From The Morning Call - Allentown, PA

May 21, 2007

The Secret Garden

Pennsylvania German healing roots reach deep By Joanna Poncavage Of The Morning Call

A one-room, 1850s schoolhouse on an old farm at the edge of Kutztown is an appropriate place to learn about the hidden history of the Pennsylvania Germans. One recent Saturday, people with a passion for the past gathered to ponder the connections of this immigrant group's folk beliefs and barn stars to Medieval mysticism, Greek and Egyptian medicine, and shamanistic practices depicted in prehistoric European cave paintings. ''This is the necessary tradition that has passed down through millennia,'' says Jesse Tobin of Kempton, a healing arts practitioner and herbalist who adds a distinctive Pennsylvania German slant to her work. In many areas, the old ways -- both mundane or magical -- have been eradicated, but in Pennsylvania, where 40 percent of the population once was of German descent, speaking a German dialect called Pennsylvania Dutch, traditions survived for a much longer period of time. Some, says Tobin, are similar to practices described by the Roman historian Tacitus. ''It's amazing how little has changed since 100 A.D.,'' she says. To study and preserve a heritage before it vanishes, Tobin and her husband, Matthew Sicher, joined by another herbalist, Susan Hess, recently founded the Three Sisters Center for the Healing Arts. They've started to offer talks, workshops and demonstrations on herbal, agricultural, healing and spiritual traditions. They recently sent out the center's first newsletter, ''Hollerbeier Haven,'' named for the elderberry in the Pennsylvania German dialect. A leafy bush with white flowers and purple fruit, the elderberry has long been esteemed around the whole northern hemisphere for its culinary and medicinal value. It also has an association in Germanic myth with a wise, protective, earth mother goddess. Less than a hundred years ago, before the days of drugstores and a doctor for every disease, plants such as elderberries were crucial to everyday life. Leading an herb walk around the grounds of the Pennsylvania German Cultural Heritage Center, Susan Hess easily found several other plants highly valued by the farm's original inhabitants. Brought from Europe and once cultivated in gardens, plants such as dandelion, garlic mustard, ground ivy and cleavers now survive on their own and are commonly regarded as weeds. Once welcomed as early spring edibles, both dandelion and garlic mustard have a bitter taste that activates the salivary glands, which in turn stimulate the gall bladder and liver to produce bile. This helps digestion after a winter diet of meat, potatoes and sauerkraut, explains Hess. ''This is a lung herb,'' she says of the the low-growing ground ivy, hugging the lawn and covered with little blue flowers. And the plant commonly called cleavers for its tendency to stick to anything it touches? ''A urinary tract herb, a lymphatic remedy, also useful for chronic swollen glands and gentle enough for kids,'' says Hess, who offers a ''Homestead Herbalism'' program and handcrafted herbal products at her Farm at Coventry in Pottstown, Montgomery County. After a hearty lunch of creamed chicken, fresh spring vegetables and nettle tea, Tobin and Sicher talked about another aspect of the Pennsylvania German past. Many people who know something about it don't want to discuss it. They may feel it's superstitious, or old-fashioned. Besides, history has shown it's all too easy for the innocent to be accused of black arts. Until the middle of the last century, Pennsylvania German communities commonly had faith healers known as ''brauchers,'' men or women steeped in a tradition called ''braucherei.'' (The German verb ''brauchen'' has various shades of meanings, including to use, to need or to be under medical treatment.) The practice is a loose conglomeration of Christian prayer, ritual, beliefs and herbal remedies that Pennsylvania Germans once considered routine. Sometimes brauchers were called ''powwow'' doctors, after the Algonquian name for their Native American equivalent. Some of it is ''pretty much like reiki,'' say Tobin and Sicher, referring to an energy medicine developed in Japan, in which the therapist places hands on or near the patient. Dennis Boyer, a folklorist and Hereford Township native, believes braucherei is ''a remnant form of shamanism, filtered through the Christian Middle Ages, shaped by frontier interaction with American Indians and other groups, and today augmented by a variety of spiritual practices.'' Boyer's Web site, Once Upon a Hex (www.onceuponahex.com), is devoted to the spirituality and magic of the Pennsylvania Germans.'' He has interviewed dozens of people about braucherei over the years. ''I am primarily interested in the story content of powwow traditions, but also am interested in complementary medicine,'' he recently wrote via e-mail. He's also sharing what he's found with the Three Sisters Center principals. ''I have worked with Jesse and Matthew and have passed on the various powwow lineages as they were passed on to me,'' says Boyer, who now lives in Wisconsin. Rob Reynolds, director of the Pennsylvania German Cultural Heritage Center and the Freyburger professor of Pennsylvania German studies at Kutztown University, says ''Powwowing and braucherei are the fastest disappearing aspect of the Pennsylvania German culture, and folklorists are in a race against time to record the old wisdom before it disappears.'' This year's volume from the heritage center-associated Pennsylvania German Society, published by Penn State Press, will be ''Powwowing among the Pennsylvania Dutch: A Traditional Medical Practice in the Modern World,'' by David W. Kriebel. The work of the Three Sisters Center is unique in the field of material culture, says Reynolds. ''They are actually living it, and doing the traditional healing,'' he says. ''They have a great knowledge of healing and traditional plants, and we think that could influence what we have in our gardens and how we interpret how Pennsylvania Germans cared for themselves,'' says Reynolds. Bringing the braucher out into the open could open another window to the past. ''I'd love to see them develop a certificate program on powwowing,'' he says. ''There's nothing like that in the world.''

joanna.poncavage@mcall.com 610-820-6754 Copyright © 2007, The Morning Call