Texas Wendish Heritage

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Category: Traditions

Announcements / Museum / Traditions

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...

Traditions

Recipe Corner

One of our members recently suggested that we occasionally include a recipe – perhaps a traditional Wendish dish, or one that harks back to our ancestors’ early days in Texas. So we are issuing a challenge to all you readers. Send us your favorite recipes that have been...

Events / Traditions

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...

Articles / Traditions

Eating the Way our Ancestors Ate

Jan Ernest Smoler and Jan Kilian were contemporaries, although not always friendly ones. As editor of a newspaper in Bautzen, Smoler published negative letters sent from the Serbin colony leading to years of tension between Smoler and Kilian. Thirteen years before the immigration to Texas, in 1841, Smoler and a...

Traditions

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...

Articles / Research / Traditions

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...

Traditions

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...

Traditions

Wendish Easter Eggs

The Wends are Slavic-Germans who have four techniques of decorating eggs: Wax Batik, Embossed, Acid, and Scratch. The most commonly used technique in Texas is the Wax Batik. In this method, the wax design is applied to the egg with the tip of a goose feather cut into...

Articles / Traditions

It Must Be The Noodles

It’s been quite a while since I’ve had time to think about our Wendish preoccupation with our heritage, our history and our specialness. In a previous column, I decided it had to be the noodles, because we are so proud of our yellow, egg-rich Wendish noodles (you can...