In former East Prussia young women living on the Curonian Spit were considered the worst brides, practically dowerless. The soil on which they were living – partly sandy, partly clayey – was infertile. Usually only poor fishermen from the Lithuanian side of the Curonian Bay, the “Curonians”, married these women. A girl had no right to see her husband prior to the wedding – he sent a boat for her and she went to the other side of the bay. After the wedding these women rarely came back to visit their families. Their parents never knew whether to rejoice or to sadden – their daughters became fishermen’s or peasants’ wives and all that was awaiting them on the other side was the same wasteland, the same poor soil, only separated from here by a thin strip of water.

A boat was sliding on the bay surface. In it were two black figures – the rower and his bride. They are barely distinguishable, the girl was only standing out with her high headdress and a broad dark ribbon that came out and was tumbling in the wind. 

This is a typical for that time and place wedding outfit of a Curonian’s bride: a dress made of rough black linen, black ribbons and a black homespun kerchief. No colors, mourning dominates. A mourning for her young life, for her parents’ house, for her motherland. The Curonian women only put on a white dress (the best clothes) on several occasions – christening, communion, a farewell to the motherland (prior to the marriage). A farewell to the motherland was a crucial ritual that was obligatory for each bride leaving their parents’ house. 

And so she went, in her best dress and jewels, throwing herself in ditches, in a slow flow of clay, and there she was lying, long, trying to plunge deeper into the ground, to penetrate, to nestle. And then she rose up and went to the water to wash the dirt off. This actions of dipping in dirt, rising and going to the water were the soul of the heavy process of saying goodbye to the motherland. And being heavy here is not just a figure of speech and description of the state of one’s heart – clay was sticking in-between all creases, sleeves and the hem, so that the clothes went extremely heavy and bulky and impeded to make several steps at a time.

 

A total dissolution. A hand clutched tightly, trying to grab the ice-cold spur of spring water trickling down a slope, eyes open and lost, working it to the bone to grasp and to remember: that tree over a ditch with its roots sagged and weary branches, her dirty ugly hands, hair stuck together, a torn lace of the dress, a dim string of pearls, a strip of sand, an old boat that grew into sand up to its rowlocks and a boat in the distance. It slides smoothly and easily and will be here in an hour.