Ohio History Journal

ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICANCE OF PENNSYLVANIA

DUTCH BARN SYMBOLS *

 

By AUGUST C. MAHR

 

On a great number of Pennsylvania Dutch barns, there are

geometrical ornaments painted on the outside walls; ornaments

which, as a rule, show      some sort of star within a circular disk

(Figs. 1, 2, 8, 10b). They occur most frequently in Berks and

the neighboring counties; less frequently, in other parts of Penn-

sylvania; and, locally, even in Ohio and other states of the Union

where Pennsylvania Dutch farmers have settled.

Due to Ohio's close proximity to Pennsylvania, as well as to

its importance, in early frontier days, as both a temporary and

permanent place of settlement for eastern farmers venturing west-

ward, it is in Ohio that not only barns of Pennsylvania Dutch

structure are more frequently found than anywhere else outside

of Pennsylvania, but here one may also see the barn symbols that

are so striking a characteristic of the Pennsylvania Dutch counties

mentioned above.

The Pennsylvania Dutch barn in question is of the so-called

Swiss bank-barn type. It means that it is erected along an em-

bankment in such a way that its main entrance door leads to the

heavily planked floor of its wooden upper story.          This floor is at

the same time the ceiling of the lower story formed by the stone

base structure which contains the stables for the livestock and is

 

* This study grew out of a paper read before the Anthropology Section of the

Ohio Academy of Science, at its annual meeting, in May, 1943, at Columbus, Ohio.

The writer is glad to express his gratitude to Professor Edgar N. Transeau of Ohio

State University for the photographs taken in Pennsylvania, of barns shown in

these pages; to Dean Carl F. Wittke, and Professor Clarence Ward, both of Oberlin

College, for photographs and scholarly aid; to Professors John W. Price, and Wilmer

G. Stover, both of Ohio State University, and to Dr. James H. Rodabaugh and Mrs.

Margaret Stutsman, of the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, and Mrs.

Mary Jane Meyer, of the Ohio War History Commission, for helpful field-work; to Dr.

Jean Weltfish, of Columbia University, for valuable bibliographical advice; to the Grad-

uate School of Ohio State University for generous help in securing the illustrative ma-

terial; and, last but not least, to the publishing houses, in London, of A. Zwemmer,

Macmillan. & Co., and Methuen & Co., Ltd., for their permission to reproduce pictures,

from works published under their imprint, as illustrations of this article.

(I)

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2    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

accessible through doors on the lower level of the slanting terrain. As a rule, the barn, in its full length, carries a wooden fore-bay which projects from the upper story and overhangs the outside wall of the stables to the extent of about six to eight feet. Fre- quently, however, the barn is built on level ground with a ramp leading to the upper story. In Pennsylvania as well as Ohio, these barns are usually red, often with white arches over the white- framed fore-bay openings. Wherever barn symbols are found, they are painted in various colors on the fore-bay, or the back, or the gable sides, or on all four walls of the wooden superstructure. The one or other barn with such star-shaped symbols on its outer board walls is found in practically every region of Ohio where Pennsylvania Dutch from Berks County or its neighbor- hood have settled. The writer has selected at random a few lo- cations where they are in evidence today: Route 188, 1 mile east of Circleville, Pickaway Co.; farm of Mr. S. Paul Valentine (red barn with two black-and-yellow eight-pointed stars

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BARN SYMBOLS                     3

in white disks on fore-bay). This is, without a question, one of the finest Berks County barns in Ohio. It was erected, ca. 1840, by a man of the name of Berger, from Pennsylvania. With each re-painting, the symbols, that are as old as the barn, were re-touched in black-and-yellow in order to retain the original appearance of the building (Fig. 1). Route 23, between Columbus and Delaware, a mile north of Stratford, Delaware Co. (red barn with three six-pointed stars on fore-bay). Route 203, between Delaware and Radnor, Delaware Co. (red barn with three six-pointed stars on fore-bay, and one eight-pointed star in each gable). The barn is known as "the old Sharadin barn." Route 33, between Logan and Rock Bridge, Hocking Co., 2-3 miles south of Rock Bridge (red barn with a star in each gable). Route 73, between Waynesville and Franklin, Warren Co. (barn with three sky-blue five-pointed stars on each gable side). Route 18, 2 miles north of Republic, Seneca Co.; farm of Mr. L. J. Neikirk (red barn with white curved club-armed swastika1). Route 53, 7 miles north of Upper Sandusky, Wyandot Co.; farm of Mr. R. R. Everhart (red barn with white five-pointed star in white ring). Date on barn: 1916. 1 Cf. infra, page 22.

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4     OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

Despite the considerable number of additional places where

such barn symbols occur in Ohio, it is an undeniable fact that

they are gradually passing out of existence, the main reason be-

ing that their magic symbolism is rapidly dropping into oblivion

under the leveling effect of the changed environment. Although

to a much lesser degree, the same holds true for the Pennsylvania

Dutch countryside proper: about fifty years ago practically no

barn in Berks County was without such symbols; today they have

become much rarer.

