Palatine Boors

In this current era in which we have forces trying to tear our country apart based on race, skin color, ethnicity, etc., let us learn some lessons from the past.

Our own ancestors were discriminated against and insulted by one of the most respected Founding Fathers, Benjamin Franklin.

The Palatines were not white enough for Franklin. 

The sad thing is that the same rhetoric that Franklin used to insult our ancestors is being used now in Alt-Right marches in DC and Charlottesville. The primary difference is that the Alt-Right has expanded the definition of "white" to include the Deitsch descendants of the Palatines as well as the Irish, the Italians, and the Slavs, all of whom have been the targets of discrimination at earlier points in our history.

I think my colleague and friend, Michelle Jones, said it best in this post on Facebook:

While there are legitimate conversations to be had about legal vs. illegal immigration and a variety of topics within the social sphere, bigotry and racism are not to be tolerated. Our ancestors were the first refugees to these shores from a non-colonial land. The Deitsch were the first to protest slavery in the Americas. The settlers lived in general peace with the Lenape, and there is lore within Braucherei of exchanges of information about plant medicine. 

The Palatines - and the present-day identity of the Deitsch - have always had their own way of viewing and doing things even within the context of being leaders in the pursuit of the ideals that are spelled out in our Constitution. Our cultural expressions and practices continue to this day despite  20th century efforts to undermine them and to suppress them.

Even while celebrating what makes us unique, let us embrace the wider diversity of this country with the recognition that we are all building toward those ideals.

In that spirit, we proudly adopt the hashtag of #PalatineBoor and its Deitsch equivalent, #PelsicherRauhbautz* as recognition that we are the descendants of the people whom Franklin eschewed. May we be more generous to later arrivals than he was to our ancestors.

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* The Deitsch cognate of the English word "boor" is "Bauer" and is also cognate with the Dutch and Afrikaans word, "Boer." However, in regular Deitsch usage, the word "Bauer" has come to mean simply "farmer" without a semantic of class that would render it as "peasant." A "Rauhbautz" carries the semantic meaning of "boor" that reflects the unrefined aspect that people who would use a word like "boor" would intend. Quite literally, a "Rauhbautz" is an "unrefined (raw) bugaboo."

Der Belsnickel

Tonight der Belsnickel visits many homes throughout the Deitscherei...

Halliches Erntfescht

(or Erntdankfescht!)

The autumn equinox and surrounding days served as the time of the original Deitsch (and German, for that matter) Thanksgiving. We Urglaawer observe the equinox and celebrate the harvest as a community as close to the equinox as possible. The Schwenkfelders observe the thanksgiving on September 24, other localities hold it on different days, also often based on the equinox.

In Heathen times, communities pitched in to help to finish harvests, to trade different crops, and to tend to kin and neighbor so that everyone had a variety of foods to store for the winter. This is the root of the Harvest Home tradition, which continues in many churches today.

The establishment of a national Thanksgiving holiday was actually met with some resistance in Deitsch communities because we already had a thanksgiving observance that was placed at the time of the completion of the harvest. The end of November seemed to be an odd time to many people. The traditional harvests were well over by then, it was typically very cold, and, prior to the rise of modern transportation and grocery, people would be more likely conserving their food stores, outside of game, to ensure a supply to carry them through if Spring came late.

The Harvest Home church traditions nowadays take place all throughout September, but they are a legacy of the thanksgiving festival. Urglaawe groups hold thanksgiving festivals as close to the equinox as possible. All of these observances focus on spreading the wealth of the harvest around, most typically in the form of canned food donations to food shelters.

Over time, the national holiday in November has meshed well with traditional Pennsylvania Dutch foods and has become part of our lives. However, it is good to keep our cultural traditions alive, too.

Most of us who were born after World War II are so accustomed to supermarkets having everything we could want all throughout the year that it is difficult to fathom the reliance on root cellars, springhouses, and cooperative efforts among neighbors. Jump back a few generations, when most food was grown locally, and it becomes easier to see why there would be a formal expression of gratitude for a successful harvest. We can capture a bit of the experience of our forebears by appreciating events like the end of the harvest.

Besides, it never hurts to have another day where we are a little more deliberate in our gratitude for the food that nourishes us. So, sometime this week, you may want to incorporate an extra expression of gratitude in the religious or philosophical context that resonates with you to the plants and the animals that feed us, to the farmers who produce the food, and to the transportation and outlets that make it available to us.

Let's make Erntfescht/Erntdankfescht a thing again in our communities!

From the Deitsch Girl, Displaced Blog

This. The genetic research project portion is of particular interest.

https://deitschgirldisplaced.wordpress.com/2015/01/03/branding-kitschy-keepsakes-or-honored-heritage/

Der Gedechtnisdaag

It is Memorial Day in the United States. It is a time to remember all those who have fallen for the United States since the country's inception in 1776. The Deitsch have a long tradition of fallen heroes and young men who were torn from their homes in order to fight for greater causes.

War is a complex being. Whether a war is justifiable morally is a matter of perspective.

The Revolution, which caused much anxiety for many Deitsch, who had to decide between oaths taken to the British Crown and the need for Colonial independence, brought about the Great Experiment that is the United States.

The War of 1812, which serves as the end-point of the migration that gave rise to the Deitsch nation, is considered by most to be a justifiable war of defense. 

The Civil War brought an end to the horror and moral outrage that was slavery. However, it also began the whittling away of states' rights and started the centralizing and bloating of the federal government.

Also, the 1860's were a difficult time for the Deitsch in the Confederated States of America. Most Deitsch were rabidly anti-slavery (which was seen in the first abolitionist protest in Philadelphia in 1688. However, the cause of states' rights and the defense of one's home caused many schisms in Deitsch families, particularly those with Northern and Southern branches.

