Mystical systems
Braucherei (Pow-wow)
Direct answer
Braucherei (Pow-wow): Braucherei, known in English as pow-wow, is the folk healing and protective practice of the Pennsylvania Dutch, worked with spoken prayers, gestures and written charms.
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At a glance
- Also called
- pow-wow magic, powwowing, pennsylvania dutch folk magic, long lost friend
- Found in
- Mystical Systems
- Related
- Cunning Folk, Hoodoo, Folk Magic, Sator Square
Braucherei, known in English as pow-wow, is the folk healing and protective practice of the Pennsylvania Dutch, worked with spoken prayers, gestures and written charms.
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What is pow-wow magic?
Braucherei is the Pennsylvania German word for a body of charms brought from the Rhineland and Switzerland by settlers in the eighteenth century. A practitioner, called a braucher, speaks a short formula, usually naming the Trinity or a saint, while making the sign of the cross or passing the hands over the patient. There are charms to stop bleeding, take out a burn, protect cattle, bind a thief and turn back a hex.
Braucherei (Pow-wow)’s practitioners understand it as Christian prayer, and many will not take a fee. Written protections belong to it too: house blessings, the Sator Square, and the Himmelsbrief, a letter said to have fallen from heaven, kept in the home or carried. The English name pow-wow was borrowed from an Algonquian word for a healer, but the practice itself is European.
On the tree of the hidden arts: Magic and protection.
What sets Braucherei (Pow-wow) apart
Braucherei is spoken first and written second. A charm is usually said three times, under the breath, with a set gesture, and custom holds that it is passed on across the sexes, a man teaching a woman and a woman a man. It frames itself as church people's prayer and draws its words from the Bible and the saints. Its opposite in local speech is Hexerei, harmful witchcraft, which a braucher is expected to undo and never to work.
- People: the Pennsylvania Dutch, German-speaking settlers and their descendants
- Handbook: John George Hohman, Der lang verborgene Freund, Reading, 1820
- English title: The Long Lost Friend; later printings add Pow-Wows
- Practitioner: a braucher (man) or braucherin (woman)
- Written charms: the Himmelsbrief, house blessings and the Sator Square
Often mistaken for something else: Hoodoo grew among African Americans in the South from African, European and Native sources; Braucherei is the German-speaking settlers' charm tradition, centred on Pennsylvania.
The story behind Braucherei (Pow-wow)
The key text is Der lang verborgene Freund by John George Hohman, printed at Reading, Pennsylvania, in 1820 and translated as The Long Lost Friend; later editions carry the title Pow-Wows. Hohman compiled it from older German charm books. The tradition drew national notice in 1928, when Nelson Rehmeyer of York County was killed by three men who believed he had hexed one of them. It has continued quietly since.
Why Braucherei (Pow-wow) matters
Braucherei (Pow-wow) is the best documented European charm tradition in North America, with a printed handbook and living practitioners to compare.
How to read Braucherei (Pow-wow)
Families turned to it for everyday hurts and for protection of house and stock; folklorists record it now as part of Pennsylvania Dutch heritage.
Braucherei (Pow-wow) in practice: an example
A farm child with a burn might be taken to a neighbour who blows on it three times and whispers a verse learned from her grandfather.
Where readings of Braucherei (Pow-wow) go wrong
Braucherei (Pow-wow)’s charms are prayers, not medicine; burns, bleeding and illness need proper medical care.
Sources and editorial method
This entry summarizes the tradition in the Almanac's own words; where no source is listed, it is an editorial summary rather than a primary text, and symbolic readings are named as the tradition's, not as fact.
- Source
- The Great Almanac Dictionary
- Category
- Mystical Systems
- Aliases
- pow-wow magic, powwowing, pennsylvania dutch folk magic, long lost friend, braucherei meaning, pow-wow healing
- Last updated
- 2026-09-26
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Common questions
What is pow-wow magic?
It is the English name for Braucherei, the charm-based folk healing of the Pennsylvania Dutch. It uses spoken Christian prayers, gestures and written blessings for healing and protection.
Is pow-wow Native American?
No. Only the name was borrowed, from an Algonquian word for a healer. The charms come from German-speaking Europe and are unrelated to the powwow gatherings of Native nations.
What is The Long Lost Friend?
It is the English title of John George Hohman's charm book of 1820, a collection of prayers, remedies and protective formulas that became the standard handbook of the tradition.
