journal, vol. 15, no. 2 summer 1992 · three great-grandparents, jacob and elizabeth sperling...

Journal of the

American Historical Society of Germans From Russia

Vol. 15. No. 2 Summer 1992

Published by

American Historical Society of Germans From Russia 631 D Street • Lincoln, Nebraska 68502-1199 • Phone 402-474-3363

Edited by David Bagby ©Copyright 1992 by the American Historical Society of Germans From Russia. All rights reserved.

ISSN 0162-8283

On the cover: Memorial Day flags wave over the graves of German-Russian settlers and Sioux Native Americans in the cemetery of St. Peter's on the Standing Rock Agency, Fort Yates, North Dakota, seen here circa 1910-18. One finds Sioux names along with German names such as Schneider or Volk. The light, board-shaped marker with a dark inscribed cross at the far right center reads: "Joseph/Son of [ ] Edith/Treetop/Died June [ ], 1899/Age 6 weeks". The large, dark stone shaft just to the left (at center right) is a memorial to five Indian policeman killed during an attempt in December 1890 to arrest Sitting Bull, who also was killed. The first lines read: "In/Memory of/Lieutenant/BULL HEAD"; the remainder cannot be read from the photograph.

German Russians settled on the Standing Rock Reservation beginning in the early nineteenth century. Professor Timothy J. Kloberdanz's "In the Land of Inyan Woslata," beginning on page 15, examines how the Sioux and German-Russian cultures influenced and learned from one another. Photograph courtesy Frank Fiske Collection and State Historical Society of North Dakota.

Manuscripts Solicited The Journal welcomes manuscripts of articles, essays, family histories, anecdotes, folklore, and all aspects of the lives of Germans in/from Russia.

We request that manuscripts be typed double-spaced on standard 8 1/2 by 11-inch paper. If printed on computer fan-fold paper, please remove the feed-guide edges, sep-arate and number the pages, and place them in order. If the manu-script was written on a computer, please include with the manuscript a copy of the article file on a 5.25" diskette. We can accept IBM PC/XT/AT compatible files on low- or double-density disks.

For questions of style, please consult our standard reference, The Chicago Manual of Style, 13th ed. rev. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982). Please indi-cate in your cover letter whether you have photos which may be used to illustrate your article. If you wish your manuscript and disk returned to you, please include with the manuscript a stamped, self-addressed envelope of the same size and with the same postage as your mailing envelope. Manuscripts not published in the Journal or returned will be added to the AHSGR archives.

Address all correspondence on editorial matters to AHSGR, 631 D Street, Lincoln, NE 68502-1199.

CONTENTS

WALDHEIM VILLAGE IN MOLOCHNA COLONY Solomon L. Loewen ............................................................................................................................... 1

THE TIPSY DUCKS Alexander Dupper ................................................................................................................................. 14

IN THE LAND OF INYAN WOSLATA: PLAINS INDIAN INFLUENCES ON RESERVATION WHITES

Timothy J. Kloberdanz .......................................................................................................................... 15

FIVE PLANTS IS FIVE PLANTS Angela Cachay ...................................................................................................................................... 27

KRASNA VILLAGE RESEARCH REPORT Ted J. Becker ........................................................................................................................................................... 29

VILLAGE RESEARCH PROJECT AND LIST OF VILLAGE RESEARCH COORDINATORS David Bagby List by Allyn Brosz and AHSGR staff ..................................................................................................................... 33

A SUMMARY REPORT ON TEN GERMAN VILLAGES In the Regions of Dnepropetrovsk, Petrikovka, and Verkhnaya-Dneprovsk, Administrative District of Dnepropetrovsk

Dr. Karl Stumpp

Translated by David Bagby ...........................................,......................................................................................... 41

OUR RESPECTS TO THE BAVARIAN SUPREME COURT! .

E. Holland

Translated by David Bagby ..................................................................................................................................... 45

NEW ADDITIONS TO THE AHSGR LIBRARY SINCE JANUARY 1991, H-Z Michael Ronn, AHSGR Librarian ........................................................................................................... 46

MEIN GROSSMUTTER Ted J. Becker ......................................................................................................................................... 51

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1992

WALDHEIM VILLAGE IN MOLOCHNA COLONY

Solomon L. Loewen The first group of Mennonites to migrate from West Prussia to South Russia left in 1788 and arrived in 1789 at the Khortitsa River where it enters the Dnieper. These 228 families founded the Khortitsa Colony. Soon other families followed, and before long there were 367 families making their home in what came to be known as the "Old Colony." In 1803, 162 families arrived from Prussia and overwintered with their compatriots in Khortitsa, then moved on in spring to a new area about 110 miles to the southeast, just beyond the Molochnaya River. The Russian government had directed them here to an open and quite level steppe of 81,500 acres of more productive land than what they had at the Old Colony.1 Eventually some 1200 families settled in 58 flourishing villages, forming the "New Colony," called Molochna.

Waldheim was the 44th village formed in this New Colony. It was settled in 1836 by eight families who had left their homes in Przechowka, Volhynia, in 1835. In his Die Molotschnaer Mennoniten (The Molochna Mennonites), Isaac says that 68 families left Poland in 1835 and settled in the village of Waldheim in 1836.3 I suspect that the 68 were individuals, not families. Two years after the first group arrived, another 12 families came, and in 1840 an additional 20 families arrived, which made a total of 40 families

that settled in Waldheim. They were among the last foreigners to settle in the Molochna colony. This was a rather closely knit group that had developed their own particular dialect of Low German, which came to be known as the Waldheim Plautdietsch. Waldheim grew rapidly like other villages in the colony, partly because additional families settled there, but more especially because of the many children born into the families.

Land for the village was provided by Johann Cornies, a great entrepreneur from Ohrloff, who had leased the land at the eastern end of the Begim-Chokrak river.4 He named the village Waldheim, meaning "Home in the Woods", because the place in Volhynia from whence these immigrants had come was wooded. The banks of the river had been diked to prevent flooding during heavy rains. The stream bed was without running water during the dry season. The average annual rainfall was about 17 inches. The village was laid out along the banks of the river in an east-west direction, as were most of the Molochna villages. The size of the village was determined largely by the amount of land available for farming. Villages usually had one street with homes on either side of the street. Waldheim had two streets; it was destined to become the largest village in all Molochna.

Dr. Solomon L. Loewen's grandparents lived in Waldheim for 25 years after their marriage in 1842, and his father Jacob Loewen attended school in Waldheim in the 1860s. Jacob immigrated in 1874 to Marion County, Kansas, where Solomon was born in 1898. After graduate study in parasitology and entomology. Dr. Loewen taught biological sciences for over 50 years. In his retirement(!) Dr. Loewen has written or co-authored 5 family genealogies and numerous scientific, genealogical, and Mennonite historical articles, some of which have appeared previously in the Journal.

THE EARLIEST MAP

For the first Waldheim map we are indebted to Darrel A. Nickels. His great-uncle Franz Zielke drew it as he had gotten it orally from his father, Kornelius Zielke. Franz Zielke acknowledged that the spelling of the names might be incorrect, for he had written them as they had sounded in Low German. A correction of the

AHSGR Journal /Summer 1992

2 WALDHEIM names is suggested in parentheses. For the year 1861, Zielke lists 24 families on the map as follows: Pankratz Pankratz, A.

Pauls, John Ratief (Ratzlaff?) Ratzlaf (Ratzlaff) Richard, Jake (Richert?) Richards, K. (Richert?) Sperling Tafes (Toews?) Wadel (Wedel?) Warkentine Zielke, Jakob

Darrel Nickels had two great-great-grandparents who lived in Waldheim, Andrius Nikkel and Johann Ediger, both of whom are buried there, and

three great-grandparents, Jacob and Elizabeth Sperling Zielke and Kornelius Nachtigal.

This map was incomplete, for by 1861 Waldheim was the largest village in all of Molochna. By 1853 it had already reached a population of 961. Zielke's map has therefore been expanded in accordance with the layout of later maps of the village. There were 34 families with a full farm (about 175 acres), 12 with half farms (about 85 acres) and 56, called Anwohner, families that lived on a small plot of land for a small house and a garden, but were otherwise landless. This amounted to 46 landed families and 56 landless. The landless problem was very serious, for over half of the village population were without farming land.

A few names can be added to Zielke's map, for it is known that they lived in Waldheim at this time. My grandparents Jacob and Anna Penner Loewen were married in Lindenau in 1842 and moved to Waldheim, where they resided for 25 years. All fourteen of their children were born there. In 1867 they moved to Friedensfeld in the new colony of Borosenko, northwest of the Old Colony on the west side of the Dnieper River, because the older boys were ready for some farmland, but none was available in Waldheim. Other persons known to have lived in Waldheim at this time are Mennonite Brethren members Gottlieb Strauss, two Johann Strausses (likely father and son), Friedrich Strauss, and David Doerksen.7 The family

names from Zielke's map have been placed on the expanded map in the same order and relative areas he had placed them on his map, but should not be considered definite. The residences of the others have not been determined.

