
This morning, my dog, Bodhi, and I headed out for an early morning hike. The air was a cold twenty-eight degrees, and the wet November snow crunched under our feet as the rising sun bounced off the surface of Spring Creek and illuminated the white fields around us as we headed into the woods. I can't speak for Bodhi, but I sure felt ALIVE, REFRESHED, and WHOLE. We were greeting a new day, walking among God's creation. As a person of Pennsylvania Dutch descent, whose ancestors walked these same soils I now walk, Powwow is not something I DO, it is who I AM. It is how I live my life; and being in nature is an important part of my lifestyle, it is my living prayer. It is how I worship God, and do my work as a Braucher.
The early Pennsylvania Dutch settlers were primarily farmers. Some moved into the more populated urban areas, but most formed communities in the rural areas, and some eventually migrated into Western Pennsylvania into the areas which are now Somerset and Bedford Counties, and North into Blair, Centre, Mifflin, Juniata, and other Counties, seeking fertile farmland. My ancestors on my father's side were among some of the first "pioneers" to leave the Lancaster area and move to Somerset, one of them whom I am a niece of the eight generation (Jacob Seiler) was on record as being both a Powwower AND the first Mennonite minister in Somerset. My dad's family is also on record in helping with the building of Davidsville, alongside the paternal side of my husband's family who had also moved there before eventually settling in Boalsburg, Centre County; where I discovered the grandmother of my maternal great-grandmother (who was a Braucher) is buried in the Boalsburg Cemetery behind the church, along with her bloodline.
These are the things I think about while I hike with my dog. My ancestors, and the land I walk on. What this land meant to them, and what it means to me now; the privilege I have to walk on the actual land my great-great grandmother walked on, knowing her great-granddaughter was a Powwower, and so am I. Wondering how their life was here back then. Remembering traditions passed along through my own family, and how I manifest those traditions into my own life today. All of this is Powwow. All of this is prayer. All of this is the lifestyle of a traditional Pennsylvania Dutch Powwower. This is how we bring God into the world; this is how we do our work, God's work, here on earth.
by Gretchen Swank; written Saturday, November 19th, 2022 - Photos by Gretchen Swank

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