By far the majority of Germans that settled in Ohio up to

1820 did not come from Germany directly but from Pennsylvania²

and, in particular, from Berks County. The organized Moravian

(and other sectarian) colonies excepted, settlers from Berks

County are frequently listed in early Ohio local records. Trepte

mentions several German families from that county who, in 1796,

founded and named "Miamisburg" (Montgomery Co.).3 About

1810, the settlers of Cermantown (Montgomery Co., Ohio), al-

most without an exception, were Germans from Berks and Center

Counties.⁴  Other Pennsylvania counties in the neighborhood of

Berks that appear in the records, especially of Montgomery

County, Ohio, as having contributed German settlers, are Lancas-

ter County,5 York County,⁶ and Lebanon County.7

Pennsylvania Dutch immigration into Ohio after 1820--this

being approximately the last year covered by Trepte's excellent

study--has not yet been sufficiently explored to furnish reliable

data. Yet, it is definitely certain that within the next few decades

after 1820, a great number of Germans from Pennsylvania and,

particularly, from Berks and the neighboring counties established

themselves in various parts of Ohio.⁸

It is an outstanding characteristic of the Pennsylvania Dutch

 

2 TDO, 174 ff. (Explanations of this and other abbreviations will be found at

the end of this article.)

3 Ibid., 308; see also note (a): "This [Berks] was one of the counties that gave

Ohio most of her Pennsylvania Dutch" (Transl., A. C. M.).

⁴ Ibid., 312 and 313, n. (a), (c), and (g).

5 Ibid., 309 and  322.

6 Ibid., 308 and 323.

⁷ Ibid., 313, n. (e).

8 For instance, the writer knows, from family records, that a group of families

which almost might be called a "colony," about the middle of the last century, moved

from Berks and Dauphin counties, Pennsylvania, to Delaware County, Ohio, where

they are still in evidence.

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BARN SYMBOLS                         5

 

that they have emigrated from Pennsylvania in groups rather than

individually and that, thereby, they have preserved a great many

of their traditions and general habits of life in the new environ-

ment. What, therefore, in the subsequent pages is said about the

Pennsylvania Dutch and their barn symbols in Pennsylvania, ba-

sically applies also to those in Ohio or other locations where they

have settled. This study, however, is concerned with the funda-

mental facts about these symbols rather than with their present-

day application.

The barn symbols are popularly called "Hex Signs," that is,

protective magic against witchcraft. The "Dutch" in Pennsylvania

and, in particular, the owners of barns that bear such marks as-

sure the inquisitive stranger, however, that the object of these de-

signs is exclusively decorative. Obviously, they are sensitive about

their "Hex Signs," especially so if that term is used, and even the

most tactful of investigators soon finds out that he has been han-

dling a "hot potato."

A similar guardedness in this matter prevails among some

authors of books on Pennsylvania Dutch life and customs, es-

pecially among those of native stock who are sensitive of the feel-

ings of their relatives and friends. It is not often that one finds

a writer, himself of Pennsylvania Dutch extraction, expressing

himself with the refreshing frankness of Mr. Weygandt who

writes: "The symbols are supposed to keep lightning from striking

the barn that has them painted on its wooden sides, and to prevent

the animals housed in the barn from being bewitched, or 'ferhexed'

as we say in the vernacular."⁹ Some of the native authors touch

upon the subject lightly in smiling embarrassment. Others beat

about the bush with vague phrases of apology for what might look

like superstition unbecoming an otherwise quite sober-minded

group of Americans. One of the authors has even tried to remove

the stigma of superstition by proving that, far from being "Hex

Signs," all the various barn symbols are "the Lilies of Ephrata"

in disguise.10 The beautifully illustrated book provides edifying

 

9 C. Weygandt, The Red Hills, . . . (Philadelphia, 1929), 126; similar state-

ments, ibid., 10 f., 65 f.

10 J. J. Stoudt, Consider the Lilies How They Grow. An Interpretation of the

Symbolism of Pennsylvania German Art (Allentown, 1937).

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6     OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

reading to the fancier of local sentimental literature, but it helps

in no way to solve the question about the origin and meaning of

the barn symbols.

What is needed here, is an unbiased and unemotional ap-

proach. The key-point is that the Pennsylvania Dutch farmers,

particularly in Berks County and its neighborhood, always have

been, and in many respects still are, not merely farmers but peas-

ants in the best European sense. Not everyone who tills the soil

and raises livestock is a peasant. Whereas the mere farmer's ac-

tivities are based on cold empiric facts that may be learned in

agricultural schools, the peasant's life is governed by fixed cus-

toms, if not ritual, peculiar to his particular group and origin.

These customs attend all his chores in the fields, in the cattle-barn,

in the house, and rule his domestic relations, his dealings with his

fellows, his dress, his habits of eating and drinking, his recrea-

tions, in short, every step of his earthly pilgrimage from the cradle

to the grave. Most of these rules and customs reach down into

times immemorial. They contain many taboos that today are no

longer obvious, and they include innumerable symbolic actions and

signs traceable to prehistoric magic as well as to pagan mythology

and ritual.

The Pennsylvania Dutch are quite unique in this country, in

that they have tenaciously clung to a great many of the peasant

traditions which their ancestors had brought with them from the

Old Country. Again and again, they migrated in larger and smaller

groups from the same parts, mostly the Upper Rhine, the Rhenish

Palatinate (Rheinpfalz) and Switzerland, but also from other

West and South German states. They are further unique in that

they maintained their communal form of life in the New World,

both to their own benefit and that of William Penn and his Quaker

associates. The greater number of these so-called "Palatines"

(Pfalzer) landed, mostly in the harbor of Philadelphia, between

1710 and 1775.11

This adherence of the Pennsylvania Dutch, for more than two

 

11 Cf. R. B. Strassburger, Pennsylvania German Pioneers, 3 vols. (Norristown,

1934). This is a publication of the original lists of arrivals in the port of Phila-

delphia from 1727 to 1808.