Waldheim, like other villages, elected a Schultze, or mayor for the village. The first one was Kornelius Wedel, leader of the group which first came from Volhynia. Ten years later, in 1847, Christian Schlabbach was elected.8 The village had its own church services, although Zielke's map of 1861 does not show a location for a church. They probably first met in private homes. Peter Schmidt was the first elder. Just when a church was built is unknown, but it is unlikely that the village went without a church from 1836 to 1861, so a church has been placed on the map on the basis of its location on later maps.

The Zielke map does not show a place for a school or a cemetery. Both existed at that time and have been placed on the map according to a map of 1925. The cemetery was used almost from the beginning. When my grandparents moved in 1867, they left buried in this cemetery eight of their fourteen children who had died as infants or small children.

The school also was in use from the beginning of Waldheim. It is reported that in 1865 there had been 175 pupils in school. The report did not say how many teachers they had for these pupils. The educational system at the beginning of the German settlements in South Russia had very low standards. In the 1830s and 1840s, under the leadership of Johann Cornies, great efforts were made to improve the schools in the Molochna colony. Certain standards were formalized for the curriculum, teacher training, and school facilities. The first teacher training institute in Molochna was established in Halbstadt in 1835, and the first school building designed according to the new model was built in 1844.9 Waldheim came into being just at this time [1836] and thus benefitted from the new educational system.

My father, Jacob Loewen, was a pupil in Waldheim from 1861 to 1867. He shared some of his experiences with my family when we were children. Pupils were taught both by the teacher and the parents to respect and honor their elders and to obey the teacher. The parents supported the teacher; if pupils got a whipping in school, they could expect to receive one at home also. This is what we also heard here in America during my time. Father found learning easy and had


Andres Berhman (Bergman?) Buller Byers 1 (Weier?) Byers 2 (Weier?) Derksen (Doerksen?) Ediger, Johann Fast, Peter Hebert (Huebert,

Hiebert?) Koagat Nachtigal Nikkel, Abe

WALDHEIM 3

% on

If) "2 u (5 ^i

1 0 c2 1

•5 •§ n; 1

§ •§ ^

/

Behrrnan Store Byers Windmill

— to Gnadenfeld —

Cornelius Nachtigal

GARDEN and ORCHARD

Johann Eidiger Warkentine Waldo Wade! Andres Byers

^« m m a; ^- OT

CROSS STREET

Elementary School '

Cemetery

Menn, Church 2 A. Pankratz Ratlef

Abe Nikkel Tafes

Pankratz Sperling

Buller Peter Fast

Begim-Chokrak River

The village plan as drawn by Zielke was too small for the known population of Waldheim at the time, so it has been enlarged in accordance with later maps of Waldheim and with the general plan of all Molochna villages. Family names listed by Zielke have been placed in the same relative position and groupings as they appear on his map. Families known to have lived in Waldheim at the time but not mentioned by Zieike are listed at lower right. The positions of their homesteads (Feuerstelle) are unknown.


v^ ,

Waldheim1861

Family names and Village plan by Frank Zielke Modified and

enlarged by Solomon L. Loewen (cart.)

1991

N

Ratzlaf

John Pauls

Jake Zielke Hebert

Gottlieb Strauss Johann Strauss Friedrich Strauss Johann Strauss David Doerksen Jacob Loewen

4 WALDHEIM


Fig, 1, left. Sheet music written in Kansas by the author's father, Jacob Loewen, using Ziffern or numbers instead of notes—a system learned in elementary school in Waldheim. The song is "Die Liebe Kapelle," or "The Little Brown Church."

Fig. 2, below. Waldheim elemen-tary school, behind trees at left. By the author, 1971.

WALDHEIM 5 enjoyed school very much. Pupils in school were divided into two groups, the younger children and the older pupils who could read, write and do arithmetic. Father enjoyed the spelling bee, which they had at least once a week; he felt good when he had passed up older and taller pupils and reached the top of the class. They had no other grading of pupils at that time. Bible history, memorization of Scripture, and music had been his favorite subjects, although he enjoyed arithmetic as well.

In music the Waldheim school used Ziffern (numbers) instead of notes. For "do, re, me, . . ." they would sing "eins, zwei, drei, . . .” (one, two, three). When father became a church choir director here in America in the 1880s, he wrote his own song book with Ziffern (fig. 1). In 1962 my wife and I were in the Chaco of Paraguay, visiting Russian Mennonite refugees who had settled there; we heard some interesting and serious discussions as to which system was to be preferred, the Ziffern- or the Notensystem.

GRAIN FARMING

The first farmers coming to the Molochna villages used crude and primitive farming implements. Some brought farming tools along from Prussia, such as a wooden plow with an iron plowshare, a wooden harrow, a long wagon with wooden axles and wheels, a scythe, and a few small tools. Some implements were shared with others; thus B. H. Unruh lists families as having half-a-plow or half-a-wagon. Waldheim residents, being about the last foreign immigrants to come into the Molochna colony, arrived just before big farm machinery improvements were made. They still turned the soil with a hand plow drawn by oxen or a team of horses; clods were broken with a wooden harrow. The farmer would seed his grain, either before plowing or after plowing and harrowing, by casting it with his hand from the seed-bag hung over his shoulders while walking through the fields. The wheat was the soft summer "Hirka" variety. The ripe grain was cut with a scythe equipped with a cradle (wooden or iron rods) fixed to the scythe which would carry the cut stalks to the end of the swath, where they would drop into a pile. These small piles of cut stalks were then tied into bundles using a few stalks from the pile. This was usually done by the farmer's wife, who often

brought the baby and/or small children into the field with her, or by a son and/or daughter, if they were old enough—around ten or eleven. From the age of 14, children worked like grown men throughout the harvest. The bundles were then put into a shock by placing several sheaves together with the grain-heads standing up. The shocks were later hauled with the wagon to the threshing floor, a level, smooth, and hard piece of ground on the yard. On this "floor" the bundles were opened, spread out, and threshed by striking the grain with a flail or by driving oxen or horses over it till the grain was free from the stalks and chaff. In the early 1840s the Mennonite threshing stone, a big seven-grooved round stone about three feet long, made its appearance in the colony." This stone was pulled over the threshing floor by a team of oxen or horses until the grain was threshed. The straw was then removed with a wooden rake or pitch-fork and piled up to be used later as fuel for the stove or baking-oven, or as bedding in the barn for horses and cows. This bedding with the accumulated manure was later removed, packed into brick-like blocks, dried, and used as fuel.

The grain was cleaned by tossing grain and chaff into the air with a wooden shovel; the wind blew the chaff away and the grain dropped down onto a clean floor. The wooden shovel was later replaced by one of iron. Often the farmer would have to wait days or weeks until the wind would blow strong enough to clean the grain. At times this would not be until spring the next year, after the next crop was planted, because of the lack of wind. In the 1840s an entrepreneur farmer in the colony came up with a fanning mill that could be turned by hand, providing "wind" when needed. I have used such a fanning mill myself here in America. After the grain was clean and sacked, it was stored in the attic above the living quarters in the house, or in the barn or a shed.

I would like to insert an experience I witnessed here in Kansas as a small boy when we had over 28 inches of rain during May, June, and July in 1904. The wheat was ripe, but we had no way of getting into the fields with the binder. Father had learned how to use the scythe in Russia, so he fixed three scythes with cradles and taught the older boys how to cut the wheat. Father and the younger boys followed the cutters, tying the little piles of cut grain with stalks taken from the pile and setting the sheaves up into shocks, just as had been done in Russia. By the time the ground dried so


6 WALDHEIM that they could cut with the binder, quite a number of acres were standing in shocks cut with a scythe.

FARMING IMPROVEMENTS

Improvements in farming methods and equipment began to make their appearance in the 1840s and 1850s. For one thing, Johann Cornies had discovered by experimentation that fallowing land and rotating crops made the land more productive. Fallowing was done in either in a three- or four-year cycle. Wheat was sown into the fallow ground the first year; then the field was planted in oats, barley, or some other fodder (hay) for one or two years, and then the field lay fallow for one year. The spring wheat that had been planted since the beginning of the settlements had lost its vigor and was highly subject to rust, so that wheat pro-duction in the 1830s had dropped remarkably. A great drought in the late 1820s and the lack of a good open market for farm products had very serious effect on the Mennonite farmers in the Ukraine. Then the fallowing of land introduced by Cornies in 1835 began to bring the farmers some hope. The establishment of the city of Berdyansk on the Sea of Azov in 1831 opened a market to the world. Farmers hauled the wheat in groups to protect themselves against thievery. Berdyansk was about 65 miles from the Molochna villages, and farmers took several days to make the trip.

Improvements in agricultural implements in the second half of the 19th century affected Mennonite farmers in Waldheim and the Ukraine as well as American farmers, although there was generally a time delay between the introduction of new machinery in the United States and in Ukrainian Mennonite villages. The improvements began, at least in part, with the work of Cyrus Hull McCormick of Illinois, who developed a grain mower which eventually relegated the old reliable scythe to a peg on the museum wall. The first mowing machine cut the grain and laid it on a platform, from which a man with a wooden rake removed it as he followed the mower. By 1862 a mechanical arm which raked the grain off at regular intervals was added. The regular grass mower came into use in 1867.

