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Reviewed by:
  • Hex Signs: Pennsylvania Dutch Barn Symbols and Their Meaning
  • Elizabeth Wein, Scholar/Writer
Hex Signs: Pennsylvania Dutch Barn Symbols and Their Meaning. By Don Yoder and Thomas E. Graves. (Revised and expanded 2nd edition. Mechanicsburg, Penn.: Stackpole Books, 2000. Pp. x + 86, preface, introduction by Alistair Cooke, 131 illustrations, 2 maps, 2 appendices, bibliography, index.)

Lavishly, lovingly illustrated and revised since its first incarnation in 1989 (E. P. Dutton), this work on hex signs and their meanings originally accompanied a two-year-long travelling exhibition. Yoder and Graves begin with a simple explanation of who the Pennsylvania Dutch are, where they are from, and their religious attitudes; they then define hex signs, their subject, as "geometrical decorations in the form of large stars of various formats painted on the [End Page 512] facades or gable ends of Pennsylvania barns" (p.3). Historically, the hex signs are a form of decorative folk art that dates to 1860 or, perhaps, earlier. They are based on patterns that were first used on paper and household objects, and other personal and intimate objects such as tombstones, long before they became public embellishments for barns.

The scholarship on hex signs has been divided into two camps. Some argue that they are merely decorative and persist for aesthetic reasons. Others claim that they have magical meanings; that they are being used to ward off evil. Yoder and Graves offer a plausible third interpretation of hex signs: they are an indicator of ethnic identity. They argue that the origins are Pennsylvanian and American rather than European, and that they are influenced by barn type and landscape, and not some little bit by tourism. Yoder and Graves's discussion of tourism is very telling in this book. The Pennsylvania Dutch themselves are now perpetuating the theory of hex signs as magical symbols in their own industry and commercial production, creating "an image of the Pennsylvania Dutch that helps, rightly or wrongly, to reinforce the Pennsylvania Dutch self-image" (p. 42). I am reminded of my own "hex sign" fridge magnets, and the mock-fraktur wedding sampler and baby quilt made for me by non-Pennsylvanian friends who based their designs on a sheet of "hex sign" stickers bought at the quintessentially "Dutch" Roots Farmers Market in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

Yoder and Graves believe that there is some validity to all interpretations of the hex sign, and they base this conclusion on interviews conducted with the people closest to the signs: painters and barn owners. Contemporary painters of hex signs say, yes, they are symbolic; no, they do not magically change your life. Painters admit that some of their customers do appear to believe that the hex signs are magical. Barn owners say that the signs are decorative—with meaning. One farmer felt that, regardless of meaning, the hex signs on his barn were integral to the building itself. They completed the barn and made it whole.

Ultimately, hex signs are "a genre of Pennsylvania Dutch folk art formed as an extension of their other art forms, possibly with a memory of the decorated buildings left behind in the old country" (p. 69). Historically and in the present, the signs emphasize ethnic identity, show the affluence or success of farmers (through their ability to afford to have their barns decorated), and show care for the aesthetics of the landscape. They have nothing to do with witches in this context.

This book is user-friendly in that one may dip into it at any point and get something out of it. Yoder and Graves discuss the presence of hex signs and hex sign interest on the World Wide Web (it sounds like the Internet is perpetuating the warding-off evil theory). There is a good bibliography, and an example of the questionnaire used in the interviews. One of the appendices shows how to make your own rosette hex sign—a user-friendly touch indeed. The door of my dour Scottish garden shed could do with a gaudy symbol of my Pennsylvania Dutch heritage.

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