FRIEND: Are you familiar with a “pow wow man?” We’re not talking about Native Americans; this is a tradition of folk magic brought from Germany.

It refers to practitioners of Braucherei, “the Pennsylvania Dutch tradition of folk healing and protective magic brought over by German immigrants in the 1700s,” according to the Facebook page for Pennsylvania German.

“The pow wow men and women were the first call when a child fell sick, a cow stopped giving milk, or a neighbor believed a hex had been placed on their family. 

“They worked from a book called ‘The Long Lost Friend,’ a collection of German charms and remedies first published in Pennsylvania in 1820. It was kept in farmhouses across the state the way other families kept a Bible.”

The book, written by John George Hohman, is called a 19th century grimoire. It is noted, of course, that the remedies and “spells” in the book come with no guarantee, and may be harmful. And are not exactly practical these days. For example, who might have the right eye of a wolf to fasten inside their right sleeve to remain free from all injuries?

“A sure way of catching fish. Take rose seed and mustard seed, and the foot of a weasel, and hang these in a net, and the fish will certainly collect there.”

There are charms against thieves, and charms to compel a thief to return stolen goods.

Some of the charms may be self-serving: “Whoever carries this book with him, is safe from all his enemies, visible or invisible…”

There are 190 charms in the original text, and more in subsequent editions.