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Hand Picked Pennsylvania German Recipes... Take a tour of these delectable pages, and try a few... We REALLY DO recommend the stuffed pig stomach... Additional Local Interest Links This area is being updated....
HISTORY OF THE HEX SIGN Hex signs and typically decorate barns and are integral parts of American culture. They were developed by the Pennsylvania Dutch, or Pennsylvania Germans (these names are synonymous and can be interchanged). Settling predominantly in southeastern Pennsylvania, this ethnic group evolved into one of the most original and colorful in the eastern United States. Emigrating here in the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries from the German-speaking lands of central Europe-Germany, Switzerland, |
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| Alsace-Lorraine,
and the old Austrian Empire, they were a diverse group, both
culturally and ethnically. When settling together in Pennsylvania, they
not only melted their traditions together, but also borrowed cultural
elements from their neighbors, including the Delaware Indians, the
Scotch-Irish and Welsh, the English Quakers, and the blacks (many of who
learned to speak Pennsylvania German).
With their diverse European backgrounds, the Pennsylvania Germans formed one people united in culture, except for religion. with a culture united except for religion. On this count, they were divided into majority and minority factions, or as stated by sociologists, into "churches" (groups who accept the world and its culture) and "sects" (groups who disapprove of "worldly" trends and attempt to live austere lives away from the reaches of temptation). The church groups were in the majority, including the Lutherans and the Reformed, denominations that became the American offspring of the German and Swiss reformations of the 16th century. The sectarian groups, now also denominations in the American terminology, were the offspring of the Anabaptist and Pietist movements in the 16th and 17th centuries. These groups included the Mennonites, Amish, Brethren, Moravians. Often called the "Plain People" or the "Plain Dutch" because of their simplicity and plainness in dress, speech, and mode of living, there was some variation among sect, with some being plainer than others. This religious difference helps explain why hex signs are not found everywhere in southeastern Pennsylvania. For example, they are common in Berks County, a typically Lutheran and Reformed area, but mainly absent in Lancaster County, where the "plain" groups formed and created the dominant culture. What Are Hex Signs? Hex signs are decorations, usually geometrical, in the form of large stars of various designs, painted on the facades or gable ends of Pennsylvania barns. "Hex" is the German word for "witch." According to journalists and the tourist industry from early in the 1920s, these decorations were placed on barns to ward off the evil influences of neighboring witches or possibly the Devil. This is only one theory about the beginnings of hex signs. The second theory merely suggests that the decorated barn is merely an extension of PA German folk art, extending from decorated objects within the home, to the large plain surfaces of the Pennsylvania barn. The second phenomenon, of more recency, is the hex-sign myth, stemming from popular tourist literature about the hex signs, with the development of new sign designs and the linking of meanings to each symbol or design. Although the tradition of painting barns with hex signs began in the nineteenth century, in the 1860s or before, and has lasted to present day, the mythology about the meaning of the signs has its roots in the 1920s. During that era, two events focused public attention on the witchcraft beliefs of the Pennsylvania Germans. First, Wallace Nutting (1861-1941), in his book Pennsylvania Beautiful (1924), raised the claim that the barn signs were put there to ward off evil. He referred to the barn signs as "Hexafoos" (witch foot). Secondly, a witchcraft-related murder in York County, Pennsylvania, in 1929 took the attention of the news media, introducing such words as "hex" (witch), "hexerei" (witchcraft), and "ferhext" (bewitched) into current American vocabulary. Seeming very plausible, these two events resulted in the term hex sign, which first appeared in printed material in the mid-1930s. Source: Hex Signs, Pennsylvania Dutch Barn Symbols and Their Meaning, by Don Yoder and Thomas E Graves, copyright 1989, EP Dutton, New York |
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