The oral and ritual culture of Chinese women - Bridal lamentations of Nanhui

This is the first study in a Western language on bridal lamentations of the Yangtze River delta region of China. It is also the first to examine Han C hinese lamentations as examples of oral traditional literature with a parti cular ritual and rhetorical strategy. Chinese women play only a minimal rol e in Chinese ritual culture, which focuses primarily on ancestor rituals pe rformed by men. Bridal and funeral lamentations, performed by women to an a udience of their family and the local community, are significant because th ey represent the two major occasions in the life of a woman when she is all owed ritual self-expression in a public forum. Four major song portions fro m different parts of the lamentation cycle are translated and analyzed here . It is argued that the lamentations consist of formulaic sung chants compr ising a mixture of quasi-narratives, rhetorical persuasions, blessings, and curses, which are all performed at different stages of the lamentation rit ual.