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BARN SYMBOLS                           7

 

centuries, to the native peasant customs of their German fore-

fathers can only be explained by the fact that they did not lose

their original group consciousness after they had settled in

America. Instead of being readily absorbed by the new environ-

ment, as were the countless individual settlers from other German,

and non-German, peasant communities of Europe, the Pennsyl-

vania Dutch possessed in the peasant traditions of their old home-

land a cultural force that was sufficiently strong to shape their

new environment into a peasant community of distinctive charac-

ter. In achieving this, they were substantially aided by a very

happy coincidence: the amazing similarity between their old home-

land and Pennsylvania. This similarity not only extends to the

physiognomy of the landscape but also to climate and soil condi-

tions. There is hardly a region in the Keystone State, which has

not an almost exact counterpart somewhere in southwestern Ger-

many. Such exceptionally good fortune allowed them to continue

in their new home, with a minimum of adjustments, where they

had left off in the Old Country. Nothing, in the new environment,

was so essentially different as to estrange them from their native

peasant views and practices.12

Strangely enough, this important basic fact has been ignored

by a recent writer about "the Dutch country."¹³ He has the feel-

ing that there is a derogatory connotation implied in the term

"peasant" since to him "peasant" and "serf" are synonymous. His

definition of "peasantry" makes no allowance for its most distin-

guishing, cultural feature: namely, the age-old devotion of the

peasant, steadfastly carried from generation to generation, to fixed

customs that govern every phase of his life. On the grounds of

this omission, Mr. Weygandt denies the peasant character of the

rural Pennsylvania Dutch community. Indeed, his particular no-

tion of what constitutes "peasantry" leaves him no other choice.

One may grant some of his prerequisites "for the develop-

 

12 That is exactly the reverse of what happened to the Holland Dutch immi-

grants, who eventually became the "Boers" in South Africa. Citing S. Cloete's The

Turning Wheel, R. Peattie (Geography in Human Destiny [New York: Stewart, 1940],

34 f.) demonstrates how the totally different environment transformed these stolid

Dutch peasants into impassioned, adventuring pioneers, an entirely novel type that

retained next to none of its ancestral peasant features.

13 C. Weygandt, The Dutch Country (New York, 1939), 109 f.

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8    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

ment of a peasantry," such as "a long established civilization,"

"stability in social conditions," and "a very slowly changing order

down the years."  But peasantry certainly does not include "a

rigid caste system; recognized and unchallenged privilege; a frank

and ungrudging acknowledgment on the part of the many that a

chosen few are set above the crowd." It does not agree with the

facts of history that "there must be all these conditions or a peas-

antry cannot be."

The free peasants of Switzerland, for example, have main-

tained for more than six hundred years their model democratic

republic, with its rural citizenry adhering, as staunchly as ever, to

their magnificent old peasant culture. For another example, there

is the free peasantry of Dithmarschen who, in 1500, victoriously

defended, in the battle of Hemmingstedt, their liberty against the

combined nobles of Denmark and Holstein. True, there are re-

gions where the peasants used to live in a condition of thraldom;

but there are surely as many where, for ages, they have been liv-

ing as their own masters on their own soil. These well-known

facts certainly do not bear out the statement: "Above all there

must be laborers on land of which they do not themselves own a

foot for peasantry to be. A peasantry presupposes an agricultural

society, in which the laborer works not for himself, but for a land-

owner. A peasantry cannot exist in a country in which a landlord

class does not exist, in which authority and position and money

do not persist in a family generation after generation."

Of course, a peasantry of Mr. Weygandt's definition could

not exist in the United States, but that does not alter the fact that

the Pennsylvania Dutch deserve credit for having preserved, right

in our midst, what according to all accepted standards is a true

German peasant culture. The majority of those immigrants from

the Palatinate and Switzerland, who came to Pennsylvania by the

shipload throughout most of the 18th century, were peasants in

the best possible sense. Indeed, a great many of them brought to

this country more than enough money for the purchase, and sub-

sequent cultivation, of large tracts of fertile farm lands. Had

they been, in their German homeland, down-trodden day-laborers

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BARN SYMBOLS                        9

 

or serfs, they would never have been the model farmers that they

are still today, nor would they have possessed the moral dignity

and cultural vigor prerequisite to maintaining themselves, in the

New World, as a close-knit and unique peasant community.

The barn symbols here discussed occur in America ex-

clusively with the Pennsylvania Dutch peasantry.  Hence one

may expect some light on their origin and significance from anal-

ogous occurrences in German peasant art which, like the peasant

art of any part of Europe, is a depository of prehistoric and pagan

values otherwise long obliterated.

Of the unlimited number of different ornamental patterns

that exist on earth, only a very few have been designed as vessels

for symbolic concepts. Most of the symbolic ornaments encoun-

tered in Pennsylvania Dutch peasant art and, in particular, as

barn signs, are stars with five, six, eight, or more, points (Figs.

1, 2, 8, 10b), but there also occurs the one or other design that is

not a star, as, for instance, the Swastika (Fig. 10a).

As one examines the general distribution of these symbolic

patterns one easily sees that their use by the Pennsylvania Dutch

is just one instance among many others. Up to the present day,

and regardless of period styles and local tendencies in the dec-

orative arts, they occur in the peasant art and craft, not of Ger-

many alone, but of all European countries without an exception.

Naturally, the question arises: where and why have they orig-

inated? And next: why and how have they spread the way they

did?

