Braucherei was carried to Pennsylvania by German-speaking migrants and was then given a printed form by Hohman in 1820 and by the collections that followed. Practitioners distinguish sharply between a charm received from a person and one read in a book, but the two streams have been running alongside each other for two centuries and the printed texts drew on oral material to begin with. Which direction any particular charm travelled is not generally recoverable from what has been recorded.
What would resolve this Systematic comparison of the Pennsylvania repertoire against continental German charm collections of the same and earlier periods, in particular the Palatine and Rhineland material from which the migration came, tracing individual charm types rather than the collections as wholes. Manuscript charm books held privately in Pennsylvania German families, where access can be negotiated on the families' terms, would be the decisive evidence.
OpenGerman folklore studies, Pennsylvania German studies and comparative charm scholarshipDavid W. Kriebel, Powwowing among the Pennsylvania Dutch: A Traditional Medical Practice in the Modern World