South African Indigenous Weddings Culture, Customs & Traditions – Kedibone Seutloadi

A5, 264p.

This book’s main area of interest is indigenous African weddings and more specifically their different cultures, customs and traditions. It features chiefly the heterosexual type of weddings of ‘ordinary people’ or ‘commoners’ of indigenous African descent and not chiefs or royal families. Traditionally, most commoners marry amongst themselves; they do not marry royalty.

The content covers the formerly unwritten customs, rules and practices of ordinary people belonging to specific ethnic groups, focusing in detail on the wedding cultures, customs, and traditions of the ten South African indigenous groups. These are the Khoisan, Bapedi (Northern Sotho), Basotho (Southern Sotho), Batswana, Ndebele, Swati, Tsonga, Venda, Xhosa, and Zulu.

It is important to note that the rituals and practices described in these pages are not my original ideas. They are primarily sourced from existing literature and documents, academic papers, ordinary people, various publications and online databases on indigenous African weddings and marriage practices or rituals.