There is ample evidence¹⁴ that these various symbols that oc-

cur in European peasant art, inclusive of the Pennsylvania Dutch

area, have their origin in a Cult of the Sun that during the Bronze

Age was practiced "in Ireland on the west and throughout the

greater part of Europe."15

It is more than probable that the cultic initiative came from

the Mediterranean, and that the symbols, along with the Sun Cult,

were carried over well-established trade routes all throughout

Europe. Some of these routes, the earliest in fact, were the sea

 

14 Cf. infra, page 15 ff.

15 COPA, 254 ff.

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10   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

lanes by which the Cretans and Mycenaeans transported their fin-

ished products, mainly bronze objects and pottery, not only along

the entire Mediterranean coast but also "to Great Britain for cop-

per and tin; to Ireland for gold; they also visited the coasts of

the English Channel, and the North Sea; and traded for amber

with the inhabitants of Denmark."16

By far the greater exchange of goods took place, however,

over cross-continental trade routes. Two of them led to the amber

deposits of the North: one ran from the Adriatic over the Bren-

ner Pass, down the river Inn to the Danube, and from there,

across the Bohemian Forest, down the valley of the Moldau and

along the river Elbe to its mouth. Another started at the Gulf of

Trieste, ran northeast to Laibach and Graz and descended to the

Danube. "The tributary March was then ascended and, after

crossing Moravia, the route passed through Silesia and followed

the Oder to the [Baltic] coast." A branch route "diverged from

this one at Posen and followed the Vistula to Danzig."

"A third less important route led to the North Sea from the

Mediterranean, by way of the Rhone and the Rhine."

"Besides these main 'Amber Routes' there were routes across

Alpine passes to France and Germany which followed the Rhone,

Loire, Seine and Rhine, and routes to and along the broad Danube

Valley by way of the Inn, Save, and other tributaries."17

Considering the indubitable existence of the Sun Cult among

the people who utilized these trade routes both by land and sea

for over a thousand years previous to the dawn of history, one is

not surprised to find the symbolic emblems of that Cult spread,

even today, among the folk of the entire area that was once trav-

ersed by these trade channels. The most significant of all was the

Danube Valley route, not only because of its importance as a di-

rect connection between Southeastern and West Central Europe

but also because it was traversed on a great number of points by

the "Amber Routes." The most careful and methodical explora-

tion of Bronze Age sites, throughout the entire European conti-

 

16 Ibid., 261 f.

17 The above survey of the Bronze Age trade routes of Europe has been condensed,

and partly quoted, from COPA, 256 ff. where also a good map is found (page 258).

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BARN SYMBOLS                       11

 

nent, over many decades, has proved that "the Sun Cult must have

been in honor throughout Europe for at least 1500 years, and was

consequently one of the most enduring religions the world has

known."18

Beyond being graphic representations of the powers ven-

erated, the symbolic signs in practically every known religion that

possesses such, are widely used for magic purposes. The people

carry them on their bodies as protective amulets, they apply them

to their houses, stables, and barns, furniture and household uten-

sils, either to ward off evil influences or to enlist the aid of ben-

eficent powers in securing fertility and good health for themselves,

their livestock and their crops. This being true today, in Christian

countries, it must have been even more so in prehistoric times

when religion and magic were one and the same.

It has been argued that designs of this nature may have orig-

inated independently in various parts of the earth. That may be

true for a very few and very primitive ornamental patterns, such

as straight and curved lines, both single and parallel; zigzag and

wavy bands; cross-hatch; triangles, quadrangles and circles. It

cannot apply, however, wherever a symbolic significance attaches

to the ornament. Once a design has acquired the quality of sym-

bol, this quality inevitably functions as the vehicle by which the

design as such is carried from place to place. This elemental in-

terrelation remains constant, regardless of modifications that both

the symbolic meaning and the design itself may have undergone

during their wanderings throughout the ages. It also explains

why today these designs are promiscuously and interchangeably

applied as propitious symbols, while their original function, magic

or ritual, has long been obliterated or, at best, can be but vaguely

discerned through the veil of time.

No matter what amount of migration and political re-group-

ing has taken place on the continent, during the Early European

Iron (Hallstadt) Age and the subsequent eras of history, the

ancient symbols have continued in use among the European peas-

antry, up to this day. This proves indirectly that all participants

18 COPA, 255.

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12   OHIO ARCHAOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

in such migrations and political re-shufflings, invaders and invaded alike, possessed the identical sub-stratum of magic concepts and were unaffected by subsequent religious creeds of a higher spiri- tuality successively superimposed upon them.    It is still in this magic sub-stratum, unchanged throughout the ages and apparently unchangeable, that even today all popular credences are rooted. For the validity of this statement it matters not what magic is used, but that magic is used. The first dating of the application of such symbolic designs in the European Bronze Age becomes possible through their oc- currence in the Aegean Culture of the Eastern Mediterranean.19 They are found on the Island of Crete, and at Mycenae, and some even in pre-Aegean cultures of Western Asia. Figure 3 shows a star-shaped symbol on a Cretan terracotta sarcophagus (of ca. 19 For the dating of the Bronze Age, cf. 0. Montelius, "Bronzezeit," in Reallexikon der Vorgeschichte, ed. M. Ebert, Vol. II, 925; quoted COPA, 208.

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BARN SYMBOLS                 13

1300 B. C.); Figure 4 represents a gold pendant with many- pointed stars, probably used as an amulet. It was found, by Schliemann, at Mycenae, and it is to be dated at ca. 1550 B. C. Of the same provenience, date and magic function, is the gold-foil ornament shown in Figure 5, whose design is the "six-petaled flower-star"20 so familiar to all students of folk art. Evidently all three of these star-like designs are symbols of the sun. It appears that all of them, especially the latter, sec- ondarily and much later, acquired some bearing on fertility, for 20 The writer has adopted this term for the sake of convenient description al- though the design surely was never meant to represent a flower.

