Ah, polytheism and paganism.
I was at a wedding in Israel, and there was ululation; I commented how nice it is to still hear ululation nowadays*, what with an emerging global culture an' all. And someone (English, not Jew or Muslim or anything related with that end of the world) said, "Well I heard ululation at a friend's wedding, and they're pagan, and that's proper old".
AAAARGH! It's neo-pagan, NEO, THE CLUE IS IN THE NEO. Paganism is dead all except for crazy islands where they burn people in straw figures to appease the gods (may not have been an actual documentary); they're attempting to recreate something and often innacurately.
*As for the asterisk, Israeli Jewish weddings go as such (at least the ones I came across):
-Everyone assembles;
-Man lifts veil of bride to check it's her (this always got me, in ancient times they wore veils, much like in the Middle East now, and yet in Jewish tradition you lift the veil in order to check you've not been tricked into marrying the wrong person [seriously], yet surely that means you know what they looked like anyway, so the Jewish wedding ritual subtly implies they've been shagging on the quiet for a while now);
-Vows are exchanged/document signed;
-Glass smashed; everyone cheers, some ululation;
-Folk dancing;
-DRUM AND BASS AND PSYTRANCE RAVE 'TIL SUNUP, WOOOOO! BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM
-Some more folk dancing;
-2-4 days of continual drinking, eating cake and general mucking about.
One of these is not like the others.
(, Tue 10 Mar 2009, 16:32, Reply)