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Powwowing in Pennsylvania: An Ancient Tradition Refuses to Die
| Article
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20184 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
1 / 1992 |
3,179 Words |
| Author
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Thomas E. Graves
Thomas E. Graves, a free-lance folklife consultant and
photographer, has worked with Ukrainian artisans for the last
ten years. His articles on Ukrainian culture examine the
strength of and the reasons for active Ukrainian-American
ethnicity. He has written and lectured extensively on
several different ethnic groups, including Pennsylvania
Germans, Lithuanians, American Indians, and Gypsies. His
last contribution to The WORLD & I was on German Powwowing in
Pennsylvania and appeared in the January 1992 issues. |
When the people who would become Pennsylvania Germans emigrated from Europe, they brought two kinds of doctors: One had been tutored in Europe's medical universities; the other schooled in the customs and beliefs concerning healing handed down through the centuries. This later form of medicine, now often referred to as folk medicine, became established in most of the regions in which these people settled.
In Germany, this form of healing was known as Brauche, from the German verb brauchen, meaning "to use." In the Pennsylvania German dialect, it became known as Braucherei. In English, the term Powwowing was borrowed from Algonquian Indian trade jargon to refer to this practice. Although the English word was borrowed from the Indians, the settlers did not borrow much of anything else from Native American healers. Instead, they continued to practice the healing tradition they brought with them from Europe. Today, powwowing has become the most widely used term. Someone who practices Brauche is, in German, a Braucher or, in English, a Powwower.
Powwowing comprises a combination of religious and magical customs and beliefs, folk psychiatry, and occasionally herbalism. Some aspects of powwowing were once part of established medicine. Religious, or spiritual, healing had once been accepted by the church. With the Reformation, the new Protestant churches abandoned it. Rather than disappear, religious healing went underground and joined with other beliefs to form the tradition that has come down to the present. Religious healing continued to play a role in the Catholic Church, and many Protestant churches have brought it back into their services. Because of the religious and magical side of powwowing, this tradition is also somewhat related to witchcraft.
Powwowing is first and foremost a spiritual form of healing. It is God, therefore, and not the powwower, who effects the cure; and it is through prayer and ritual that God's aid is called. The main vehicle for the cure is the idea of transference. God's energy and power are transferred into the sick person; the disease is transferred out. Most of the tradition centers around these two ideas.
A visit to the powwower
The first visit to a powwower is a time of reassurances and introductions. The powwower tries to get the sick or injured person to feel at ease. Faith in God is what brought that person to the powwower, and that faith will help the person to be cured. After all, says the
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