MennoFolk: Mennonite and Amish Folk Traditions

The forty-sixth addition to the Studies in Anabaptist and Mennonite History book series published by Herald Press, Ervin Beck’s MennoFolk: Mennonite and Amish Folk Traditions demonstrates that Mennonites and Amish constitute a religious faith with folk traditions that can be traced to the Anabaptists in Europe in the sixteenth century. The nine chapters cover diverse traditional genres such as ethnic slurs, origin tales and beliefs, trickster tales, urban legends, protest songs, material culture, and festival. The author was an English professor at Goshen College from 1967 to 2003 and is considered to be an insider of the Mennonite and Amish culture.

Beck’s purpose for writing this book is to make both Mennonites and interested non-Mennonites more aware of the group’s cultural traditions. These traditions have been learned by word of mouth or customary example and have been transmitted to succeeding generations of Mennonites. They involve both long-established materials and creative variants, and they express feelings, ideas, and values that are important for the individuals who pass them on in informal performance venues and also for the community that unselfconsciously sponsors them (pp. 18–9). The study does not only focus on narrative. As the Mennonites and Amish are famous for their conscientious objection to war, there is a chapter on protest songs. Glass paintings of flowers, birds, and butterflies with moral statements are a common genre of folk art in the culture, and Beck provides an examination of this kind of cultural production. Almost every Mennonite home has a family record book, and genealogy is a vigorous form of historical memory practiced within the community, including the maintenance of detailed birth, marriage, and death records. The Relief Sale Festival is a folk festival, not a fair, organized by the Mennonites and for the Mennonites. Beyond these genres, this is, most importantly, a book of countless tales. It shows how individual stories can be retold in differing versions with various understandings and interpretations, and it also explores humorous narratives.

In sum, Beck’s MennoFolk is an interesting introduction to the Mennonite folk culture through stories and other traditions. The language used in the book is plain and clear, and the concepts conveyed are easy to grasp. If a picture is worth a thousand words, the generous inclusion of photographs and illustrations in the book has definitely aided my understanding of the Mennonites’ uniqueness as a people. Finally, this study is recommended to all who want to gain a general knowledge of Mennonite religious and folk traditions from an insider’s perspective.