These machines made their appearance among Mennonites in Russia in the late 1870s. A self-binder using wire came onto the American market during

1874. A binder using twine to tie the bundles made its first appearance in 1888.12 It was not until sometime after 1900 that villagers in Waldheim began to use it. John R. Dick's father purchased his first binder in Waldheim in 1913.13 With the self-binder a farmer could now cut acres of wheat in a day using three or four horses, work which before took weeks with a scythe.

The threshing stone as well as the threshing floor were replaced, probably in the 1870s, by a threshing machine driven by horse power. Improvement in threshing machines was made concurrent with the mowing machines. Wealthier farmers with larger land holdings switched to steam engines for threshing. Smaller farmers used horsepower until less expensive stationary gas engines were available. In time all these farming machines became available to Waldheim farmers. Many never had a threshing machine of their own, but a neighbor or some one with a movable thresher would come and do it for them. Some farm machines were imported, but others were manufactured in factories built in the village. Some of these factories started out as blacksmith shops.

OTHER ECONOMIC ENDEAVORS

Waldheim had two such factories manufacturing farming implements, one operated by David Koehn and the other by Isaac J. Neufeld and his son Isaac I. Neufeld. The Neufeld factory was founded in 1890 and incorporated in 1900 as a joint-sharing corporation. The Neufelds also had a large steam-operated flour mill standing near their residences (figs. 3, 4). They employed many workers, of whom only a minority were Mennonites. These factories were on Factory Worker's Street, where tenement houses were also located to house many of the workers. These factories are shown on both the 1916 and the 1925 maps. Both factories were closed after the revolution.14

The soil in Waldheim was very productive; farmers raised good crops of wheat, barley, rye, oats as well as corn, pumpkins, watermelons, and sunflowers for the seed oil which was used for cooking. The sunflower stalks were cut up and used for fuel. A sunflower seed oil mill operated in Waldheim for some time. Near Waldheim a mine yielded a white clay, kaolin, which was used to whitewash buildings and picket fences around the yard


along the street. Later the Soviets used this kaolin in manufacturing porcelain goods.

Among his many promotional plans, Johann Cornies also strongly promoted the planting of trees in each village. Each village had a small forest or woodlot nearby, as shown on the maps of Waldheim. This included all kinds of shade trees as well as a variety of fruit trees and bushes. The result was that by 1870 over seven and a half million trees had been planted in the Molochna villages. This turned the bare Russian steppes into a new ecological and attractive environment. Many mulberry trees were planted, especially as dividers along property lines. The leaves of

these trees were used to feed silkworm caterpillars. The silk industry developed into quite a business. In June 1971 my wife and I visited a collective farm near Zaporozhye where they were feeding silkworm caterpillars in the winter dairy barn. In Waldheim we saw

Fig. 3. Isaac & Isaac Neufeld's mill, built 1910, and their residences.

Fig. 4. Isaac J. Neufeld and Company farm machinery factory, founded 1890, incorporated 1900. Both illustrations from Gerhard Lohrenz, Heritage Remembered, courtesy of CMBC Publications.

fine shade trees along the streets and yards and fruit trees and beautiful flower beds and bushes near the homes. We were told that when the German Army occupied the area during WWII they cut down the trees, because snipers had used them for shelter, but by our visit they had been fully restored.

THE MENNONITE BRETHREN

In 1861 there was only one Mennonite church building in Waldheim. However, on January 6, 1860, 18 ministers and teachers from various villages of South Russia had signed a paper of secession from the mother Mennonite church. They felt that the lifestyle of many members of the church was not consistent with Biblical guidelines and the teachings of Menno Simons, after whom the Mennonites were


8 WALDHEIM named, and they felt that they could not continue to have Christian fellowship with them. This occurred in the midst of a spiritual revival stimulated by pastor Eduard Wuest, a Lutheran pastor who had recently come out of Germany preaching the gospel. This group of secessionists organized with others into what became known as the Mennonite Brethren church. On March 19, 1860, a group assembled in Ohrloff to elect a leader of the new organization. Waldheim was represented by David Doerksen and the Strauss brethren mentioned earlier as additions to Zielke's list of village names.

On September 23, 1860, a group of Brethren had been to a meeting at Waldheim; in going back to Gnadenfeld eight miles south, which seemed to be the center of this new movement, they came to the river Kurushan. Here four brethren stepped into the water and baptized each other by immersion, the first immersion baptism by Mennonite Brethren, which has been their mode of baptism ever since. This apparently was the beginning of a very active Mennonite Brethren church community in Waldheim, which continued as a vibrant church extending up to the end of the Mennonites in South Russia in the late 1920s. There seems to be no record as to when the first Brethren sanctuary was built in Waldheim, and the identity of the first ministers is unknown to the writer. During the first two decades of the 1900s, Peter Koehn, Gerhard Unruh, and later Isaak Ewert were the leading ministers of the Mennonite Brethren Church in Waldheim.16 Gerhard Unruh served until his family emigrated to Canada in 1926.

REVOLUTION AND AFTERMATH

The people of Russia had been under tremendous pressure which erupted soon after the beginning of the 20th century. In 1905 when Russia was at war with Japan, a spirit of unrest broke out in October when workers in factories, bakeries, newspapers, and in many other areas of work went on strike. In Waldheim the workers in the Neufeld and Koehn factories threatened to destroy the plants. These of course were the non-Mennonite workers [Mennonites are pacifists]. Sailors in a number of fleets mutinied. The Czar's army was able to subdue the unrest for the time being. World War I broke out in 1914. With the German and Russian Empires at war, the German people in

Russia were affected immediately. People speaking German in public in groups of three or more were subject to a fine of 3000 rubles or three months in jail.

After the failure of the Russian army's Riga offensive in 1917, the Russian army streamed eastward in panic. The October revolution brought down the reign of the Tsars; the Bolshevik revolution of November brought Lenin to power. The Bolsheviks sued for peace in December 1917.

Russia was in shambles for some time to come. Especially during the next two years after the revolution, there were several marauding anarchistic gangster groups that overran the German villages in the Ukraine, robbing, raping, and killing men, women and children at will. Nestor Makhno was one of the main leaders of such groups. Bands of twenty to seventy men robbed, maimed, and killed village residents. The bands came by day or night, and people lived in great fear and uncertainty. Sometimes only a few in a village would be killed or maimed; at other times more than seventy were killed in one night. The dead were often thrown together and buried in one mass grave.

In Waldheim the Soviet government set up an ad-ministrative office for the area in February of 1918. The factories and hospital were closed and the schools taken over. Waldheim was not spared of agony and destruction. The Soviets were out to destroy all kulaks, people with property and community leaders. Huebert says that in "January of 1922 the Mennonite leaders of the region were incarcerated in the basement of the house adjoining the hospital. Many were executed following the judgments of the Waldheim-based courts."1 The Soviet government demanded tax money and goods from the villagers, after they had already been robbed of horses, cows, grain, and other items. People had practically nothing left for their own livelihood. Then the weather turned bad, with practically no rain during 1920-22, which meant practically no crops on the farms and no vegetables in the gardens, hence no food. This affected the Germans and the Russians as well. People began eating almost anything that was still available. The result was starvation! Many people died not only from starvation, but also from the rapidly-spreading typhus and venereal diseases brought into the colonies by the gangsters.

Many more would have starved if it had not been for help that came from many foreign countries. The


WALDHEIM 9 Mennonites of the United States and Canada founded the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), an organization which under the chairmanship of P. C. Hiebert dispersed much food from food depots and kitchens to feed the multitude. Other church groups and benevolent organizations also helped feed the hungry. Mennonites in North America sent many food packages to friends and relatives in Russia. I remember Father mailing many food packages to relatives he had left behind when his family came to Kansas in the 1870s. The Rev. David M. Hofer, Chicago, was one who worked in one of the kitchens for a while. After the people had been fed with bread, he held evangelistic services in Waldheim where many were fed spiritually with heavenly bread. Help came to the villagers also when the MCC in 1923 sent 23 Fordson tractors, so the farmers could plow their fields.18 They had lost most of their farm animals and thus could not prepare the land for crops.

With fresh rains farmers were soon able to raise crops and vegetables for food, which gave the residents some hope. Many of the German residents then tried to emigrate to other lands. Most of the Mennonites who were able to escape went to Canada and to South America during the years 1926-29. Stalin and the Soviet government implemented the five-year plan of collectivization in 1928, taking over all land and forming collective farms, including those in the Waldheim area. Among many other families, the Neil Unruh family of Waldheim emigrated to Winnipeg, Manitoba, and so escaped farther communist pressures.

Let us hear what some other residents of the area experienced during this period. Neil Unruh reported that his family, the Gerhard Unruhs, had lived in the house by Rahn's mill (labeled Heinrich Voth on the 1916 and 1925 maps) when he was a boy. When Neil finished the second grade in 1913, the Rahn and Unruh families moved to Ignatievka, near New-York,

Pig. 5. The Waldheim hospital. In 1922, the local Soviet administration imprisoned community and religious leaders and people with property in the basement of a house next door to this building to await trial and, frequently, execution. By the author, 1971.


