The Pennsylvania Dutch: Reflections on the Past and Pathways Forward

Traffic on the Walt Whitman bridge was relatively light as I gazed out the passenger side window into the waters of the Port of Philadelphia below. “Welcome to Pennsylvania” the GPS unit echoed my thoughts as they drifted back to my ancestors who entered this country via this Port, some 300 years ago. I imagined their excitement at seeing this land, blended with the exhaustion of an arduous journey. They traveled to Pennsylvania from the Palatinate region of Europe full of hope for a chance to live peacefully on fertile land, where their religious freedom was promised by William Penn, as their homeland (currently the areas of southwest Germany, Switzerland, parts of France, and areas of Austria) had suffered the effects of war, famine, and religious/spiritual oppression. These immigrants carried with them various expressions of a similar way of life through agriculture, folklore, cuisine, art, and linguistic dialects. Once upon shore, many settled the rural farmland communities, others went into the cities, while some pioneered into the western frontier of Pennsylvania to forge new settlements, all the while they bonded together around their similarities as they formed the ethnic group that became known as the Pennsylvania Dutch (Pennsilfaanisch Deitsch). These early settlers weaved a tapestry of culture and community by focusing on their common goals; their differences became mutual compromise as their own language was born, their traditions rooted deep into the heart of Pennsylvania, as they became a formidable people, unshakable in their convictions.

I looked over at my friend, Sue, who weaved her way through Philadelphia traffic. I shared with her my thoughts, and we exchanged feelings of gratitude for the time we just spent together at the Urglaawe Practitioners of Braucherei and Hexerei Retreat. Braucherei is the folk healing / folk magic practice that was brought to Pennsylvania from the Palatinate with the earliest settlers as part of the cultural traditions they carried with them. With pre-Christian roots, Braucherei picked up aspects of Christianity after the Christianization of the region. The word Hexerei, meaning “magic, sorcery, witchcraft, or something strange,” according to Wiktionary, was used interchangeably in areas of Pennsylvania to describe the practice.

I grew up knowing I was of Pennsylvania Dutch descent on both sides on my family tree, maternal and paternal, and the various branches within, but little else was told to me about my ancestry. My heritage was not something we talked about, it was something we lived. The Pennsylvania Dutch culture was baked into my mannerisms, my family traditions, the food we ate, and the lifestyle we lived. I was a quiet, introverted child, who preferred to keep to myself. I knew I sensed energy that others did not, and I easily became overcome by the emotions of others in public. I have vivid memories of playing with an “imaginary friend” named Hazel, who was anything but invisible to me. My parents still laugh at the elaborate routines I had established for the care of Hazel. From a very young age, I also felt compelled to use my hands to touch the physical pain of others to help them heal, and I did not understand how this was not an accepted or widely understood practice. I naturally gravitated to energy healing and holistic health arts in my adult life, at which time my mother shared with me a secret she carried with her; my maternal great-grandmother, Libby, was also a Healer. My mother shared with me the rituals and practices she observed as a young girl visiting Libby. She did not have a name for what she saw, but she knew that Libby told her not to ever speak of it. My mom recalled the neighbors calling Libby a “Witch,” and some of her friends not being allowed to play with her inside Libby’s house because she was a” Witch.” My mom further recalled these same neighbors who used the term “Witch” toward her grandmother as an insult being the first to knock on Libby’s back door when they needed her to “blow fire” or perform any other healing ritual or charm for them. Even 60 years later, my mom still used a hushed voice in speaking about it, and she wrote what she saw in the back of my own grimoire. She continually reminded me that this secret was kept only by her, and that nobody else knew. My mother described Libby as a woman ahead of her time, who spoke out against racism in a time when it was generally accepted; a woman who stood up for the vulnerable and was always willing to help. One of my favorite stories told of Libby is when my mom dug up a bunch of Native American arrowheads from the ground outside her home, and she carried them inside, excited to show Libby what she discovered, only to be met with a stern Libby ordering her to return the arrowheads and replace them exactly as she had found them, and to never disturb “those people” again.

