Wrap · Weddings & rites
Wedding goose wrap
The small cloth, often with a sewn-on tie, that wraps the wooden goose the groom brings to a traditional wedding.
- For
- Traditional wedding: the wooden goose (목안) carried by the groom
- Wraps
- Carved wooden goose (or pair)
- Cloth
- laid as a diamond
- Closed with
- Sewn-on corner tie
- Level
- Easy
Seoul Museum of Craft Art: the goose cloth has a tie fixed at its middle to one corner so it can be taken both ways round and tied; that corner is embroidered with flowers. Example: black outside, pink lining. A clear example of the Korean sewn-on-tie (끈) convention.
- 1Lay the cloth as a diamond with the tied corner away from you.
- 2Set the goose in the centre.
- 3Fold the near corner over the goose.
- 4Fold in the left and right corners.
- 5Fold the far (tied) corner over the top.
- 6Take the tie (fixed at its middle) both ways round the bundle and tie it.
History & tradition
Joseon wedding rite (전안례); surviving cloths late 19th-early 20th century
The groom brought a carved wooden goose to the bride's house and bowed to it, pledging to stay with his wife for life as geese were believed to keep one mate. A helper, the 기럭아비, carried it there wrapped in its own cloth. A late 19th-early 20th century example in the Seoul Museum of Craft Art (from the Huh Dong-hwa collection) is 32 cm square, black outside and pink inside, with a jade-green tie and flowers embroidered at the tied corner.
Wooden geese, and cloths for them, still appear in traditional-style weddings.