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• 14
 

BARN SYMBOLS                       15 they are almost universally found, alone or in combinations, on peasant utensils pertaining to the care of livestock, in particular, of horses (Figs. 6 and 7).21

The connection of the sun symbol with the horse is primary, that with other livestock, secondary and by anal- ogy, as it were. Danish and Irish Bronze Age findings prove that the horse itself figured as a symbol in this early Sun Cult. In Denmark there was discovered "an en- graved bronze disk six inches in diameter, cov- ered with gold foil, mounted on a wheeled carriage drawn by a horse." Similar disks found in Ireland show a design almost identical with that on the Danish disk. "The date of this sun chariot is about 1300

B. C. The Irish disks have lugs on the margin exactly as in the Danish specimen, the lower one for fastening it to the axle and the upper one for holding the reins."22 The discovery of two more horses, fragments of a ceremonial carriage, and of another sun disk prove beyond a doubt the age-old connection of the horse with sun worship, later fixed in the familiar Graeco-Italic myth of the sun god traveling across the sky in a chariot drawn by horses. Although in northern and central Europe no such later 21 Further illustrations: from Sweden, in HPASw, Figs. 189, 192, 196; from Tyrol, in HPAAu, Figs. 138-40; from Northern Italy, in HPAIt, Figs. 341-3, 366-8, 373-4. 22 COPA, 254.

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16   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY formulation seems to have originated (or, if originated, was superseded by other religious notions), yet the persistent oc- currence, in European peasant art, of sun symbols in connection with horses shows the enormous surviving power of the primeval concept.

As stated above, it appears that the initiative toward this widespread Sun Cult came from the Aegeans, and that the Cult itself, together with its symbols, traveled along the various cross- continental trade routes, from the coastal trading posts of the Aegeans, to practically all parts of Europe. Indirect evidence for this comes from the fact that symbolic objects pertaining to other Aegean cults were likewise found at various inland points of Europe while the cults themselves have left no traces. Several copper specimens of the typically Cretan symbolic Double-Ax, found in France and Germany, "with a perforation too small to

• 16
 

BARN SYMBOLS                     17

• 17
 



• 18
 

BARN SYMBOLS                            19

 

take an actual shaft, seem to mark an early trade route," for "it

is likely, too, that this sacred symbol was invested with an ex-

change value."23

Moreover, from the Copper Age until far into the Early Iron

(Hallstadt) Age, there occur, especially in Ireland, but also else-

where, crescent-shaped personal ornaments very similar to those

luniform necklaces of embossed gold foil found in Mycenaean

tombs.   It matters little whether they are to be interpreted as

moon symbols or as horns of the Sacred Bull whose worship was

linked, on the Island of Crete, with that of the Double-Ax.

Doubtless they were cultic symbols, and their occurrence in cen-

tral and western Europe is surely due to Aegean influences having

filtered in from the coastal trading posts. A probable reason for

the universal acceptance of the Sun Cult may have been its singular

appeal to the inhabitants of the northern moderate zone. Its sym-

bolic "astral representations, especially the solar disk or forms

derived from   it"24 have been continually used for magical pur-

poses from the earliest times to the present day.

The frequent combination of the "six-petaled flower-star"

with some other solar symbol on European peasant utensils per-

taining to horses and cattle25 is also found on a number of Penn-

sylvania Dutch barns, as is shown in Figures 8 and 10b.

Similar combinations also occur, all over Europe, on various

kinds of objects used by the peasantry in the processing of flax

and wool, in the spinning and weaving of linen, in the making and

laundering of linen goods, particularly on distaffs, weaver's tools,

mangling boards, laundry beetles, etc., and they are even found in

the patterns of lace (Figs. 9a, b, c).²⁶

Evidence for the prehistoric connection of magic sun symbols

with spinning is found in the occurrence of the swastika, both

angular and curved, on a great many spinning whorls unearthed

by Schliemann on the site of ancient Troy (3rd and 4th city).27

 

23 CDoEC, 34, 258, 313 (Map IV); see also supra, Fig. 3, left half.

24 COPA, 298.

25 Supra, page 13 ff.

26 Further illustrations: from Sweden, Lapland, and Iceland, in HPASw, Figs.

143-7, 149, 152, 155, 158, 159, 173-5, 177, 179, 180; from Russia, in HPARus, Figs.

188-202; from Lithuania, in HPARus, Figs. 527-31; from Italy (Abruzzi), in HPAIt,

Fig. 362a.

27 Numerous illustrations in Schliemann's Ilios, some of which are reproduced

in WSw, Figs. 64, 69, 78, 101.

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BARN SYMBOLS                        21

 

Besides, the above-mentioned combination of symbols is fre-

quently used on cradles, beds, salt containers, spoons, spoon racks,

and other implements of the peasant household.28

The heart-shaped figures, occasionally combined with any of

these symbols, may belong to a later stratum of symbolism, al-

though certain heart-shaped ornaments do occur on ancient Cretan

pottery.

The "six-petaled flower-star," evidently as a pre-Christian

sign of immortality, appears as the predominant symbol on grave-

posts in Bosnia.²⁹

In some parts of the Old Saxon region (Nicdersachsen, Ger-

many), stars, in combination with other symbols, are frequently

painted on, or carved into, the frames of barn doors (supra, Fig.

11a, and ZWDV, Fig. 22).

Also with the Pennsylvania Dutch, these symbols, apart from

their use as barn signs, are applied to all kinds of utensils of the

rural household.

Another symbol used by the Pennsylvania Dutch, both on

barns and otherwise, is the swastika; not, however, the familiar,

angular, form but the swastika with curved club-shaped arms such

as found on a barn at Wescoesville (Lehigh County) (Fig. 10a).

