When the young people decide to be married, the girl informs her mother, who takes her daughter, bearing a tray of meal made from white corn, to the house of the bridegroom where she is received by his mother with thanks. During that day she must labor at the mealing stones, grinding white corn, silent and unnoticed; the next day she must continue her task with the white corn. On the third day of this laborious trial she grinds the dark blue corn which the Hopi call black, no doubt glad when the evening brings a group of her friends, laden with trays of meal of their own grinding, as presents, and according to custom, these presents are returned in kind, the trays being sent back next day heavy with choice ears of corn.
After this three days' probation, which would indicate that a Hopi maiden must be very devoted to undertake it, comes the wedding. Upon that day, the mother cuts the bride's front hair at the level of her chin and dresses the longer locks in two coils, which she must always wear over her breast to give token that she is no longer a maiden. At the dawn of the fourth day the relatives of both families assemble, each one bringing a small quantity of water in a vessel. The two mothers pound up roots of the yucca used as soap and prepare two bowls of foaming suds. The young man kneels before the bowl prepared by his future mother-in-law as the bride before the bowl of the young man's mother, and their heads are thoroughly washed and the relatives take part by pouring handsful of suds over the bowed heads of the couple. While this ceremonial head-washing is going on, some of the women and girls creep in between the couple and try to hold their heads over the bowls while others strive to tear away the intruders, and a great deal of jollity ensues. When the head-washing is over the visitors rinse the hair of the couple with the water they have brought, and return home. Then the bridal couple each takes a pinch of corn-meal and leaving the house go silently to the eastern side of the mesa on which the pueblo of Oraibi stands. Holding the meal to their lips, they cast the meal toward the dawn, breathing a prayer for a long and prosperous life, and return to the house as husband and wife.