10 WALDHEIM Ukraine, because the mill had gone bankrupt. The three men, brothers-in-law, had operated the mill together, but now Heinrich Voth remained in Waldheim to operate the mill by himself. During this time, Neil finished the Zentralschule (high school). When the mill's creditors had been satisfied in 1920, the two families moved back. Rahn joined Voth in the mill, while the Unruhs came into possession of a half-farm and moved into a small house on Landowners' Street.

By this time the revolution had already occurred, but the gangsters were still roving about. One day Neil had gone to the mill to visit his Uncle Rahn when a rider stopped him and asked whether the owner of the mill was in. Neil answered, "I don't know." The rider then asked Neil to hold his horse while he went in with his gun. When he came out he was carrying another gun he had found inside. After examining it to see whether it was loaded (it was not), the rider broke it, then left. Rahn had saved his life by hiding in a secret place in the mill. Nine years later the Rahn family was exiled for ten years to Siberia, where their son John died. Neil got a job in Neufeld's mill, now operated by the Soviets, for wages of 50 rubles per month. This was enough for food and clothing for the family. Neil also related that his first- and second-grade teacher, Peter Toews, and his wife had been killed by an exploding missile fired on the street of Waldheim during the civil war.

Agatha Rempel Krieger shared with me by letter (written by her son Edgar) the following:

In September, 1921, 1 started teaching at Waldheim (the village in which my father was born).... I was the first teacher of the newly established Kindergarten class in Waldheim, and since I worked for the government I received wages of 1/2 pint of raw sunflower seed oil. There was a terrible shortage of all kinds of fats.

There were also armies of soldiers marching through [Red and White during the civil war] our Mennonite villages. There was so much coming and going by both sides that it was hard to know who was in charge.. ..

By the end of 1921 fuel was so scarce and the children were beginning to be too weak to attend school. By the middle of February the Kindergarden [sic] class was closed. The teachers were also too weak to continue. We lived on pump-

kin seeds (with shells) and barley ground together to make a flour and baked this mixture.

In April 1922 our family left Russia (via Batumi and Turkey). We lived through very difficult times. Only 3 out of 11 who began survived and made it to theU.S.A.19

The eight who did not make it died in Batumi from starvation and diseases. No doubt there are many similar cases. It is very hard for a person who has not experienced it to fully appreciate his good fortune.

Stalin had planned to evacuate all Germans from west of the Ural Mountains to the far east, but failed to do so before the German Army invaded this area during WWII. Waldheim had a population of 1027, of whom roughly half were Mennonites. Some of the men had been hiding themselves, but 53 were sent to Siberia. Most of the Mennonites retreated with the German Army when it was driven out of Russia, and thus they escaped to Germany, Some, however, were caught by the Russians as they pursued the German army, or were turned over to the Russians by the allies after the war. These were then sent to Siberia in cattle cars in the cold of winter. A number of them never made it. As were all other villages with German names, Waldheim was renamed by the communists. Waldheim received the name of Vladovka 1. This marked the end of just over one hundred years of Waldheim's history as a German Mennonite village.

NOTES

1. Goerz,7-8. 2. Huebert, in Schroeder and Huebert, 97. 3. Isaac, 18. 4. Huebert, in Schroeder and Huebert, 97. 5. The village of Hierschau, "look here," was established

less than a mile to the west of Waldheim in 1848. Johann Cornies, founder of Waldheim, designed Hierschau to be a model Mennonite village, but did not see his dream realized, as he died in March of that year. Readers interested in the structure and function of the Mennonite villages should see Huebert's informative book, Hierschau, which also makes numerous references to Waldheim.

6. Goerz, chart, 116. 7. Friesen, 199.


WALDHEIM 11 8. Huebert, 97. 9. Isaac, footnote, 17. 10. B. H. Unruh, 254. 11. Isaac, 16. 12. ffildebrand, 263. 13. John R. Dick, personal communication. John Deere and McCormick were the only binders available in Russia. Russian factories had not made any binders. 14. C. G. Unruh, letter of July 31,1991. 15. Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 3, 734. 16. Friesen, 708. 17. Huebert, in Schroeder and Huebert, 97. 18. C. G. Unruh, letter of July 31,1991. 19. Loewen,22. 20. Huebert, in Schroeder and Huebert, 97.

Schroeder, William, and Helmut Huebert. Atlas of Mennonite Villages. Winnipeg, Manitoba: Christian Press, 1990.

Toews, Aron A. Mennonite Martyrs. Trans. by John B. Toews. Winnipeg, Manitoba, and Hillsboro, Kansas:

Kindred Press, 1990. Unruh, Benjamin H. Die hinterlaendisch-nieder-deutschen

Hintergruende der mennonitischen Ostwanderungen im 16., 18., und 19. Jahrhunden. By the author, 1955.

Unruh, Cornelius (Neil) G. Winnipeg, Manitoba. Personal communication, letters and telephone conversations. I am especially grateful for the many experiences he shared with me and for a house plan of his family's home. Together with Rev. William Neufeld, Neil provided the village plans as of 1925.

SOURCES Dick, John R. Hillsboro, Kansas. Personal communication. Friesen, P. M. Die Alt-Evangelische Mennonitische

Bruederschaft in Russland (1789-1910) im Rahmen der mennonitischen Gesamtgeschichte. Halbstadt, Taurien, Ukraine: Raduga, 1911.

Goerz, H. Die Molotschna Ansiedlung. Steinbach, Manitoba: EchoVerlag. 1950-51.

Hildebrand, J. J. HildebrandsZeittafel. North Kildonan, Manitoba: J. Regehr, 1945.

Hofer, D. M. Die Hungersnot in Russland und Unsere Reise um die Welt. Chicago: K.M.B Publishing House. 1924.

Huebert, Helmut T. Hierschau. Winnipeg, Manitoba, and Hillsboro, Kansas: Springfield Publishing, Kindred Press: 1986.

Isaac, Franz. Die Molotschnaer Mennoniten. Halbstadt, Taurien, Ukraine: H. J. Braun, 1908.

Loewen, Solomon L. History and Genealogy of the Jacob Loewen Family. By the author, 1983.

Lohrenz, Gerhard. Heritage Remembered: A Pictorial Survey ofMennonites in Prussia and Russia. Rev. and enlarged ed. Translation of Damit es nicht ver- gessen wird. Winnipeg, Manitoba: CMBC Publications, 1977.

Mennonite Encyclopedia, vol. 3. Hillsboro, Kansas: Mennonite Brethren Publishing House, 1955-1990.

Nickels, Darrel A. Map and letter to Jo Ann Kuhr, genealogical researcher with the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, Lincoln, Nebraska.

MAPS (overleaf)

Along with the Zielke map of 1861, we also have a fine map of Waldheim in 1916 by William Schroeder. Neil Unruh, together with Rev. William Neufeld, has provided a map plan as of 1925. A number of changes occurred in Russia during the nine-year interval between these two maps, but apparently the changes did not affect the demography very much.

Family names which appear on all three maps are: Buller, Derksen (Doerksen), Hiebert (Hebert), Pankratz, Richert (with variations in spelling), as also in Ratzlaff, Toews, and Warkentin(e).

Names unique to Zielke's map of 1861: Andres, Berhman (Bergman?), Byers (Weier?), Ediger, Fast, Koagat, Nikkel, Loewen, Sperling, Strauss, Zielke.

Names unique to the 1916 map: Feitz, Jantzen, Lohrenz, Ludwig Miller, Penner, Rackos, Siemens.

Names unique to the 1925 map: Schmidt, Walde.

The two later maps both show two churches, two steam flour mills, two factories, two stores (Consum, a cooperative), a post office, a hospital (apothecary), and a blacksmith. The 1916 map also shows a bakery and a doctor's office.


12 WALDHEIM

/ / Gnadenfeld - - - '

Johann Thiessen Tobias Voth Johann Siemens

Isaac Goertzen Johann Doerksen Helnrich Goossen

Isaac Neufeld Jr. .Jacob Hiebert Steam Mill Neufeld

'»/ (U Jacob Hiebert Machine ^Q Heinrich Hiebert ^ Jacob Doerksen CD

.... C/) Factory

Johann Thiessen Isaac Goertzen

Heinrich Gosse Peter Koehn JI. I. Neufeld Jacob Hiebert 1'Jacob DoerksenIsaac J. Neufeld

,

Neuf eld's Factory

1 1

Abram Voth ' David Goertzen < yCROSS STREET

Elementary —— S h l ^*

H Teachecage CONSUM ^ Johann Doerksen David Driediger Julius Friesen Weier Heinrich Steingart Johann Richert Andres Butler Jacob Huebert Nacfatigal Dietrich Martens Tobias Ewert Cornelius WarkentinJacob Martens Johann linger Apothecary B

Merm. Church |H Johann Doerksen TENEMENTIsaac Richert Abram Enns HOUSES

Gerhard Unruh Johann Pankratz Friesen

—————i

ComeliusMartens Heinrich Toews ID. Koehn's Factory P. Steingarl Johann Richert Walde Franz Regehr

Jacob EwertBenjamin Dirks SchmidtGoertzen John PaulsFranz Regehr Sr P Pankratz

Cemetery No. 2

fe 60 ^ 0 a i

I h-W W ^ 0 t? S e s i


Begim-Chokrak River

.1 to Gnadenfeld

John Dirks Jacob Hiebert Heinrich Hiebert Heinrich Marten

Blacksmith Heinrich Voth M. B. Church Johann Doerksen

Jacob Neufeld POST OFFICE

Heinrich Neufeld

Cemetery No.l

^r Waldheim (Vladovka) 1925

Family names and locations submitted by Cornelius G. Unruh and Rev. Willaim Neufeld, Winnipeg, MB.

