Braucherei

Common card · No. 251856

Braucherei or Brauche (Pennsylvania Dutch language), in English commonly called powwow or pow-wow, is a system of Christian folk practice originating in the culture of the Pennsylvania Dutch in the 1700s. Braucherei includes a range of healing rituals used primarily for treating ailments in humans, livestock, and crops, as well as securing physical and spiritual protection, and a wide range of everyday uses. Along with folk plant medicine, Braucherei forms one of two traditional healing practices among the Pennsylvania Dutch, although some researchers consider them to be the one and the same. Although the term powwow is a Native American loanword into English, these non-Native folk practices by European immigrant settlers 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. Braucherei draws from earlier material in German-speaking Europe, including European...

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