[QUOTE]
Originally posted by straightBOS
Do you know where in Africa- from which country or tribe this tradidtion supposedly originates?
I'm intrigued by this topic and I'd like to find out more. [/QU OTE]
From:
http://www.imdiversity.com/villages/...rticle_ID=3831
A Touch Of History
Slavery stripped the Africans of everything that made them uniquely human: their names, their language, their heritage, and their freedom.
With that loss of freedom, slaves were stripped even of the basic freedom to pick a mate and marry.
Slaveholders reasoned that if allowed to formally marry and live together, the disenfranchised Africans might gather their numbers and revolt, according to Harriette Cole, former fashion editor of Essence magazine and author of "Jumping the Broom Wedding Workbook" (Henry Holt, $18.95).
"Yet the slaves were spiritual people who had been taught rituals that began as early as childhood to prepare them for that big step into family life," Cole wrote in a published report. "They became inventive and developed the tradition of 'jumping the broom'."
Seen as a quaint amusement by slaveholders, the ritual and the broom itself held spiritual significance for many Africans. The broom represented the birth of a household for a couple, the sweeping away of the old and welcoming the new.
For the Kgatia of southern Africa, it was customary, for example, on the day after the nuptials for the bride to join the other women in the family in sweeping clean the courtyard. This signaled her desire and obligation to help with chores at her in-law's home until the couple found their own abode.
During slavery, against a backbeat of booming drums, the lovers bounded over a broom to symbolize their leap into wedlock.
Research of slave narratives and other early-19th-century documentation have unearthed the methods in which slave couples did their jumping, writes Cole. "With the master's permission, a couple was allowed to stand before witnesses, pledge their devotion to each other and finally jump over a broom, which would indicate their step into married life."
From me:
Unless my fiance-to-be has significant issues with it, I will incorporating a variety of African American (jumping the broom) and African rituals (honoring the ancestors with libations, drumming during the reception) into our wedding day. I had always felt jumping the broom was a way to honor the incredible strength and perserverance of my ancestors during involuntary slavery.
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