Solomon L. Loewen (cart.) 1991

14

THE TIPSY DUCKS Alexander Dupper Before the dictatorships of Lenin and Stalin, there were also better and happier times for the German Russians.

The farmers of Neu-Berlin (New Berlin) in the southern Odessa region of the Ukraine planted mostly grain in their fields, but each farmer also had a vineyard. The grapes and the wine were intended mostly for their own enjoyment, and each farmer proudly boasted of having the best wine in the village. They all liked to drink a glass of good wine with a good meal. The grape harvest was good most of the time, and the surplus wine was sold to Russians and Ukrainians in the neighboring villages. Cash was always a welcome commodity on a farm.

The grape harvest was hard work, but also merry and joyous. The harvest began in the second half of September, after the grain threshing, and my grandfather Matthias kept busy with his farm hands and laborers.

In the vineyard the grape clusters were cut, collected in buckets, and poured into vats made of barrel halves set on a wagon. The grapes were immediately driven to the farmstead, where they were quickly put first into the grape mill and from there into the wine press. Sidor, the foreman, and one other man tried with all their strength to squeeze out every last drop of juice. Maids carried the sweet grape must, the juice and any grape pulp squeezed out along with it, in pails to the cellar, where it was poured for fermentation into barrels freshly fumigated with sulphur. The residue of grape skins and seeds from the press was thrown onto the manure heap, to be used later as either fuel or fertilizer. Everyone knew their job and set vigorously to work. A sip of sweet grape juice now and then ensured the joyful mood.

My grandmother always kept a flock of ducks in the farmyard, besides her many chickens. Her ducks were the beautiful white variety, which she preferred not only

Alexander Dupper, a charter member of AHSGR, was born in Neu-Berlin and grew up in Odessa, South Russia (now Ukraine). He immigrated to the United States in 1952 and lives in Lodi, California. He has served the society as a member of the Board of Directors and the International Foundation Board of Trustees, and is a frequent contributor to the Journal.

for their delicious meat in a Sunday roast, but also because their fine, soft feathers were perfect for stuffing pillows and featherbeds.

On the afternoon of the second day of the grape harvest, she noticed that something seemed not quite right with her ducks. They were soiled, with blood-red splotches on their white breasts, and staggered around the courtyard, lurching from one side to the other. They had great difficulty standing on their feet, and even turned somersaults. Throughout this performance they were quacking loudly in wild confusion.

Quite worried, Grandmother went to Grandfather and told him of her observation and her fear that the ducks were ill. Grandfather looked at the ducks for a while, but couldn't come up with a logical explanation either. That's when Sidor came by with a basket full of grape skins and seeds. Grandfather asked him if he had noticed the ducks' strange behavior. Sidor only laughed. '"Khozian (landlord)," he said, "the ducks are not sick, they are just dead drunk!'1 He led Grandfather and Grandmother to the dung heap, where there was lively activity. The ducks were eagerly devouring the grape seeds and skins, soiling their white feathers from head to webbed feet. They quacked and ate in a wild frenzy until they gobbled their fill and fell down and off the dung heap.

Here then was the solution to the mystery. The sweet must remaining in the grape residue had partly fermented, and was now strong enough to get the ducks intoxicated. Grandfather laughed with Sidor, but Grandmother could only shake her head. She never would have thought that her pretty ducks could have gotten themselves so tipsy. Grandfather then had a wheelbarrow of earth brought and placed over the dung heap to cover it up and keep the ducks away.

Next morning, after the ducks had slept off their drunken stupor, they waddled down to the duck pond, splashed around a bit, and emerged with snowy-white breasts again. They were mighty hungry and voraciously devoured their food right out of Grandmother's hands—no hangover! Grandmother again shook her head in disbelief.

Quack! Quack!


IN THE LAND OF INYAN WOSLATA: PLAINS INDIAN INFLUENCES ON RESERVATION WHITES Timothy J. Kloberdanz If one climbs the high grassy hill that overlooks the town of Fort Yates on the Standing Rock Reservation in south-central North Dakota, the scene that gradually unfolds is an engaging one. Fort Yates is bordered on practically all sides by the expansive waters of Lake Oahe. Except for the fact that the community resembles a veritable island, it looks much like other Great Plains towns, with an assortment of generously spaced old and new structures. From the top of the hill to the north, one can see for miles across the lake and the Missouri River to the rolling prairie lands that stretch beyond to the east.

Directly beneath the hill, a modern, tipi-shaped Catholic church can be seen, as well as the church cemetery. The sprawling graveyard is itself something of a popular attraction since it contains a large granite shaft that honors the memory of five Sioux policemen who lie buried there. The Indian officers who rest beneath the monument were killed during the ill-fated arrest of Sitting Bull in December of 1890.

The Catholic cemetery at Fort Yates represents much more than a historical site of local and national signifi-cance. St. Peter's cemetery is a sacred place where families and friends continue to mourn and remember their dead. Here, Indian and non-Indian graves are inter-

Timothy J. Kloberdanz is associate professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology-Anthropology at North Dakota State University and a Board member of AHSGR. He has published many articles in the field of cultural anthropology and about Germans from Russia, and will present a slide/sound presentation on his 1991 visit to Volga villages at the 1992 AHSGR Convention in Seattle, June 29-July 5. This article originally appeared in Great Plains Quarterly 7 (Spring I987): 69-82. © 1987 Center for Great Plains Studies. Used with permission.

mixed with little regard to ethnic differences. Hand-lettered wooden crosses mark the final resting places of both. Tombstones and blacksmith-made iron crosses stand above the graves of Euro-Americans and Native Americans. Within the confines of St. Peter's cemetery lie the remains of Sioux Indians who were a direct link to the pre-reservation past of their people and, also, the remains of German-speaking immigrants whose cradles once rocked thousands of miles away on the Black Sea steppes of South Russia. The surnames on some of the grave markers reflect the backgrounds of two different peoples who call the land of lnyan Woslata (Standing Rock) their home: Brought Plenty, Fireheart, Loans Arrow, Pretends Eagle; Jundt, Schneider, Silbernagel, and Volk.

This article deals with the experiences of German-Russian families living in the North Dakota portion of the Standing Rock Reservation during the years 1909-1960. Of primary interest are the various ways in which the German Russians were influenced by their Sioux Indian hosts. Particular attention will be directed to the oral, customary, and material folkways of German Russians who resided on the reservation and how these traditions differed from those of their kinsmen living in more homogeneous areas of ethnic settlement.

The scholarly literature that relates to Euro-Americans living on or near Indian reservations in the Northern Great Plains region is sparse in comparison to studies of the Indian residents. When one considers the large number of non-Indians who have made their homes on reservations, the paucity of relevant information is truly surprising. Studies of Indian-white interaction in the reservation setting have the potential to illuminate our understanding of the reservation experience in its broadest sense. In addition, researchers


16 IN THE LAND OF INYAN WOSLATA might be able to obtain a more complete picture of the acculturation process, as it affected both reservation Indians and reservation whites alike. Such research is of particular value when one remembers that certain Old World immigrants on the American prairies first became acquainted with the ways of their new country while living on Indian reservations. In a few cases, the second language that the struggling immigrants learned was not English but an indigenous language such as Lakota.

My data are drawn primarily from approximately thirty interviews that I conducted between 1982 and 1986. The majority of my informants included German Russians who once resided or still live in Sioux County, North Dakota (which encompasses the upper portion of the Standing Rock Reservation). For comparative insights, I also interviewed German Russians who live directly opposite the reservation (in Emmons County, one of the oldest and most densely populated German-Russian settlement areas in North Dakota). Additional interviews were conducted with Native Americans, government workers, and clergymen who were familiar with the history and ethnic composition of Sioux County.

THE STANDING ROCK RESERVATION

In 1889, the U.S. Government drastically reduced the Great Sioux Reservation of the American West into separate and considerably smaller entities. As a result of this new administrative arrangement, the government took more than 11,000,000 acres of land that had been promised the Sioux by treaty in 1868. The most northern of the new divisions created in 1889 was known as the Standing Rock Reservation. Situated primarily in northwestern South Dakota and extending into south-central North Dakota, the new reservation included 2,462,000 acres of rolling prairie and butte country. Although most of the reservation land was located in South Dakota, the tribal center was the military garrison of Fort Yates, North Dakota. Not until 1903 did the U.S. Army withdraw its troops from the reservation. The community of Port Yates, however, continued to serve as the reservation's administrative headquarters.2

When it was officially created in 1889, Standing Rock became the home reservation of the Hunkpapa and Sihasapa (Blackfeet) bands of Teton Sioux, as

well as of a significant number of Yanktonai Sioux. Living conditions on the reservation during the 1890s were deplorable, according to reports filed by early Indian agents and travelers. The Standing Rock Sioux had been compelled to make a sudden and difficult transition, one that forced them from a nomadic, buffalo-hunting way of life into a settled, government-run existence. At the same time that the Sioux tried to withstand the physically debilitating forces of disease and malnutrition, the Indians were weakened psychologically and emotionally by missionization and other types of directed culture change.

