Encountering the Irrational: Some Reflections on Folk Healers

Abstract

IN 1985 I had the opportunity to make several visits to a small village in the district of Cloppenburg in Lower Saxony. This place has about 2,000 inhabitants. Low German is still ordinarily spoken, and the majority of the population are Roman Catholics. Only the ancient medieval gothic church would indicate to a stranger that this community has existed for hundreds of years, since the village was practically razed to the ground at the end of World War II. Post-war reconstruction and eager modernization during the 1970s were responsible for destroying the few buildings which the bombing had spared, thus giving the village a totally new appearance. Originally the population consisted chiefly of farming families, but now less than a third of those of working age are on the land. There are two textile factories, employing maybe a hundred workers between them. A high proportion of the villagers work in a small town a few kilometeres away, where they are employed in factories or in the service industries. However, work is not always easy to find; the region has, at present, the highest percentage of unemployment in the German Federal Republic. A further problem is alcoholism, which affects a good many men, both old and young. The work of the village farmers has seen many great changes during the last twenty years. Present-day agriculture is rationalized and mechanized; the new methods ensure higher profits on the crops, but at the same time the many-sidedness of old-style farming has been sharply curtailed, for the sake of increased productivity. Nobody now makes butter from his own milk, for instance; it is all sent to the dairies. Slaughtering pigs, and preparing pig-meat products is no longer a domestic activity. It is increasingly rare for farmers to keep rabbits or hens for home consumption. There is still, however, one thing which stands out in sharp contrast to this modern picture of farm life: the practice of old traditional folk medicine. As soon as one of the farm animals falls sick, one immediately sends for a healer who, by the help of special prayers, restores it to health. In this German village, modern life has not been able to drive out the age-old practice of folk medicine, even though many of the old beliefs associated with it have quite disappeared. Thus, for instance, supernatural forces are not nowadays considered a valid explanation of the origins of illnesses. Yet many of the younger villagers have seen how their grandparents would place a broom across the door of the house to protect them from the Evil Eye and the illnesses it could inflict. It is only a few years ago that an old woman died in the village who, it was said, could put the Evil Eye on people. As soon as I made enquiries from some villagers about traditional healing methods, I was told that I ought to ask the 'Treschen' family.' The head of this family, Herr H., a farmer aged fifty-six, is always sent for by the other farmers when they have any trouble with their livestock. Everyone knows he can heal them, with the help of certain prayers. He was described to me as being rather difficult to approach, but as I already knew Maria, one of his daughters, I asked her to ask her father if he would be willing