BOOK REVIEW

FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK

Music is woven into the fabric of American existence as much as baseball, automobiles, and fast-food. From the blues that first drifted out of smoky clubs in St. Louis and Chicago, to foot-stomping Appalachian jug bands to sloppy Seattle grunge, music tells a tale about a heritage, a way of life, or simply a story as it drifts across times and places long forgotten.

The Pennsylvania Dutch people - which includes Amish, Mennonites, Dunkers, and Quakers - also have their own music, forged through centuries of persecution and prayer.

The first time I heard Pennsylvania Dutch music, I knew that I was an ear-witness to history, I knew that I was savoring something special. I was attending the Sunday services of a Dunker congregation in Preble County, Ohio. Dunkers (called this because of their custom of full-body immersion in the water at baptism) share a similar religion to their Amish cousins. They do permit church members to drive cars and own certain modern amenities that the Amish are forbidden. But to the casual observer, their dress differs little from Amish. Women wear hand-covers and hand-sewn dresses, men have long beards and wide-brimmed hats. I was working as a newspaper reporter in Middletown, Ohio and was profiling the Dunkers for a story. Someone from the church invited me to services.

They began their services with singing. It was beautiful, haunting, resembling a Gregorian chant from some 17th century European monestary. The music was distinctly German. Unlike the Amish, Dunkers - or German Baptists as they are formally called - do have church buildings. The men are on one side, the women on the other. The room filled with the sounds of this chanting. A summer wind stirred aging oaks outside, rustling the leaves and carrying the smell of fresh cut grass into the church. I felt, as I listened to this music, that I was connecting with a long gone heritage. That's what music does.

It would be years later before I heard this type of music again. It was when The Amish Cook and her family invited me to listen to them yodel one evening soon after I first met them. Regular readers of Elizabeth's newspaper column know that singing and yodeling are important parts of their life. Young Amish couples often meet for the first time at special singings for young people on Sunday evenings. And many a cold winter's night will be spent around a warm pot-bellied stove singing. This too is a vanishing way of life. What once was common all across an agrarian America can now be found in just a few pockets of isolated Amish communities, the last torch-bearers of this tradition.

The German Baptists sing from a songbook called the Glaubensstimme, an old hymnal with hundreds of hymns. The oldest continually used hymnal among the Pennsylvania Dutch or among ANY religion for that matter, though, is used by the Amish. This hymnal dates back to 1564 in Switzerland. And this today this hymnal is in use a living, linguistic link to a time when the whole world still moved to the slow rhythms of horse hooves and waterwheels. I find history fascinating and my appetite for it is endless, especially living history like the Ausbund.

That's why I was so delighted when an Amish man in Pennsylvania by the name of Benuel Blank mailed me a copy of a book he recently wrote called THE AMAZING STORY OF THE AUSBUND. In many ways this book is better than having an actual copy of the Ausbund. Blank's book puts the Amish hymnal into context, with sharp historical analysis and color. Even by the author's own admission, the book doesn't offer much new in terms of groundbreaking historical information, but it is the first place where I have seen a thorough historical treatment of the Ausbund in easy-to-read layman's language. While parts of the book are dry (just being honest), it is still a wonderful, historical keepsake. The book is also hallmarked by beautiful photographs of the Ausbund's European homeland and historical maps. With Mr. Blank's permission, we are offering the book for sale on this website.

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For more information on Dutch Amish hymnals, you may also reference this site.

Kevin Williams
Executive Editor
Oasis Newsfeatures

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