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Home Events Powwowing in Sympathy with your Neighbors: Shared Lenape Plant Knowledge Within Pennsylvania German Folk Cures
Past Event

Powwowing in Sympathy with your Neighbors: Shared Lenape Plant Knowledge Within Pennsylvania German Folk Cures

June 23, 2022, 1:00pm to 2:30pm - Peggy Bancroft Hall
Reenactment at Pennsbury Manor

Katherine Nute will discuss the influence of Lenape medicinal practices on Moravian and Pennsylvania German settlers in eastern Pennsylvania. She will trace the roots of both indigenous medicine and the folk healing traditions, known as Braucherei, of the immigrant German community.  Although Braucherei, or powwowing as it is called in English, is European in origin, the notion of powwowing was appropriated from the Algonquian languages in the 17th century. Braucherei, or powwowing, is a belief system that blended elements of religion with health and healing. Katherine will provide evidence that demonstrates the influence of Native medicinal practices on the Pennsylvania German religious healing traditions. A comparative study of medicinal herbs used by both Lenape and the Pennsylvania Germans, as well as discussions with Theresa Johnson, a modern Lenape healer, indicates that interactions between the immigrant German community and the indigenous Lenape people were more influential than has previously been documented. 

Katherine Nute’s research on this topic was completed for her Master of Arts in History at East Stroudsburg University. She also holds a Master of Science in Education from Long Island University and a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations and Russian Studies from Wheaton College. She has presented on eclectic thesis topics at academic conferences at Plymouth University and at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University.  

Katherine owes her fascination for both religion and Native American culture to her parents, who exposed her to these topics of study at a young age, taking her to indigenous events in New Hampshire, where she spent the majority of her formative years. During her junior year of high school, she wrote her first thesis on portrayals of Native Americans in works of literature, attempting to show how incorporating works of indigenous authors into our literary consciousness was an important and necessary step in public education. For the past fourteen years she has taught students in the East Stroudsburg Area School District to embrace the study of history, culture, and community.  She currently teaches gifted students in grades six through twelve at ESASD’s North Campus.