Rensselaer Republican, Volume 12, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 January 1880 — A Jolly Wedding. [ARTICLE]

A Jolly Wedding.

In Central America is a country called Towka, and without doubt the Towkans, whatever else they may be, are the jolliest people in the world at a wedding. They appear to he such an ignorant race as to be unable to keep record of the age of their children, except in a manner somewhat similar to that adopted by Robinson Crusoe with his notched post for an almanac. The Towkans, however, do not notch their children. They hang round their necks at birth a string at with one bead on, and at the expiration of another year

they add another bead, and so on, the mim object being seemingly that there maybe no mistake when the yonng people arrive at a marriageable age. When a girl numbers fifteen beads shfe is manageable, bat the young man most possess a necklace of twenty be fore he is reckoned capable of taking on himself so serious a responsibility Bat the wedding feast is the thing. The invited guests assemble on what answers to our village green, and sein their midst is a canoe, the property of the bride-groom, brimming with palm wine, sweetened with honey and thickened with crushed plantains. The drinking caps are calabashes, which are set floating in the fragrant liquor, and seated round it the oompany fall to —a mark of politeness being to drink oat of as many calabashes that have been drank out of by somebody else as possible. It should be mentioned, however, to the Towkan’s -credit, that his bride is not present at this tremendous drinking bout, or rather, boat. She remains in her parents' hut, and when hor intended has finished with the calabashes he takes his whistle of bamboo and his “tom-tom,” which is a hollow little log, tied over at each end with bits of leather, and, seating himself at the door of the dwelling of his parents-in-law prospective, he commences to bang and tootle sweet music until the heart of the tender creature within is softened and they let him in. —'London Globe.