Another barn, about one mile south of Wescoesville, on the road

to Macungie, shows a variant: instead of all four arms bending

in the same direction, here both the upper and the lower pair of

arms are curved towards each other (Fig. 10b). Although this

modification of the symbol is likewise of great antiquity (cf. su-

pra, note 27), it may be regarded, in the present case, as merely

a local variant. That is all the more likely since other variations

which are purposely fanciful also occur as barn symbols in south-

eastern Pennsylvania.

The pure form of the curved club-armed swastika is likewise

found in other parts of the Pennsylvania Dutch area, both as a

barn symbol³⁰ and applied to other objects. An elaborate piece of

needle-work "made in 1826 by an emigrant from the Palatinate"31

 

28 For illustrations see the standard works on peasant art, as previously cited.

29 HPAAu, Fig. 506.

30 American Architect, Vol. CLI (1937), page 74.

31 American-German Review, Vol. VII (1941), No. 5 (June), page 2.

• 21
 

22   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY shows two of them below a third (which is a variant of the pure form). As a barn symbol it also occurs in Ohio where it can be seen painted on the barn of Mr. L. J. Neikirk, Route 18, two miles north of Republic, in Seneca County (cf. supra, page 3).

In Germany it is not at all frequent, except in a clearly de- fined area in Westphalia: the District of Herford; secondarily, it occurs in the flat-lands at the mouth of the Vistula (Weichsel- niederung), near Danzig, a region colonized, centuries ago, by set- tlers from the Old Saxon country, presumably Westphalians from the Herford area. This swastika with curved club-shaped arms is merely a va-

• 22
 

BARN SYMBOLS                          23

 

riant of the more familiar, angular, design. As a symbol, most

probably also of the sun, the swastika presumably originated in

India, in prehistoric Dravidian times. From there it traveled both

west and east, possibly even, by way of northeastern Asia, into

the western hemisphere.³² Wherever it occurs later on, be it the

East or the West, it conveys some propitious meaning of good

luck, happiness, long life, or magic protection against evil influ-

ences. In a few cases, it was secondarily adopted into later re-

ligions and local cults.

An attempt to trace the swastika, and in particular its curved

variant, into western Europe again leads to the Aegean culture of

the Island of Crete. On a clay vessel (Middle Minoan I, ca. 2100

B. C.) there occurs the curved swastika, probably an importation

from an earlier, Anatolian, culture (Fig. 12).

It evidently spread, together with the other symbols of the

Sun Cult, from the sea inland by way of the continental trade

routes of the Bronze Age, for it occurs, for instance, on a modern

wooden stamp, from Brittany (France), used for the marking of

consecrated bread (Fig. 13). The design, far from being Chris-

tian, is a swastika-like symbol found, in basically the same form,

on a Cretan vessel (Middle Minoan II, ca. 1800 B. C.) (Fig. 14).

A striking similarity, that can hardly be called accidental, pre-

vails between two swastika designs, both on sword pommels, the

one from Mycenae (Fig. 15a), the other from a Bronze Age de-

posit in Denmark (Fig. 15b).³3

The very same tendency in design appears in a symbolic rock

sculpture of the British Bronze Age, near Ilkley, in Yorkshire

(Fig. 16). Its "winding band" character reveals its connection

with the ornamental style demonstrated in Figures 15a and 15b.³⁴

There are strong indications that the people who made this

rock sculpture were Celts of the Goidelic dialect type. Moreover,

it was in Celtic-speaking Brittany that the bread stamp with that

 

32 About the history of the swastika, see especially WSw, passim.

33 It may prove of some archaeological importance that a design of very much

the same character has been found on a piece of Moundbuilder potteryware, at

Glendora Plantation, Louisiana ("Lower Mississippi Area"); cf. H. C. Shetrone, The

Mound-Builders (New York & London: Appleton, 1941), Fig. 82 (page 142), 145 f.,

371 ff.

³4 Cf. ACA, 57 ff.

• 23
 

24   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY swastika-like symbol was found which has been discussed above (page 23). Further, the region about Herford, in Westphalia, where the curved club-armed swastika prevails, represents, in its

peasant houses, a much older, almost purely Celtic, type than those of the surrounding Saxons.35 There is other evidence that this region about Herford is to be regarded as an enclave with a Celtic 35 MSAW, 315 ff.

• 24
 

BARN SYMBOLS                  25

• 25
 

26    OHIO ARCHEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

past in the otherwise Saxon area.³⁶ This permits the inference

that the curved club-armed swastika symbol was especially culti-

vated by Celtic people. Such an assumption is strengthened by

the fact that Celtic ornamentation, as a whole, from the late

Bronze Age onward, for centuries favored the swastika and re-

lated patterns, and, in their delineation, showed a tendency toward

curved, bulging, designs with club-shaped terminations (Fig 17).37

The universal occurrence of these age-old designs as propi-

tious or magic symbols among the European and, in particular, the

German peasantry naturally makes it impossible to determine by

which of the various German groups that constitute the Pennsyl-

vania Dutch any given symbol was introduced. The very fact that,

even in the German homeland, they all had been familiar with all

those symbols and their miraculous powers, renders the whole

question immaterial.

In this connection the writer wishes to mention Mr. Wey-

gandt's statement that "some of the shapes of these [barn] sym-

bols undoubtedly have their origin in Rosicrucian symbols, which

were a matter of moment to several groups among the German

Pietists, etc., etc."³⁸ It is unfortunate that Mr. Weygandt is not

more explicit about the symbols he had in mind, as he wrote these

lines. Among the symbolic signs of the Rosicrucians, such as pre-

sented by Jennings,39 the writer has found only three symbols that

are used as Pennsylvania Dutch barn signs: the familiar penta-

gram  (Trudenfuss);40 a six-pointed star;41 and an eight-pointed

star,⁴² the two latter, moreover, expressly and unmistakably desig-

nated as sun symbols. Should Mr. Weygandt have referred to

these star symbols as being of Rosicrucian origin, then he would

have to explain how the identical symbols also occur on Pennsyl-

vania Dutch household articles in exactly the same application as

on analogous peasant utensils all over Germany and the rest of

Europe. It is obvious that the Rosicrucians came by these symbols

 

36 HDL, 30 ff.

37 Cf. ACA, 150 f., where this style of design is appropriately termed "flam-

boyant."

