Welcome back, steemit friends. I'm finally catching up on some of my goings on to tell you about! I have been out and about, doing a bit of sheep shearing, and back on Friday, February 2, I helped do some shearing at a Hutterite colony not far from where I live.
Hutterites are a religious group who originated in Germany in the 1500’s. They have a communal type of lifestyle and are Christian Anabaptists. In the 1800’s and early 1900’s, the very small remaining population of European Hutterites began migrating to the prairies of Canada and adjoining areas in the United States as well. They could be compared in many ways to the Amish or the Mennonites, and yet they are very unique.
There were five of us shearing there that day, three of us who are regular shearers, and two young Hutterite men from another colony.
The culture on a Hutterite colony is very different to what the rest of North America is like. They have very traditional roles for the men and the women, and fairly strict rules for dress and conduct. Within the Hutterite peoples, there are differing subgroups, who hold to slightly different standards of traditionality, and the colony I was at was somewhat less rigid than others I have been to in the past. However, the women always wear dresses and headcoverings, so it was quite a novelty for me to be there in my blue jeans and blond ponytail!
One of the ladies was offered one of our cell phones to take pictures of us while worked. I think I was a novelty for her too, she took a LOT of pictures of just me! I didn’t save them all, haha. Here I am taking a quick rest break.
On some colonies I might not have been permitted to join in the shearing work, as that type of labour would be considered “men’s work.” It would have been more permissible for me to pack wool. This colony is quite small and much more tolerant, thankfully, so I wasn’t relegated to cooking and washing dishes with the other ladies this time. The younger ladies helped to pack the wool too, but not until they had finished their other chores. They were all being camera shy so I didn’t get to take a nice picture of them in their traditional dresses. You can see a long blue skirt on the right edge of this photo, and one of the other women to the left, with her black kerchief on.
The work is always shared at a Hutterite colony. No one man or family earns a wage of his own, they earn it for the colony’s good. When items are needed, like cloth for the women to sew new clothes or a new tractor for the fieldwork, the colony purchases them for everyone’s benefit. Each individual gets a small allowance for personal spending money, which allows them to to go shopping for small items that they like, like gifts for a sweetheart or fashionable accessories like sunglasses and ball caps.
Children on colonies enjoy a great deal of schooling in their early years. They all learn to speak German from birth, and attend German school early in the morning. Canadian school divisions provide English instructors to provide standard curriculum, while the German teachers are usually an elder from within the colony and focus on both academic and religious education. Their English teacher brought them to visit for a while in the afternoon too, and they played and laughed and looked totally adorable in their plaid shirts and suspenders and ankle-length dresses and bonnets. I didn’t get much opportunity to photograph them either, but there are some boys playing on the wool bags in the background.
Dave was one of the shearers who came along with us this time, he’s a lot of fun and always has a good story or joke to tell. He can probably play every instrument ever, he's incredubly musical. He struggles with angina, so he has to take his time. I was quite proud of myself that day, because I sheared the same number of sheep as he did! Maybe that sounds terrible, that I’m proud of tying with an old guy with a bad heart, but in the past, he has always done more sheep in a day than me. So I must be getting a little better.
The Hutterites are keen on trade and barter. So we got to receive some of our “wages” in meat that they had processed there on the colony. I got quite a few different things, mostly different cuts of pork and bacon, that I’m excited to be trying soon. I’ve already fried up a package of shoulder-cut bacon for breakfast. It was very yummy!
shearing images courtesy of Lorrie Reed. All other photos were taken by me on my Galaxy S5 Neo
My knowledge about Hutterites is reported according to what they communicated to me directly and knowledge obtained over the years through elementary and high school Social Studies and History classes.
That’s all for this post. Thanks for dropping in!
