Tagged: Folklore

47th Annual Texas Folklife Festival

The 47th Texas Folklife Festival will be held this year during June 8-10 on the grounds of the University of Texas at San Antonio’s Institute of Texan Cultures. TWHS will have a booth at the festival thanks to Ron Knippa with his family and many friends who do...

Report on the 46th Annual Texas Folklife Festival

The 2017 Folklife Festival, June 9-11 at San Antonio’s Institute of Texan Cultures, was held under beautiful blue skies, and the Wends were there! We served delicious food that included noodles from the TWHS kitchen thanks to Hattie and others, koch kaese sandwiches, barbecue chicken drumsticks with an...

46th Texas Folklife Festival card

46th Annual Texas Folklife Festival

The 46th Texas Folklife Festival will be held this year during June 9-11 on the grounds of the University of Texas at San Antonio’s Institute of Texan Cultures. TWHS will have a booth at the festival thanks to Ron Knippa with his family and many friends who do...

2017 is TWHS’ 45th Anniversary as a Society

Five years ago, for our 40th anniversary, we honored the five women who started our society by encouraging everyone to wear bonnets and hats to our events that year. These five women wore bonnets at the Folklife Festival and made them to sell in their booth. We developed a large display consisting of the...

Ptači kwas / Bird’s Wedding

Presented By Students at St. Paul Lutheran Serbin The age-old Wendish custom called Ptači kwas (the Bird’s Wedding) was presented by the students of St. Paul Lutheran School at Serbin on Sunday, January 25, 2015. Ptači kwas is celebrated annually on January 25th in the Lusatia region of...

Jutrowna Woda – Osterwasser – Easter Water

Easter Water is an old folk custom with its roots in pre-Christian times when water was considered the symbol of life and fertility. The Easter custom developed into one designed for the young unmarried women of the community, who would gather together in the wee hours of Easter...

Folklore of the German-Wends in Texas

On the morning of December 16, 1854, the immigration authorities at Galveston went out to meet the Ben Nevis, an English sailing ship, which had arrived in the harbor. On board they examined the papers and the physical condition of the five hundred some Wends who had come...

Lost in a Wendish Land of Legends

An award-winning video presentation by the Cottbus High School class of Susann Pattoka. Produced during the 2011/2012 school year, this story follows a young man from Iowa by the name of Chuck as he visits Cottbus, and meets the high schoolers at the Cottbus Wendish Museum. He falls...

Egg Decorating Woodcut-Art Print

Folklore and Festivals of the Wends

Birds’ Wedding (Ptači kwas •• Vogel Hochzeit) In the evening before January 25 children would place empty plates outside and the next morning would find the plates filled with candy or cookies supposedly left for them by the birds, who were said to be celebrating their wedding and...