Accordingly, my fieldwork involved a great deal of detective work, tracing consultants through people who knew other people and so forth. Much of it was sheer luck (walking into the right business establishment or farm and catching the right people in, having people overhear me as I performed documentary research at historical societies and libraries, and so forth). However, I was able to obtain information on at least seven living powwowers in southeastern and south-central Pennsylvania, and have reports that 8 to 12 others also exist in that region. Two of these, a Mrs. May in Lebanon County and Jenine Trayer (aka Silver RavenWolf) are open about their powwow practice. The former advertised her powwow practice on a placard outside her business at least as late as 1999 and the latter, a popular contemporary neo-Pagan writer, has

1. There is a perception within the culture area that powwowing is no longer practiced and less than half of the people I spoke with had even heard of it; 2. Former patients and practitioners are afraid that others will label them crazy, or at a minimum, old-fashioned and dutchy; and 3. There is sizable religious opposition to the practice, particularly among Conservative (Eastern) Mennonites, many of whom consider powwowing and other esoteric traditions to be the work of Satan.

P owwowing , or brauche in the Pennsylvania Dutch dialect, is a magico-religious practice whose chief purpose is the healing of physical ailments in humans in animals, although it has had other aims as well, such as conferring protection from physical or spiritual harm, bringing good luck, and revealing hidden information. The practice has been present on this continent since the first German-speaking settlements were established in Pennsylvania in the early eighteenth century, although it has its roots in much older German esoteric traditions (Yoder 1976). My research focused on powwowing as it has existed in south-central and southeastern Pennsylvania today throughout the twentieth century, with emphasis on the present day. I performed ethnographic fieldwork in Adams, Berks, Bucks, Lancaster, Lebanon, Lehigh, Montgomery, Schuykill, and York Counties. Tracking down existing powwowers and powwow clients was difficult for three reasons: