Pow-Wows; or, Long Lost Friend is a book by John George Hohman published in 1820. Hohman was a Pennsylvania Dutch healer; the book is a collection of home- and folk-remedies, as well as spells and talismans.
It is a translation of a German original, Der lange verborgene Freund, oder, Getreuer und Christlicher Unterricht für jedermann, enthaltend: wunderbare und probmäßige Mittel und Künste, sowohl für die Menschen als das Vieh ("The Long Hidden Friend, [1] or, True and Christian Instructions for Everyone. Comprising Wonderful and Well Tested Remedies and Arts, for Men as well as for Livestock.") The folk magic tradition called "pow-wowing" takes its name from the title of later editions of this book.
Folklorist and novelist Manly Wade Wellman referred to the book and the traditions it embodies (one of which being that if the book is carried on one's person it will act as a shield against bad fortune), especially in his "Silver John" stories such as Who Fears the Devil? .
The book gained some notoriety when it was found in the possession of John Blymire, a Pennsylvania man who was charged with murdering a neighbor whom he believed to have put a curse on him. [2]
The contents of the book are varied. They include such matters as:
Powwow, also called Brauche, Brauchau, or Braucherei in the Pennsylvania Dutch language, 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. These folk traditions continue to the present day in both rural and urban settings, and have spread across North America.
John George Hohman was a German-American printer, book seller and compiler of collections of herbal remedies, magical healings, and charms. He immigrated to the USA from Germany in 1802, settled in the area around Reading, Pennsylvania, in the Pennsylvania Dutch community, where he printed and sold broadsides, chapbooks and books and practised and instructed in the arts of folk magic and folk religion which became known as pow-wow. He was active between 1802 and 1846.
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