Punjabi culture and traditions Jaago ceremony

Geographically, the North West region of India is known as Punjab. This is called the land of five rivers as the word Punjab is made up of two words 'Panj'+ Aab' where 'Panj' means five in Punjabi and 'Aab' mean rivers in Punjabi.

Punjabi, as noted above, is spoken as a minority language in several other countries, including Afghanistan, as well as many nations where Punjabis have emigrated in large numbers, such as Britain, Canada, Australia and the United States.
However, Punjabi culture much like its Bengali counterpart, suffered a split between India and Pakistan during the Partition of 1947. As such, Punjabi language and culture tend to be uniting factors for the people of India and Pakistan in spite of national and religious affiliations.

While most loaned words come from English, Hindi and Urdu and indirectly from Persian, Punjabis around the world have integrated terms from such languages as Spanish and Dutch.

Jaago ceremony

This ceremony is performed by the maternal relatives of the bride. They join in the late hours before the wedding day. The maternal aunt of the bride carries a decorated copper vessel with lights or “dhiyas”made of wheat flour.

The aunt carries this vessel after lighting and another woman carries a long stick with bells or “ghungroos.”The ladies in group then visit the nearby relatives in the village and perform their traditional dance “giddha.”