38 C. Weygandt, The Red Hills, . . . (Philadelphia, 1929), 126.

39 H. Jennings, The Rosicrucians, . . . (London, n. d.), 6th edition.

40 Ibid., 299 (Fig. 235).

41 Ibid., plate I, bottom.

42 Ibid., plate I, top.

• 26
 

BARN SYMBOLS                 27

the same way as did the Pennsylvania Dutch: by way of age-old heritage. In none of the German lands from which the mixed popula- tion of Pennsylvania's barn sign area had recruited itself, does one find such symbols painted on the front of barns as in Berks and the adjacent counties. In fact, with the exception of certain districts in Lower Saxony where they occur on the frames of barn doors,43 one finds them painted on houses only in Switzer- 43 Supra, Fig. 11.

• 27
 

28    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

land, mainly in the Canton of Bern. While the contribution of the

North German plains of Lower Saxony to the population of the

Pennsylvania Dutch country-side is negligible, Swiss peasants from

the Canton of Bern have not only settled in great numbers in

Berks County and the neighboring region, but they have also made

their Alemannian type of barn the generally accepted form in

these counties and beyond. In their applying the star symbols to all

kinds of household utensils they do not differ from the Palatines

and other settlers from Upper Germany that moved into Penn-

sylvania. But they do differ in their tendency of applying stars and

related ornamented disk patterns to human habitations, frontally

and otherwise, although not to barns.⁴⁴

The fact that the homes in the New Country were not built

of wood, as they had been in the Swiss homeland, while the barns

continued to be wooden structures, may have been the reason why

the symbols were applied, not to the residence with its limited wall

space of stone masonry, but to the front of the barn, for this pro-

vided the familiar expanse of board wall for symbolic ornamenta-

tion.

Once the tendency to paint symbols on the barns had been

introduced by the Swiss, the other German immigrant groups

readily adopted it as they had similarly adopted the Swiss type of

barn. The only districts in the Pennsylvania Dutch area where

barn symbols have never been applied are the communities of the

Mennonites (in particular, the Amish) who have always regarded

their use as sinful.

Swiss initiative has left its traces in still another item of

Pennsylvania Dutch farm    architecture: the carved gable posts

found on barns in Dauphin County, especially near Linglestown

(Fig. 18). In mentioning this, the writer is not even digressing

since these posts, basically, share with the barn symbols an ancient

cultic significance and protective magic function. Their probable

provenience from the worship of Donar (Thor), the highest god

 

44 Cf. E. Gladbach, Charakteristische Holzbauten der Schweiz (Berlin & New York:

Hessling, 1906), plate IX, 3: Door with Stars; plate XXVI, 1 and 5: Chairs with

Stars; plate XXIX: Ornamented Disks (1828 A. D.). See also The Brochure Series

of Architectural Illustration (Boston: Bates & Guild), VII (1901), 79: Six-pointed

Star on eave console of residence, in a street at Adelboden, Canton of Bern.

• 28
 

BARN SYMBOLS                   29

of the Germans south of the Wodan-worshipping plains region of Old Saxony, makes it appear that their presumable functions were the protection of the barn against lightning, and the securing of fertility for the cattle kept therein. It is certain that they were introduced into Dauphin County from the Alemannian region, the very heart of the ancient Donar Cult, as is evident from the names of early settlers listed in assessment and taxation records of Pax- tang Township, 1777 and 1780. They are almost all German- Swiss.45 The author cannot consider this study in the origin and sig- nificance of the barn symbols completed without also touching upon their subjective significance. In other words, it is not suffi- cient for a comprehensive treatment of this topic to have discussed their objective significance on the basis of historical and archaeo- logical evidence. The much more important side of their signifi- 45 W. E. Egle, History of the Counties of Dauphin and Lebanon, . . . (Philadel- phia, 1883), 101 and 289.

• 29
 

30    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

cance is covered by the question: what do they mean to the people

who apply them even today in the Pennsylvania Dutch country?

The unquestionable credence these magic symbols have been

receiving, both in Europe and Pennsylvania,⁴⁶ can only be ex-

plained on the basis of peasant psychology, which is group psychol-

ogy. The individual peasant may be entirely honest in telling the

stranger that he does not believe in "such things." Just the same,

as a member of his peasant community he cannot extricate himself

from the group belief which is super-individual. He applies sym-

bols to his barn or household utensils, not because he, as a person,

feels that he must have them, but because "one has to have them."

The group spirit commands it so.

With outsiders he does not even touch upon such matters; it

is taboo. A feeling akin to chastity keeps his lips sealed in the

presence of the "gentile" from "abroad," who "does not speak his

language." This is not merely a figure of speech but is to be taken

literally. That was brought home to the writer by an unforgettable

experience:

A few years ago, I spent a few days in Berks County as a guest in

the home of an old lady, now dead. She was of old Pennsylvania Dutch

stock and loved to tell stories about the days of the past and about the

people she had known. I would not tire listening to her, nor would she,

answering my questions.

