Culture

All groups rely on symbols that distinguish members from non-members. Time, space, authority, and ritual all play significant roles, but gestures, other non-verbal forms of communication, and dress can also be important. The Hutterites began as a religious movement in the Habsburg Austrian Empire, a region of great cultural diversity. After their early years in the Habsburg province of Tyrol and a century spent in Moravia, they evolved a speech pattern and customs that were typically Germanic and central European. As they migrated further into eastern Europe, they began to use dress as a symbolic identification. Hutterites today have retained many of the cultural patterns of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe, which have acquired a sacred significance.

In their everyday life, they speak one of the many German dialects found in southern Austria and northern Germany. “Huttrish” most closely resembles the speech of Carinthia in southern Austria. It has taken on many additional words as the Hutterites migrated through east-central Europe, Ukraine, and North America. Their variant of spoken German distinguishes them from other Canadians of German background. Hutterites use literary, or High, German in their German-language schools and religious services. English is employed in the regular schools and for communication with non-Hutterites, especially in business dealings. With some exceptions, most speak at least a functional English. Thus they are essentially trilingual.

Clothes are also important symbolically. The trained eye can easily distinguish between the dress of the three leuts. The Dariusleut wear darker colours, for example, while the Lehrerleut are more brightly and colourfully dressed. Change has occurred to a greater extent among the Schmiedeleut than among the Dariusleut and Lehrerleut. Hutterite men usually wear black denim trousers with suspenders (which vary in colour, width, and pattern) and a black coat or jacket, usually homemade, although some are beginning to buy jackets. Shirts may also vary in colour and are sometimes plaid. White shirts are worn for Sunday worship, but some of them are fancier than they were in the past. Felt hats and caps used in winter are also black, but in summer the men often wear lighter-coloured straw hats. Many Hutterites in Alberta customarily donned light- or dark-coloured cowboy hats. All baptized, married men have beards. Many younger men keep theirs neatly trimmed like non-Hutterites, but without a moustache.

Hutterite women are more easily distinguished. They wear an ankle-length gathered skirt, a long apron, a blouse, and a vest or jacket with long sleeves, though this costume varies somewhat from one leut to another. The dress material is typically plaid or flowered. Women cover their heads with a black polka dot kerchief at all times, but the dots differ in size according to the leut. They all have long hair worn in the prescribed fashion: parted in the middle and rolled over in front. The Schmiedeleut in the Dakotas and Manitoba dress in a more informal way: women’s blouse sleeves are elbow length, and men have lapels on their coats, collars on their shirts, and trouser pockets according to contemporary style. The Schmiedeleut and Lehrerleut use buttons on their clothes, but instead of the hooks and eyes employed in the past, women’s clothes have snap fasteners since they are more practical in modern washing machines. After kindergarten, children are usually dressed as miniature adults, although the boys wear black caps with distinctive peaks.

For Hutterites, the biblical injunction “You will know them by their fruits” means that outward appearance must match inward values and beliefs. Thus, how a woman is dressed shows that she is an adult, a Christian, and a Hutterite and that she knows her position relative to men. Her clothing also reveals whether she is dressed for work, Sunday, or evening church. Hutterites generally disapprove of bodily gestures that are flippant. Presentation of the self is orderly, disciplined, and in a spirit of openness, and conversation is modest and restrained. Members of the community frown on meaningless talk and foolish remarks, though the outsider may be allowed to joke with them. When men and women are together in public, men lead in discussion, and the older ones usually speak first. The young are expected to show respect, accept direction, and avoid personal opinions. Singing, reading, visiting, and walking are encouraged, but sports, dancing, and musical instruments are strictly forbidden. There are no food taboos and no ceremonial fasting. Hutterites make their own wine and use it in moderation (beer is consumed in some colonies).