To add to their problems, new pieces of national legislation were enacted that served only to erode the already dwindling Plains Indian land base. The General Allotment Act of 1887 adversely affected the Standing Rock Sioux, particularly when huge amounts of "surplus" reservation land were made available to white homesteaders. Rather than set aside allotments of land for future generations of the tribe, the government all too often designated choice parcels of reservation land for Euro-American farmers. In 1909, the Great Sioux Reservation Information Bureau in St. Paul, Minnesota, circulated numerous posters and pamphlets that advertised the availability of three million acres of homestead land on the Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Reservations. Ironically, many of the promotional flyers bore a likeness of Sitting Bull, the slain Hunkpapa Sioux leader who had been an outspoken critic of white encroachment (fig. 1).

By 1915, the Standing Rock Indian Reservation was teeming with land-hungry homesteaders. Additional Sioux acreage was purchased from individual Indians who had obtained fee patent allotments. In 1917, many Standing Rock Sioux adults were made citizens of the United States in special ceremonies held on the reservation. A few weeks after gaining citizenship, the Indians received tax statements in the mail. Unable to pay, many of the new citizens lost their land holdings.3

Euro-Americans continued to settle on the Standing Rock Reservation during the 1920s. This trend was not reversed until the Depression years, when many non-Indians on the reservation migrated west. During the 1940s and 1950s, as the remaining white landowners on the reservation slowly recouped their losses, Indian trust land again became attractive to buyers. Also, 56,000 acres of rich bottom land along

AHSGR Journal / Summer 1992

IN THE LAND OF INYANWOSLATA 17 the Missouri River were lost to the Standing Rock Sioux when the Oahe Dam was completed in 1962. According to one researcher, the dam "caused more damage to Indian land than any other public works project in America. The Standing Rock Sioux suffered the worst effects of the Pick-Sloan Plan while receiving few of its supposed benefits.

In recent years, attempts have been made by the Standing Rock Tribe gradually to restore its greatly diminished land base. A few small gains have been made but the challenges ahead are enormous. Today, out of a tract of nearly 2,500,000 acres, less than 34 percent of the Standing Rock Reservation is Indian owned.5

THE GERMAN RUSSIANS

The largest non-Indian group on the North Dakota portion of the Standing Rock Reservation (Sioux County) is comprised of German-Russians. The numbers of German-Russian people on the reservation (past and present) are difficult to ascertain because census takers failed to differentiate German Russians from other respondents who also claimed German ancestry. In addition, German Russians have been known to be quite flexible in emphasizing either their Germanic or Slavic ties during periods of international turmoil (for example, the two world wars with Germany and the cold war with Russia).

The available population figures for Sioux County over the past seventy years show that non-Indians often formed a sizable group. In 1920, Euro-Americans made up more than 60 percent of Sioux County residents, and in 1930 they accounted for 70 percent. In 1940, the percentage fell to 61 and since that time it has steadily declined. By 1980, non-Indians comprised only 35 percent of Sioux County's population. One of the largest foreign-bom groups in Sioux County has included individuals born in Russia. In 1930, Russian-born inhabitants in Sioux County numbered nearly 300 persons. Since there are no identifiable Russian or Ukrainian enclaves in Sioux County, the vast majority of those born in the U.S.S.R. undoubtedly were German-speaking immigrants from Russia. In a 1965 survey of rural households in North Dakota, sociologist William C. Sherman found that most of the non-Indian households in Sioux County were of

Fig. 1. In 1909, the Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Indian Reservations were opened to white homesteaders. Courtesy State Historical Society of North Dakota.

German-Russian background. Other non-Indian ethnic groups represented in the county included smaller numbers of Anglo-Americans, German-Americans, and Norwegians.

The German Russians who settled in Sioux County during the early 1900s are more specifically known as the Schwarzmeerdeutsche or Black Sea Germans. Their ancestors had established agrarian colonies in South Russia following the issuance of a special manifesto by Tsar Alexander I in February of 1804. The manifesto, according to one German-Russian informant in Sioux County, was "just like the early treaties our government made with the Indians ... it promised land and certain rights to be enjoyed for all time." Among the privileges granted the German colonists were self-government, religious freedom, and ex-emption from military conscription. Yet on the Russian steppes—as on the American plains—eternal promises


18 IN THE LAND OF INYAN WOSLATA were broken. In June of 1871, Tsar Alexander II revoked the rights and privileges granted the German-Russian colonists. A stream of immigration to the New World immediately began that ebbed and flowed until the First World War,7

Not all of the German immigrants who left Russia came to America in feverish pursuit of Freiheit (freedom). The folk history of many modern-day German Russians would have us believe they came to the New World to obtain the cherished liberties that had been denied them in Russia. In actuality, most German Russians—and particularly those from the Black Sea region—came in search of land.8

The first German Russians who settled in what is now North Dakota were Black Sea German immigrants who took up homesteads in 1884. German-Russian land acquisition and expansion continued in the state until their settlements dotted a huge portion of North Dakota that is still referred to as the "German-Russian Triangle." This area extends 300 miles from the southeastern North Dakota town of Oakes west to the Badlands. The apex of the triangle is the north-central town of Bottineau, North Dakota, located only a dozen miles from the Canadian border.9

GERMAN-RUSSIAN SETTLEMENT IN SIOUX COUNTY

During the early 1900s, when Indian land in Sioux County became available to homesteaders and buyers, sizable pockets of German-Russian settlers were living on all sides of the reservation's upper boundaries. Nonetheless, the earliest Euro-American settlers on the reservation included mostly Anglo-American and Norwegian families who claimed much of the so-called surplus land on the western end of North Dakota's Standing Rock Reservation. The German Russians who settled in Sioux County between 1909 and 1930 usually bought or leased land in the eastern half of the reservation. This portion of the reservation was populated primarily by tribal members, most of whom lived in homes bordering the Missouri River. Indeed, the two major Indian communities on the reservation (Fort Yates and Cannon Ball) were located adjacent to the Missouri, while the predominantly non-Indian settlements on the reservation (Selfridge and Solen) were established further inland (fig. 2).

The German Russians who made their homes in Sioux County were not members of a truly homogeneous ethnic group in terms of a shared identity, dialect, and folkways. The German-Russian settlers on the Standing Rock Reservation included individuals who traced their ancestry to one of three regional groups: (1) Beresaner ("Parasaner"), Black Sea Germans who had lived in the Beresan Valley of South Russia and originally immigrated to Morton County, North Dakota, due north of the reservation; (2) Kutschurganer ("Alt Kolonista" or "Ka'nischta"), Black Sea Germans who once lived in the Kutschurgan district of South Russia and initially took up homesteads in Emmons County, directly across the Missouri River from the reservation; and (3) Bessaraber, ("Grassna" or "Lichiga"), Black Sea Germans who had lived in Krasna, Bessarabia, and settled first in Emmons and Grant Counties, North Dakota.10

While the German Russians of Sioux County were divided by old country regional loyalties and dialect differences, they were united by the important fact that the overwhelming majority of the settlers were Roman Catholic. In the early years of settlement on the reservation, the three groups tended to retain their distinct regional differences, but these gradually became less salient as a result of common religious beliefs, increased social contact, and intermarriage. Indeed, the German Russians of Sioux County became something of a group apart and were jokingly referred to by other German Russians as die deitscfw Indianer (the German Indians)! The largest German-Russian group to settle on the reservation were the Kutschurganer, many of whom simply loaded up their belongings and drove their wagons across the frozen waters of the Missouri River. During the spring and summer, a ferry was utilized by the settlers. These land seekers moved onto the reservation from their home base in the southern half of Emmons County, a German-Russian Catholic settlement area that was one of the oldest in North Dakota. The German-Russian communities in Emmons County were known because of their homogeneous character and strong reliance on the German language to be exceptionally conservative.

The hunger for land was so strong among some German Russians that in order to obtain it they were willing to make their homes in a predominantly Plains Indian setting. This is all the more surprising when one remembers that the German Russians' perception


0 5 10 • predominantly Indian o predominantly German-Russian

of Indians was largely a negative one, shaped by two events that occurred in the latter nineteenth century: the so-called Indian Scare of 1890 and the Spicer Tragedy of 1897.

The Indian Scare of 1890 was precipitated by a rumor among the German Russians and other settlers in Dakota Territory that Sitting Bull and a number of armed Sioux had crossed the Missouri to attack white families. The rumor reflected the anxiety of many settlers who were concerned about Sioux involvement in the Ghost Dance movement. On 20 November 1890, reports of the pending massacre forced hundreds of German-Russian families to bundle up their children, arm themselves with pitchforks and hammers, and flee by wagon and on foot to Eureka and other settlements. Although the rumor was unsubstantiated, German Russians kept memories of the incident alive in numerous family stories that persist to the present day."

In February 1897, six members of the Thomas Spicer family were found murdered at their farmstead near the prairie town of Winona in Emmons County. Although the Spicers were Anglo-American, many German Russians in the surrounding area reacted to the incident as if the victims were their own. The site of the Spicer tragedy was located directly opposite the Standing Rock Reservation head-quarters of Fort Yates. Five young Indian men stood

accused of the crime but due to the tense climate of the time, the defendants were unable to receive a fair trial. In November 1897, three of the men were dragged from their jail cells and hanged by an angry mob of white citizens. The Spicer tragedy and the lynchings served as unfortunate symbols of strained Indian-white relations in south-central North Dakota for decades.

Memories of the Indian Scare of 1890 and the Spicer incident were still fresh in the minds of many German Russians when settlers first moved onto the Standing Rock Reservation in the early 1900s. According to informants, the farewell parties for early German Russians who moved into the Sioux country from nearby settlements resembled the tearful affairs that characterized the great immigration to Amerika itself. Even though the miles that separated the Sioux County German Russians from their kinsmen often were few, the decision to settle on an Indian reservation was not always supported by all family members. In some cases, German Russians immigrated to Sioux County directly from Russia, especially after other relatives had established themselves on or near the reservation.

The German Russians' first encounter with the Indians on the Standing Rock Reservation was typically


EMMONS

& Linton a' 0

'//.Siteof " Winono

Strosburg 0

Hague o

Fig. 2. Sioux County in south-central North Dakota encompasses the upper portion of the Standing Rock Reservation. Emmons County, located on the east side of Missouri River, is one of the oldest German-Russian settlement areas in the state.

20 IN THE LAND OF INYAN WOSLATA a memorable and a pleasant one. After having heard so many negative things about the Indians, the German Russians were astonished to find that the Sioux were gracious and generous hosts. Quite often, these initial encounters were the beginnings of warm and life-long relationships between the older Indians and the German-Russian immigrants. Although neither group was likely to be able to converse in English upon first meeting, they nonetheless managed to communicate via gestures and respectful lapses of silence.

The Indians who first looked upon the German Russians must have been puzzled by these latest land seekers. The German-Russian men wore long, fur-lined coats and high Cossack-style boots while the women were seldom seen without their black head shawls and embroidered aprons. To the Sioux, the German-Russian settlers clearly were different from most other wasicun (whites) in aspects other than just their appearance. Many Sioux called the German-speaking immigrants Eyasica (literally Bad Talkers), perhaps in reference to their strange and harsh-sounding patterns of speech. Eventually, the Indians referred to the Germans from Russia and their descendants as "Rooshuns."

SIOUX INFLUENCES ON THE GERMAN RUSSIANS

A number of writers have argued that the German Russians, because of the privileged status and closed colony existence they enjoyed in pre-Revolution Russia, were able to cultivate and preserve a pure German culture.13 It is indeed remarkable how much Germanic language and folklore the German Russians held onto while living for generations as a minority group in Russia. Yet it is quite erroneous to assume that the German Russians were able to keep their culture free of outside influences. Indeed, the foodways, dialects, and material folk culture of the German Russians reflect an ample share of Russian, Ukrainian, Moldavian, and Tatar influence.

In similar fashion, the German Russians who settled in the New World were influenced by the various settings in which they found themselves, ranging from the bush country of west-central Saskatchewan to the subtropical pampas of Argentina. Everywhere they settled, the German Russians borrowed freely in an attempt to better adapt to their physical and

sociocultural surroundings. The Black Sea Germans who put down roots on the Standing Rock Reservation were certainly no exception.

The degree of Plains Indian influence on the German-Russian settlers in Sioux County is difficult to assess for two reasons. First, the German Russians who made their homes on the reservation were determined to retain their ethnic identity just as they had in Russia and in the more homogeneous settlements of North Dakota. They were not a self-selected or romantically-inclined group who, dissatisfied with their own heritage, readily sought to embrace another culture. Even when Indian influences were evident, many German Russians tended to brush them off as superficial or unimportant. Second, the degree to which German Russians were influenced by their Sioux hosts varied enormously from individual to individual. Those German Russians who settled in predominantly non-Indian communities on the reservation (for example, Solen and Selfridge) generally were less exposed to the surrounding Sioux culture. Other German Russians, who lived or worked with Indian people daily, obviously were much more influenced by Sioux ways. Thus, the acculturative extremes ranged from German Russians who spoke fluent Lakota (or Dakota) to others who were unusually xenophobic and resisted social contact with tribal members. Those German Russians who became intimately familiar with the Indians invariably served as cultural brokers. These individuals, who underwent a secondary enculturation of sorts, served a key role in interpreting not only the Sioux language but various aspects of Sioux culture itself.

Many German Russians who settled on the reservation were largely unfamiliar with American norms and values. Having come directly from either Russia or solidly German-Russian communities in North Dakota, the settlers struggled to leam the strange ways of their adopted country. In Sioux County, early German Russians soon discovered that the local government and few places of business were dominated by a small but powerful Anglo-American minor-ity. Like the older Indians, many German Russians had to point to various food items upon entering a store and quite often both "Long Hairs" and "dumb Rooshuns" were the targets of local jokes. Such an informal social hierarchy did much to strengthen the friendships that existed between early German Russians and Sioux Indians.


IN THE LAND OF WTANWOSLATA 21 One institution that was of crucial importance in

continually bringing together German-Russian and Indian people on the reservation was the Catholic Church. For the German Russians, the church simultaneously had reinforced both their ethnic and religious identity. In Russia, Roman Catholicism accentuated the religious differences that separated Black Sea German Catholics from Protestant German-speaking colonists, Orthodox Russian peasants, and Muslim Tatars. But in Sioux County, the Catholic church proved to be a mutual meeting ground for different cultures. Due to the influence of the church, many Catholic German Russians and Sioux Indians worshipped together, celebrated important religious feast days, and mourned each other's dead.

Two of the most noteworthy figures in the early Catholic history of the Standing Rock Reservation were Fathers Bernard Strassmaier (1861-1940) and Francis Gerschwyler (1859-1946) (fig.3).14 Both priests were European-bom, Benedictine missionaries who were fluent not only in German but in the Sioux language. According to a few grizzled Sioux County settlers, the priests were instrumental in encouraging many Catholic German-Russian families to settle on the reservation. The religious services that the two

Benedictines conducted on the reservation are vividly remembered by many Sioux County individuals who grew up before the Second World War. One German Russian recalled:

Oh, I'll never forget Fr. Bernard and the way he said Mass. Of course it was all in Latin in those days. But when it came time for the sermon, he preached in English and in German and in Sioux. We sat there for more than three hours until Mass got over! Oh, it was something. And then there was always a lot of [hymn] singing in the Indian language. It was great. I always thought German singing was nice but Indian singing was even prettier.

While many Sioux Indians who attended Catholic services in the early 1900s were still undergoing active missionization, German Russians were scarcely immune to clerical criticism regarding their failure fully to embrace official religion. Indeed, German-Russian Catholics in North Dakota were sometimes subject to such extreme measures as excommunication and even interdict. In 1909, when a priest's home was riddled with bullets and another Catholic clergyman, north of the Standing Rock Reservation, was left without fuel by his "devoted"

Fig. 3. Father Bernard Strassmaier (middle row, left) poses with a group of Sioux and German-Russian parishioners at Fort Yates, North Dakota, circa 1930. Courtesy Frank Fiske Collection and State Historical Society of North Dakota.


22 INTHELANDOF1WAN'WOSLATA German-Russian parishioners, the Irish-American bishop in Fargo angrily responded in a public statement. The prelate denounced the belligerent German Russian of the western prairies as an "ignorant hoodlum" with "strange, barbaric notions" whose "voice in Russia was as low as the angleworm's whistle to its mate, who in the presence of his 250-pound wife is humbler than Uriah Heep, and ... [who] is a despicable cur, so vile that all the dictionaries of all the languages spoken in North Dakota have no words to describe him."15 Needless to say, the hotly worded statement did little to assure the bishop an equally warm place in the hearts of Catholic German Russians on the northern plains.

Due to the tricultural nature of the Catholic church in early day Sioux County, many German Russians became familiar with basic prayers and hymns in Lakota as well as in German and English. The settlers took such linguistic diversity for granted since it was reflected in so many other aspects of daily life on the reservation. Even among those German Russians who were unable to converse in the Sioux language, the use of certain Indian expressions and terms became relatively common. Lakota and Dakota loan words that were picked up by German-Russians on the Standing Rock Reservation included: waste (good); Sica (bad); kola (friend); mniskuya (salt); yofwwmiwgapi (pepper); mazaska (money); witko (foolish); canteskuya (sweetheart); canli'iyopenmi (cigarette); mazopiye (store); winakanye (threshing machine); ieska (an individual of mixed blood), and many others. Sioux nicknames occasionally were given individual German Russians, and the recipients took special pride in their new appellations, no matter how unflattering they might be. ("You didn't get an Indian name unless you were liked," one informant observed.) A German Russian who built a cellar, for example, was seen digging in his yard and thereafter was known as "Pispiza" (Prairie Dog). A Black Sea German woman on me reservation who was of slender build was called "Capunka" (Mosquito). And a German-Russian craftsman who fashioned wrought-iron cemetery crosses and other metal items was known as “Mazakaga" (Makes Iron or Blacksmith).

Just as the German Russians added Sioux words to their trilingual vocabulary, they also coined German language expressions and proverbs that dealt with Indian-white relations on the reservation. Of the older Indians who had befriended them, the German-Russian immigrants often said “Die Indianer sin' so erlich wie der Dag lang is'" (The Indians are as true as the day is

long). Friendships among Indians and whites cemented ties not only between individuals but between peoples, as attested to by the saying 'Wenn ein Indianer dein' Freind is', dann sin'alle Indianer deine Freinde" (When one Indian is your friend, all Indians are your friends).

The material folk culture of the Sioux County German Russians also was influenced by their Indian neighbors. Log buildings were erected by some Black Sea German families who constructed them in the style of the low-roofed dwellings inhabited by so many Sioux residents. The structures usually were built of peeled logs hauled from me river bottoms which were later chinked with a native clay and straw mixture. While not always used as the family's central living quarters, log buildings were utilized for many purposes by the settlers. Log construction was entirely new to the Black Sea Germans, a people who traditionally erected Batse (sun-dried clay brick) structures both in Russia and on the American prairies.17

German-Russian foodways on the Standing Rock Reservation incorporated a number of Sioux practices. Instead of stashing squash and pumpkins in their granaries for winter use, some German Russians dried these garden products much as they had watched Plains Indian women do. Corn was preserved in a similar manner. According to a few "old timers" in Sioux County, it was not uncommon to see wastunkala (ears of corn) hanging out to dry in front of German-Russian homes. Many wild food stuffs were harvested by the settlers, including various plants and tubers that generally were unappreciated by non-Indians. German Russians learned how to dig and prepare tinpsila (wild turnips) and these proved of particular value during the lean years. To their astonishment, the German Russians and the Sioux discovered that besides their mutual fondness for massive amounts of black coffee, they shared two ethnic dishes that were strikingly similar in taste and appearance: Indian "fry bread" and Kiechla, as well as wojapi and Mus (stewed fruit).

A few native plants were used by German Russians on the reservation to treat health disorders. Whether or not these were originally introduced by the Sioux to the early settlers remains uncertain. Most German Russians, particularly those of the immigrant generation, preferred to doctor themselves rather than to seek professional help. Yet, since they came from the steppes of South Russia, the settlers lacked the knowledge of native plant life that the Indians so richly possessed. Some German-


IN THE LAND OF INYAN WOSLATA 23 Russian families on the reservation prepared teas made from cedar and chokecherry bark to treat colds and congestion, remedies that are not known among Germans from Russia elsewhere. A few informants commented that many efficacious plants grew along the banks of the Missouri (for example, certain varieties of "blackweed" and wild mint) but that these were destroyed by the Oahe Reservoir in the 1960s. No evidence was found that German Russians took advantage of Sioux supernatural healing practices. One reason for this may be that most German Russians had access to their own secret body of occult folk medicine (an ancient form of healing by incantation called "Brauche").18 Midwifery was an important skill known to both groups and there were instances of German-Russian children delivered by Sioux midwives and vice versa.

The recreational habits of the German Russians who lived on the Standing Rock Reservation were very different from those of their ethnic kinsmen living in other areas of the Great Plains. Many young German Russians learned how to play tabkapsicapi (the Sioux version of shinny), usually from their Indian playmates. Because the German Russians who settled in Sioux County had to adapt to a diversified farming economy, a dependence on

livestock and part-time ranching developed. As a result of this new adaptive strategy, German Russians became familiar with many facets of the equestrian subculture. Both Indians and German Russians competed in neighborhood saddle bronc contests and community rodeos. During the long winter months, it was not uncommon for Indians and whites to gather periodically for informal get-togethers. German Russians and Sioux Indians learned how to perform the intricate routines of the square dance, and individuals from both groups sometimes served as callers. German Russians taught the tribal members how to waltz and polka, and the Indians reciprocated by teaching Black Sea Germans the kahomni wacipi and mastinca wacipi (Sioux social dances). German-Russian families frequently went to local powwows on the Standing Rock Reservation and in some instances they acted as more than interested spectators. A few German Russians, particularly those better acquainted with Sioux traditions, participated in "giveaways" and honoring dances (fig. 4).

German Russians and Sioux Indians also celebrated important holidays and religious feast days together. At times, the festivities included a diverse mixture of Indian, old country, and Anglo-American elements.

Fig. 4. Indians and non-Indians gather for a celebration dance outside the "Big Store" in Fort Yates, North Dakota, circa 1910. Courtesy Frank Fiske Collection and State Historical Society of North Dakota.


24 IN THE LAND OF INYAN WOSLATA Christmas, New Year's, and the Fourth of July were key examples of celebrations that sometimes had tricultural characteristics. Memorial Day was new to the German Russians and the lavish way in which it was celebrated by the early Sioux undoubtedly influenced the folkways of the watchful immigrants. Early German Russians were impressed by the beautiful paper flowers, beadwork pieces, and food offerings that were displayed on Sioux graves. Thus, it is perhaps not surprising that in the opinion of visiting Black Sea Germans, their relatives in Sioux County "went way out" in colorfully decorating family grave sites on Memorial Day.

The influence that the Standing Rock Sioux exerted on the value system and ideational[*] culture of the German Russians is especially difficult to determine. Yet several German-Russian informants felt the ways of their immigrant parents and grandparents were influenced by the Sioux, especially in regard to generosity. "If you were a friend, an Indian would never hesitate to give the shirt off his back to you," one observer commented. Countless stories are told of Sioux acts of kindness towards local German Russians, especially during the devastating Depression years. German Russians living in neighboring Emmons County were puzzled by their kinsmen on the reservation who, while often much poorer, were always willing to share the meager resources they had. Among Sioux County German Russians, the word geizig (stingy) ranked at the top of undesirable personal traits.

In their social relations with the Indians, the German Russians noted that Sioux acquaintances "did not spend a lot of their time talking about other people." German Russians also were surprised by the loving, respectful manner in which Sioux elders treated the very young. One German-Russian informant, who claimed that Indian child-rearing had influenced the way in which he dealt with his own offspring, said:

The whites was in their glory when they could beat one of their kids up! At least my old man was. And [the German Russians were awful bad] when it came to beating up their children. . . . You never saw the Indians spank their kids. They talked real nice to *em, real polite. And their kids grew up that way.

*ideation: the process of entertaining and relating ideas, —Ed.

The cultural gap between early German-Russian immigrants and the Sioux Indians was bridged somewhat by the mutual sense of a tragic past the two groups possessed. Both peoples discovered that Russian manifestoes and U.S. treaties were only as good as the governments that honored them. And both groups could relate to war and suffering in intensely personal ways. "We had our massacres, too," an embittered German-Russian patriarch explained to me in 1982, and he then proceeded to recite lines from a long poem by Black Sea German poet Georg Rath. The piece dealt with a 1919 incident in Selz, Russia (the ancestral colony of several Sioux County Ger-man-Russian families), in which eighty-seven unarmed Black Sea Germans and their parish priest were machine-gunned by the Bolsheviks and then thrown into a mass grave.

Among those German Russians who learned the Lakota language, tribal legends often were heard and appreciated in the original vernacular. These narratives ranged from accounts about Indian-white conflicts during the late 1800s to stories that were tied to important landmarks. One Lakota-speaking German Russian, in commenting on the sacred rock formation at Fort Yates that gave the reservation its name, explained:

The old Indians, they said that a long time ago there was this woman who wasn't getting along with her husband. When the Indians moved camp, she refused to go with them. She just stayed sitting there. The Indians went on but they came back for her a little later. The woman had turned to stone . . . completely to stone. Yah, that's what the old Indians said. They

claimed it was a fact.

Perhaps the story of lnyan Woslata was one the German Russians could easily relate to because it paralleled the biblical episode about Lot's disobedient wife. Or maybe the story reminded the Sioux County German Russians that—like the Indian woman who became the Standing Rock—they also had severed ties with their people and were forever changed.

The outstanding difference, however, that always stood between the German-Russian immigrants and the early Sioux was in their attitude toward land. To the Germans from Russia, the European steppes and the American prairies were of little use unless they were periodically turned upside down and carpeted


Fig. 5. Sioux Catholics pose in front of the Inyan Woslata (Standing Rock) monument. Fort Yates, North Dakota, 1933. Courtesy Frank Fiske Collection and State Historical Society of North Dakota. with wheat. No matter how many times Standing Rock Sioux individuals tried to inculcate in the German Russians some understanding of the sanctity of land, such efforts were inevitably futile. During the Dust Bowl era, as determined German-Russian families struggled to hold onto their prairie farmsteads, a realization of the fragile land/human relationship did emerge, but it came too late. The black winds of the 1930s claimed whole families and dreams as well as precious topsoil.

CONCLUSION

For those German Russians who remained in Sioux County following the harsh Depression years, there were innumerable changes. German Russians and other whites on the reservation faced a steady popula

tion decline. By the early 1950s, Fathers Bernard and Francis were gone, as were many of the original German-Russian settlers and the older Indians who had befriended them. Instead of looking to their Sioux neighbors for guidance, most German Russians in the land of Inyan Woslata dr

journal, vol. 15, no. 2 summer 1992 · three great-grandparents, jacob and elizabeth sperling...

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