your in-laws, this includes
everything even shoes.) You are not allowed to dress yourself, as you
considered a figurative baby and are instead dressed by one of your sister in-laws;
as she explains the sequence you are to follow when wearing each item of
clothing. Once she has finished dressing
you up, she would then give you instruction on what you should do next and
everything that would follow. To summarize, you would go into the room full
with family members, who you are not allowed to look at as you must look down
the whole time until you are led to where you will sit down on a straw mat. The
naming and ukuyalwa begins, this is when you are given all the rules you are to
follow etc. There are many other things
involved, I have just written these to give a general idea about the process.
I have included some pictures of when I was dressed and named.
I do not have a picture of myself while sitting on the straw mat, so I have included one from the internet.
