Superstitions (Aberglaube)
Stories of witchcraft or supernatural beliefs are associated with the Volga Germans and the colony of Norka was no exception. Many of these beliefs had their origins in the German speaking areas of Europe that these people originated from in the 1760's.
The belief in witchcraft dates to the 13th century in Europe and the last executions of people convicted as witches took place in the 18th century. In Germany, sorcery remained punishable by law into the late 18th century, which coincides with the time that emigration to the Volga region in Russia began.
Witchcraft came to be seen as a vast diabolical conspiracy against Christianity, and accusations of witchcraft led to large-scale witch-hunts, especially in Germanic Europe.
An illustration showing the persecution of witches in 1555
The following excerpt is from a messages sent by Susan Kern to the GER-VOLGA electronic discussion list on January 1, 2012:
My grandfather was Conrad Beck (born in Walter, Russia, 8-20-1889) told me of putting the animals in a barn for the night. The barn did not have doors, but the warlock would walk around the barn one way 7 times and 7 times the opposite way. Then the animals would not be able to leave. Thieves, however, could enter the barn, but then they would be trapped and couldn't get out again would be caught that way.
He also took me out to the pasture as a child to look for a special bone. One that was bleached by the sun on top and had moss on the bottom. This was rubbed on a wart on my finger with a German incantation and then thrown over his shoulder. The purpose was to eliminate the wart.
The following excerpts are from messages sent by Bill Pickelhaupt to the GER-VOLGA electronic discussion list on December 18 and 19, 2011:
I have seen a reference to witchcraft and black magic rituals among the Volga Germans. It was reproduced from "Baltische Monatschrift," 12 Bd, page 427 ff. in the 1867 Support Fund report. So the original would have been between somewhere 1865-1867. I know this is not the season for this topic but I am very curious whether anyone out there has heard of the practice of witchcraft and black magic among the Volga Germans in Russia.
The reference I found of a Volga German was from 1865 in one of the colonies (the writer did not give names or the village) and seems to be more in the realm of superstition. The story was that a Volga German farmer had a young hourse that sprang from its stall and broke a cross. The farmer believed someone had bewitched his horse and so he had a well-known Russian warlock come to his aid. The warlock had the rest of the livestock driven in a "magic circle," which broke the enchantment.
The following message was sent by Dr. Timothy Kloberdanz to the GER-VOLGA electronic discussion list on December 20, 2011:
Greetings Everyone,
For those who are interested in more information about German-Russian folk beliefs surrounding witchcraft, magical folk healing, etc., do take a look at my late colleague Dr. Charles Gebhardt's excellent article "Hexerei, Braucherei, und Allerlei" in the "Work Paper of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia" (Fall 1976), pages 26-29. The article is in English.
There is often confusion between those German-Russian individuals who truly practiced black magic (Hexerei) and those folk healers and midwives who engaged in white magic (Braucherei). One needs to keep the distinction straight, in fairness to those individuals and their present-day family members and descendants. After doing interviews with several German-Russian midwives and folk healers in Kansas, North Dakota, and Canada (western Saskatchewan), I wrote an article about this phenomenon back in 1989. Again, for those who are interested, here is the full citation:
"The Daughters of Shiphrah: Folk Healers and Midwives of the Great Plains" by Timothy J. Kloberdanz, in the journal "Great Plains Quarterly," (Winter 1989), vol.9, no. 1, pp. 3-12.
Hope these background sources will be of help to those who are interested in pursuing this topic. It is indeed fascinating and much more complex than one might expect.
Merry Christmas and the Happiest of Holidays, Everyone!
Tim
Dr. Timothy J. Kloberdanz
Professor Emeritus of Anthropology
North Dakota State University
Fargo, North Dakota
The following message was sent by Dona Reeves-Marquardt to the GER-VOLGA electronic discussion list on December 20, 2011:
Dr. Kloberdanz' excellent response on this list demonstrates the wide range of available scholarship on this subject, much of it dating back to Germany in the 14th and 15th centuries in particular. I should like to add that charges of witchcraft or practicing folk medicine were primarily aimed at women, although some few men also fell under the net of suspicion. Times of crises brought out rampant accusations, whether it was the plague or economic ills or even crop failures. It might be as simple as passing on the "gift" of folk healing from one generation to another or as serious as casting the evil eye or spells, but it has a long, long history including our own 16th century Massachusetts hysteria and is perpetuated in Texas-German folk tradition as well. Women were particularly vulnerable victims since they were already outside the power structure of society and generally thought of in somewhat mystic terms for a number of reasons. It is a fascinating, difficult topic.