Some of the subsequent wars can be seen as wars of American colonialism. From the Spanish-American War (1898), the US gained the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico from this war. Ironically, it is that act of colonialism that has resulted in a later reverse colonialism of the Pennsylvania Dutch Country and a noticeable demographic change to the largest Deitsch cities. In addition to all that, a telephone tax that was levied to help pay for that war was finally cut off in 2006 -- 108 years after that war. Ridiculous.

World War I was really not the first war considered to be global in the Deitsch folk consciousness (the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) was the major trigger for later migration to the Americas). The build-up to World War I included, as a result of deteriorating relations with the German Empire, deliberate attempts to destroy the Deitsch culture. The Suppression, which was really an effort to make the Deitsch culture appear backwards so the next generation would assimilate, began in 1911 and continued well into the 1970's. Echoes of it remain even today. Many Deitsch soldiers perished in that war in American units despite having their culture and language ridiculed by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Go figure.

World War II witnessed a new kind of horror in the evil of the Nazi regime. Hitler's odious actions were rivaled and exceeded only in the Japanese actions in Nanking and in Soviet Union against anti-communist dissidents. The soldiers who gave their lives for the causes of liberty and freedom in this war helped to prevent further loss of millions of lives. Ironically, the stain of Nazi Germany somehow tarred many Deitsch soldiers, even though they were not "German" and had no connection to Nazism except for fighting against it!

Subsequent wars are not always morally clear. In many cases, the soldiers gave their lives for noble causes that were not matched in the actions of the politicians in Washington. Many of the principles for which our ancestors fought have been diminished or destroyed by the overreach of the state and (especially) federal governments. Political expediency always seems to trump virtue. However, Washington's slimy actions must not re-define the hearts and minds of the soldiers who gave their all and their everything.

So today, please take a moment to think about the liberties that we have and the liberties we have lost. Recognize that many men (and now women) have given their lives -- all they were and all that they could have been -- for these liberties. The best way to honor the fallen is to take their principles into our hearts and to be the best and most vigilant citizens we can be.

Heathen Marriage Ceremonies

It is amazing how much malarky and propaganda we're bombarded with all the time.

For example, we're told that we have "liberty" and "religious freedom," yet the various states make it as difficult as possible for Heathen (among others) religious leaders to perform ceremonies that result in a legal state of marriage.

Pennsylvania is among the more schizophrenic states. It has a great constitution but an incredibly corrupt legislature. The religious freedom remarks are in the constitution, but legal wrangling has resulted in the members of many faiths (including Urglaawe, Wicca, Asatru, and many others) being treated like second-class citizens, even if their own organizations have provided ordination. They have to "prove" the legitimacy of their religions on pretty much a county-by-county basis, while certain other religious groups can do whatever they want (and often benefit from their relationship to those in the legislature).

This is a sorry state of affairs and does little to instill any faith in a system that is slowly collapsing due to this sort of corruption and turpitude. Everything that our ancestors fought and died for is being spoiled, derided, and destroyed by the ignorance of the historical significance and the real meaning of the words that are written in the various constitutions.

Wilkum: Why not say that here?

YO, FERWAS ISS SELL DO NET GSAAT??

By JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler (New Era)

Several years ago, a group of Pennsylvania Dutch enthusiasts suggested that towns and townships in the Cocalico Valley begin posting bilingual signs on roads and at other places.

One of those signs might designate Hans Jakob's Orchard also as Hansyaricks Baamgaard, the Pennsylvania German equivalent.

Hans Jakob's Orchard is on Texter Mountain, not far from Lancaster County's high point in the nearby meadow featured in the Sept. 21 Scribbler column.

The bilingual sign idea never moved forward here (except in West Earl Township, which already had marked several roads with bilingual signs before the German-Pennsylvanian Society suggested a more general application).

But now comes news that Kutztown, Berks County, has leapt in front of Lancaster by erecting the first "Wilkum" signs in Pennsylvania at entrances to that town.

The "Wilkum Zu Kutzeschtettel" signs are part of larger signposts "welcoming" visitors in English.

Kutzeschtettel added its Pennsylvania Dutch designation after much lobbying by several members of the German-Pennsylvanian Society, including Frank Kessler, of Brussels, Belgium.

"We hope that other townships in Pennsylvania will soon follow this encouraging example," Frank writes to this column.

Well, why not?

For decades, visitors to the Pennsylvania Dutch Convention & Visitors Bureau on Greenfield Road passed a sign held up by two giant fiberglass Amish figures.

"Wilkum," the sign said.

Let's bring it back.

Bilingual road signs may be too controversial or too expensive, or whatever, but why not place "Wilkum" signs at major entrances to the county?

Everyone understands what "Wilkum" means.

It means Lancastrians are friendly.

It also means that Lancaster County's heritage is different from the heritage of Hanover, N.H., or Danville, Va.

It means that some bilingual people who live here speak both English and Pennsylvania Dutch, just as some speak both English and Spanish or both English and Vietnamese.

But the "Dutch" were here first and that tradition deserves recognition.

If Kutzeschtettel can do it, why can't we?

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/743215_Wilkum--Why-not-say-that-here-.html#ixzz27bogE8V0

Declaration of Independence - German

Let us not forget that the first time newspaper to announce the adoption of the Declaration of Independence was Heinrich Miller's Pennsylvanischer Staatsbote on July 5, 1776. 

This is important. The Deitsch settlers, though split by their oaths of loyalty to the English King and their desire to be free, ended up being a part of this country's history from the Colonies right through the Revolution.

This means that our ancestors fought for the principles that are now being rendered asunder by the insanity and unconstitutional actions being taken both by Washington and by Harrisburg.

Deitscherei deserves better. We need to return to the true values of the unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.