Types of Wedding Ceremonies: Native Indian: Southwest American

As a result of the influence of the Spanish missionaries, many Native Southwest American weddings these days are held in missions with
chapels or in Catholic churches.

For traditional weddings, along with the extended families of the bride and groom, the community gathers together with an officiating elder at the center. Decorative baskets holding corn (a fertility symbol as well as a traditional food) are presented to the couple. Both Navajo and Paiute weavers create willow wedding baskets to hold cornmeal for blessings or prayers; the opening of the ceremonial basket is always directed toward the east, a sacred direction from which no harm is supposed to pass. The Navajo family system is traditionally matrilinear, so, in the past, when a man married, he went to live with his wife and her parents.

The use of the double-spouted pottery wedding vessel may be a relatively recent addition to the traditional ceremony. In Pueblo wedding ceremonies, one spout of the vase represents the husband while the other represents the wife, with the looped handle symbolizing the unity that is achieved with marriage. In a traditional ceremony, to help consummate the marriage, the Pueblos would drink a nectar from either spout.

The Native American Church, a continuation of the ancient Peyote religion which used peyote, a cactus with psychedelic properties, combines Christian beliefs with the peyote sacrament. Peyote, with mescaline as its main active ingredient, is viewed by the church as the manner through which members can commune with the divinity. During a wedding, drums containing peyote tea are banged on, and then the tea is drunk. Some worshippers shake rattles that are shaped like peyote buttons. Congregation members ingest crushed grains of peyote.