In the beginning of my stay, she spoke to me in English, as she would

to all visitors not of the native kin. Some fine day, however, she discovered

that I did not only understand her Pennsylvania Dutch, but that I even

could talk "her own language." This I accomplished by simply speaking

my Rhine-Hessian home dialect with a few concessions to Berks County

vocabulary and phonology. No matter how well or how badly I did it, I

distinctly felt that I now was "accepted": I spoke her language, I was no

longer an "outsider." Every word, every gesture from her intimated that

she trusted me with "understanding."

A day or two later, as usual, I was helping her in the kitchen with

the washing of the breakfast dishes. Although she appreciated the little

service, it always embarrassed her a bit that a man, moreover a guest,

should be doing house-work as long as she, a woman, was around to do it.

The point was that her "group" does not approve of men doing kitchen

chores. This embarrassment always drove her into her shell, as it were,

and made her speak English.

 

46 For literary evidence, cf. Mr. Weygandt's statements, supra, page 5.

• 30
 

BARN SYMBOLS                            31

 

That particular morning, our talk somehow drifted toward the deli-

cate topic of Hexerei (witchcraft) and protection against it by means of

barn symbols and other magic. Quite casually, I asked her whether the

people in the neighborhood really believed in it. She said that she did not

think so although she was not quite sure. Maybe, there were still a few

that did. Never was I to think that she and her family had ever believed

in things of that sort.

All this had been said in English, mind you. It was obvious that she

had conveyed to me what the "group" expected her to answer the "outsider"

who asked such questions. Thereafter, she was silent, so pointedly silent

that no request to drop the subject could have been more eloquent.

Then came the psychological climax. After a pensive pause, her face

quite unexpectedly brightened, and she broke into story-telling. This time

in Pennsylvania Dutch. She told me stories about her father, her mother,

her sisters, and other members of her Freundschaft (kith and kin): what

each of them had done, on this and that occasion, to ward off evil influences

that threatened them from certain people reputed to practice witchcraft.

Some such person had come to the house, under a flimsy pretext, or had

been observed loitering near the cattle-barn. Then, of course, the preventive

measures had to be taken which "everybody" takes in such a case. Although

there were Hex Signs on the barn, certain objects were shoved under the

door-sill of the cow-stable; certain chalk-marks were written on door posts;

certain herbs were hung near the cattle-stands. Otherwise the cows might

have dried up, or given bloody milk.

All this and more she told me, revelling in memories. How was that

to be explained? Was she aware of contradicting herself? No, she was not.

What had happened, was this: All the time that we had been speaking

English, under the cloud of her embarrassment, I had been to her the

"outsider" who "did not speak her language," that is, the language of the

"group."  Furthermore, in conformity with her "group" ethics, she had

told the "outsider" what, under the circumstances, "one says" to the "out-

sider" in the outsider's language. He need not, in fact he must not, know

what the "group" knows and believes.

Of a sudden, however, it must have occurred to her that, after all, I

did "speak her language" and, therefore, really was an "insider." So she

dropped into Pennsylvania Dutch, and as she was "speaking her language,"

she was speaking "within the group," where alone it is spoken and under-

stood, and where secretiveness is not in order. She felt that there was no

harm done by my being "in the know," and so she told me all she

remembered.

Time will show how long the Pennsylania Dutch will be able

to maintain themselves as a group. Advancing radially from

the big cities, the standardizing and mechanizing forces of today's

• 31
 

32     OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

steel-and-concrete civilization are steam-rolling over the peasant

minority  of the country-side.     At the rate of this deadly on-

slaught, group-consciousness is being wiped out and, along with

it, the barn symbols, the beliefs for which they stand, and all

other values of this old peasant culture.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND ABBREVIATIONS

Bock titles cited in the foot-notes are here not repeated.

ACA        Allen, J.R.,      Celtic Art in Pagan and Christian Times

(Philadelphia: Jacobs, n.d.).

BAAC       Bossert, H.Th.,   The Art of Ancient Crete (London:

Zwemmer, 1937).

BPAEu      ................,  Peasant Art in Europe (Berlin: Wasmuth,

1926).

CDoEC      Childe, V.G.,     The Dawn of European Civilization

(London [New York], 1927).

COPA       Cleland, H.F.,    Our Prehistoric Ancestors (New York:

Coward-McCann, Inc., 1928).

HDL        Hofmann, A. v.,   Das deutsche Land und die deutsche

Geschichte (Berlin & Leipzig: Deutsche

Verlagsanstalt, 1923).

HPAAu      Holme, Chas.,     Peasant Art of Austria and Hungary

(London: The Studio, 1911).

HPAIt      ................,  Peasant Art of Italy (London: The Studio,

1913).

HPARus     ...............,  Peasant Art of Russia (London: The Studio,

1912).

HPASw        .............,  Peasant Art of Sweden, Lapland and Iceland

(London: The Studio, 1910).

MSAW       Meitzen, A.,      Siedlung and Agrarwesen der Westgermanen,

... (Berlin: Hertz, 1895).

PAC        Pendlebury, J.D.,  The Archaeology of Crete (London:

Methuen, 1939).

SchEx      Schuchhardt, C.,  Schliemann's Excavations (London:

Macmillan, 1891).

TDO       Trepte, H.,        Deutschtum in Ohio (Doctoral Dissertation,

Leipzig, 1931) [in Deutsch-Amerikanische

Geschichtsblatter (German-American Re-

view), (Chicago), XXXII (1932), 155-409).

WSw       Wilson, Thos.,     "The Swastika, .. ." [in Reports, Smith-

sonian Institution; U. S. National Museum,

1893-1894 (Washington, 1896), pp. 757-

1011].

ZWDV       Zaborsky-                                        Urvatererbe in deutscher Volkskunst (Leip-

Wahlstatten, O.v.,                 zig: Koehler & Amelang, 1936).

• 32