The following message was sent by Horst Gutsche to the GER-VOLGA electronic discussion list on December 19, 2011:
There are books (quite a few in the German language) which deal with occult issues and practices. If you go to wikipedia and google Kurt E. Koch who was born in 1913 and was a pastor in the Evangelical State Church (Landeskirche) of Baden you will find a list of his publications. I have the book "Okkultes ABC." The stories are fascinating. He also wrote the book "Between Christ and Satan" which is a book which has been translated into English. Since a lot of Germans in Russia came from the SW German-language region his stories are connected to some practices in German from Russia villages. Bill Ellis (you can get to him on wikipedia as well) states: "Folklore is the part of culture that people choose to preserve." We have some similar stories in our family.
Horst Gutsche
In Germany, a festival called Walpurgisnacht continues to be held each year in the Harz Mountains. Many Volga German families originated in this area before emigrated to Russia in the 1760s. On this night, witches are reputed to hold a large celebration on the Brocken and await the arrival of spring.
Read more about European witchcraft at Wikipedia.
Witchcraft and Evil Spirits
The excerpt below is from Memories of Norka written by Conrad Brill. Brill was born in Norka in 1895.
"Witchcraft and evil spirits played a big part in people’s lives in all parts of the world and were feared by our ancestors too. I recall many people discussing different folk who were supposed to be able to hex people, livestock, or even crops. I am sure that today any of those fears could be explained away without abuse or insult to some poor old soul who was just different. I've heard of a woman named Hahn of Norka, who was supposed to be a Hex (witch) and livestock and chickens couldn't live in her, or her neighbors yard, but would just die off. Nobody seemed to wonder why she would hex her own livestock and keep replacing it with other. Probably the best explanation I could come up with today is, that this parcel of land was low and on the bank of the creek through the village and downstream from Faiglers leather tannery. When he emptied his vats of solution into the creek, people couldn't scoop water from the creek to water their plants in the yards, or the plants would die. Probably much of that solution flooded into the Hahn backyard and as it settled or dried, the chickens picking in it died from the settlings. Maybe the cattle in the yard had to drink of this polluted water, or the chemicals could have affected the grass there too.
People had all kinds of gimmicks, which they believed would keep the Hex from putting the hex on them. Why they always singled out a poor old widow or old man as a witch is beyond any reasonable logic. I have heard people making statements when their young babies or grandchildren were suffering from baby ailments, such as "that old Hex was here visiting again this morning, now the baby won't sleep all night, but screams in pain and suffering." Some would place evil spirit fighting equipment under the babies’ pillow to ward off the evil spirits. I remember this one lady telling her daughter in law to put scissors, crochet hooks, knitting needles and several other items under the baby’s pillow. I now believe that the babies diet was the biggest factor to its unrest. When you recall how we all walked around chewing on a wedge of summer sausage, salami, or other spicy food item, it's easy to find reasons for a baby’s discomfort. Mothers usually gave a child a piece of wurst. Nobody thought about making sausage without spices just for the little one to eat. The fathers usually put an old horseshoe next to the door and each night when they retired they pushed it in front of the door to ward off evil spirits. We once lived in a house where the property owner had three houses on two lots and two Volga German families in each house. A non-German family moved into one of the sides when it became vacant and the moving family had left an old horseshoe lying by the door when they moved. There were six sheds built together behind the houses, one for each family. The sheds were all as one building, with partitions and separate doors. The man picked up the horseshoe and took it out to the shed and was nailing it, toe downward over the shed door, when I walked out to get acquainted. I asked him why he was nailing the shoe over the door and he explained that by placing it there with the opening up, good luck from above could collect there and filter into the owner’s life. I went right in and got my horseshoe from behind the door and nailed it over our woodshed door, figuring, instead of keeping the evil spirits out of the house, with all the good luck coming into the shoe we wouldn't need to worry about the evil spirits, besides it was just a dumb belief someone started drous (in the old country)."