Braucherei

Powwow, also called brauche or braucherei in Deitsch, is a vernacular system of North American traditional medicine and folk magic originating in the culture of the Pennsylvania Dutch. Blending aspects of folk religion with healing charms, "powwowing" includes a wide range of healing rituals used primarily for treating ailments in humans and livestock, as well as securing physical and spiritual protection, and good luck in everyday affairs. Although the word "powwow" is Native American, these ritual traditions are of European origin and were brought to colonial Pennsylvania in the transatlantic migrations of German-speaking people from Central Europe in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. A practitioner is sometimes referred to as a "powwower" or braucher, but terminology varies by region. The folk traditions continues in the present day in both rural and urban settings, and has spread across North America.

Early colonial Pennsylvania was a melting pot of various European religious influences, as William Penn's promise of religious tolerance opened the doors for many Christian sects: the Anabaptists, Quakers, Lutherans, German Reformed, Catholics, and all manner of religious mystics and free-thinkers. It is from this blending that the Pennsylvania German powwow tradition was born.

Although the majority of the Pennsylvania Dutch were Protestant, their folk religious culture was deeply rooted in practices of the pre-Reformation era, such as the veneration of the saints, the use of folk adaptations of liturgical blessings for everyday purposes, and the use of sacred objects and inscriptions for healing and protection. These practices were brought to North America, and formed the basis of both oral and literary ritual traditions in Pennsylvania.

The majority of the early ritual traditions of the Pennsylvania Dutch were rooted in German language, but the term "Powwow" became widely used by speakers of English by the late 18th century. "Powwaw" (in one of its early spellings) was appropriated from the Algonquian language by 17th century missionaries in New England, where it originally described a healer, derived from a verb implying trance, or dreaming for divination or healing purposes. Evidence suggests that the term was applied to the Pennsylvania Dutch out of a perceived similarity in ritual healing, consistent with its borrowed meaning in English for "conjuration performed for the cure of diseases and other purposes."

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