My research revealed Libby was a practitioner of Braucherei, often called “Powwow” in Pennsylvania. The year was 2012 and very few sources were available on the subject. I found Christian-based sources, and I also found more universal, all-faith based sources. I spent the following ten years reading every academic book I found written on the topic, while searching for a teacher, to no avail. I was convinced the practice was “dead” and I would have to be content with books on the topic, though I was starving to connect my healer-self with my ancestry. Approximately ten years later, an opportunity suddenly presented itself to learn “Powwow” from a Christian perspective. I jumped at the chance, and I ran with it as far as I could, but I found my experience within that group to bring me full circle back to my upbringing in the Catholic School / Church, with feelings of shame, guilt, and fear upon me for stepping outside the box of Christian belief associated with the practice. I greatly restricted certain aspects of myself and my personal beliefs because I was holding on so tightly to the practice it had taken me so very long to learn. However, once the oppressive behavior of the leader began to bleed outward into the larger community, and he weaponized words from the Pennsylvania Dutch culture, which was not even his own heritage, against other Braucherei practitioners who work through the lens of pre-Christian faith, my heart knew it was time to move on, as this type of behavior was not only hurtful to others, it was not aligned with my own values, and it reflected not only the abusive environment in which I was raised within the Catholic Church, but it also reflected the experience of our ancestors who suffered continuous attempts by mainstream culture and the established government for their assimilation throughout the centuries and generations.

Our ancestors had quite a strong presence in Pennsylvania, our ethnicity a dominating force of growing numbers of people who had their own language and ways of navigating life. With such a stronghold within the culture and economy, our independence proved to be an apparent threat when calls for assimilation to mainstream English culture went unanswered. Eventually, legislation made the English language the mandatory language within schools, and growing anti-German sentiment of World War I threw slurs and insults our way, meant to shame us into assimilation. The “Hex Murder” of 1928 was soon to follow, in which accusations of a curse and witchcraft between two “Powwow” practitioners in York County resulted in the murder of one of the pair. National news made this scene a spectacle, and brought such embarrassment to the Governor of Pennsylvania, political and social efforts to eradicate the folk traditions and customs of our culture began to escalate. Braucherei went underground, not to be spoken of. Slurs such as “backward dutch” and “dumb dutch” were amped up to elicit shame, guilt, and fear. Through the anti-German sentiment of World War II, families stopped teaching our own language to our youth in the hopes that they would be assimilated. During these attacks against us through the generations, some of our own terminology was taken from us by those outside the Pennsylvania Dutch culture. One of these terms was Hexerei. Fueled by the York County murder, and one of the meanings of the word to be “Witchcraft,” this was an easy word to hijack and assign the most negative connotations of the word “Witch,” as related to the historical Puritan perspective which defined a Witch as someone, most often a woman, who aligned herself with the Devil to execute evil acts upon others. Such a perspective was the root of the Witch Hunts and Witch hysteria that swept through Europe, and eventually Colonial America. There was a two-fold effect that happened when the Pennsylvania Dutch culture was attacked from the outside, mainstream cultures-- first came the shame due to external pressure, next came the pressure from within the culture due to the feelings of discomfort felt by the external pressure. Internal pressure created an air of silence, along with attitudes that provoked shame from within the culture surrounding practices and beliefs which created vulnerability to our folk practices and our ways.

Braucherei is very much about balance, and when my heart led me away from the Christian-based “Powwow” group, I was immediately taken in by the Urglaawe Practitioners of Braucherei and Hexerei. Urglaawe meaning the “original faith” of the people who immigrated from the Palatinate region. They base their Braucherei practice on these pre-Christian beliefs; though, all faiths are welcome within the Guild, and proper perspective is recognized that Braucherei evolved over the centuries to include Christianity, and it contains all within the whole. From a personal perspective, the reality is, Braucherei will evolve into the future to encompass more than we can know standing at this point in time. Within this Guild, these thoughts are not only welcome, they are encouraged, because the leadership of this Guild understands that the only hope for the Pennsylvania Dutch culture to survive into the future is to evolve with respect to our traditions, our ancestry, and each other. My Apprenticeship with this Guild officially began at the Retreat from which Sue and I now drove away. I felt Libby next to me, and I knew she approved of my decision to join this Guild, which reflected her own integrity. As I drove away from this community that embraced me, I also drove away from that box of shame and guilt that that I decided to toss aside. I had come into my fullness. For the first time ever, I felt totally within my body, a bridge connected my healer-self and my ancestry.

Our people have carried one version or another of that box for far too long. Now is the time for us to regroup and refocus. We can forever leave that box behind, but we must reclaim the words that were taken from us, and used against us, in order to elicit fear against us, and shame from within. We must get out of our own way and reclaim our folk practices, our folklore, our ancestral stories, our traditions, our cultural ways. Now is the time to add on to that weaved tapestry of culture and community our ancestors started for us.

by Gretchen E. Swank 7/12/2023