The Hutterites (1964) - full transcript
A look at the Hutterites, an Anabaptist religious community similar to the Amish or the Mennonites in rural Alberta.
(bell ringing)
(praying in foreign language)
- [Narrator] 1,265 Hutterites
emigrated from Russia
to Dakota territory in the 1870s.
Their three and a half
centuries-old society
had always forbidden
holding private property
on the basis of Christian teaching.
A century after this migration,
this group had grown to some 30,000 souls,
farming well over a million acres of land
and with colonies in a dozen
states or Canadian provinces.
Scattered from South
Dakota to British Columbia,
the Hutterites prefer
sparsely settled countryside,
where it's too far for the
children to walk to town.
- We're in the world but not of the world.
We're isolated from all
worldly pleasures and lusts,
and so forth on.
Community life is a hard life
if you don't do it for Christ's sake.
- [Man] The name arise
from Hutter, Jacob Hutter.
He was a hat-maker.
(singing in foreign language)
- [Narrator] The Hutterite
community is first and foremost
a Christian fellowship.
It was born in the Protestant
Reformation of the 1520s
out of the Swiss German
Anabaptist movement.
Spiritual cousins of the more
numerous Mennonites and Amish,
the Hutterites came to America
with thousands of Mennonites
when the Russian Tzar withdrew a promise
by Catherine the Great
that Mennonites could be exempted
for reasons of conscience
from military service.
The handwritten Hutterite Chronicle begins
with the bloody saga of persecution
by Catholic authorities in Europe.
Nicknamed the big history book,
it is still kept up in South Dakota.
It recalls the first baptism
in Switzerland in 1525
and the decision a few
years later to establish
a community of goods according
to the Biblical pattern
as recorded in the second chapter of Acts.
This occurred in Moravia.
A period of toleration before
1620 allowed the Hutterites
to prosper and to refine
the art of ceramics,
but their colonies were
depicted by critics
as strange and dangerous nests of birds.
When Jesuits confiscated
their property and children,
they fled to what are
today Hungary and Romania.
- [Gary] The Hoffers, the
Waldners, the Glansers,
the Worts family that's from--
- [Narrator] Gary Waldner,
a Mennonite native of South Dakota,
is of Hutterite ancestry.
- Well, in Clanchester, these
are families that we know
the exact farms where
they came from in Austria,
because that's all on record.
They were Lutherans and
they came as Lutherans
to Transylvania, where they
came up to (mumbles) Hutterites,
there, became convinced
that the Hutterites
have the right teaching, and
joined them eventually, too.
- [Narrator] In the 18th century,
they fled again to the Ukraine.
Here, their minister, Michael Waldner,
led them in 1864 to recover
the communal organization
they had lost in their pilgrimage.
In 1874, Waldner led a group of his people
to purchase a fur trading post
on the Dakota banks of the Missouri River.
Only about a third of his 1,265 immigrants
chose to keep the communal life.
But from those 400 have
come today's 30,000 souls
in 300 colonies.
About a third live south
of the Canadian border.
Two graves in South Dakota
record the death of a pair
of Hutterite conscientious
objectors in World War I,
after abused by soldiers
at Fort Leavenworth.
Such treatment frightened all
but one of the 17 colonies
into resettling in Canada.
But during the 1930s, South
Dakota invited them back
to the farming land de-populated
by the Great Depression.
- [Gary] The Schmiedeleut,
or the Schmied (mumbles),
as we also call them,
come from Michael Waldner who
was a blacksmith or schmied.
And then, of course, the other ones
they're called Dariusleut.
The Dariusleut were
organized in Russia already
and came over as a group
and settled in Wolf Creek.
And then, of course, Lehrerleut
comes from the teacher,
Lehrer, who had studied among
the Mennonites in Russia.
- The conservatives are the Lehrerleut.
The moderate (mumbles)
would be the Dariusleut,
and the most liberal are the Schmiedeleut.
(singing)
- [Narrator] Although
they will never fight
nor take an oath, Hutterites
are far from being anarchists.
- [Man] I respect that very much,
that the government is ordained from God.
We feel that God is a God of order.
- [Narrator] They consider
themselves loyal subjects
of the tolerant
English-speaking governments
under which, after three
and a half centuries,
they found refuge.
But they would be ready to move again,
if North American society
should forbid them
an alternative to military service,
or the privilege of
having their own school.
(singing in foreign language)
(chanting in foreign language)
Each colony has its own
school to teach by route
eternal values and the German language
of the Hutterite origins.
The so-called German school
convenes mornings and afternoons
for an hour before and an hour after
the English or public school,
which meets in the same room.
(speaking in foreign language)
While the sacred duty's being taught,
the symbol of worldly
authority is covered.
(speaking in foreign language)
(slapping)
- It depends a great
lot on a German teacher
in the colony.
I mean, that's where you start
teaching the children
standards and morals.
- [Narrator] The German teacher supervises
the children's manners and
spiritual understanding.
He also has a Sunday afternoon school
at which he tests the children's memory
of the morning ceremony.
In their own way, Hutterites
successfully educate
their children for community and eternity.
Few of these children
would ever be able to feel
comfortable living as
non-Hutterite individuals,
or even as members of a
Christian nuclear family.
They are deeply taught
that they are not here
to enjoy themselves, but
to serve the community
in preparation for eternity.
This collective outlook is
the only understanding of life
that makes sense to them.
The child wakes in a
community of generations.
And he's weaned at the
age of two and a half
from the immediate family.
Hutterites invented the kindergarten
in their thriving colonies in Moravia
over 400 years ago.
(chattering)
Even with large families,
mothers are not overburdened
with child care.
The most liberal of
the three main branches
of the Hutterites, provides playgrounds
with its kindergartens.
A grandmotherly woman or (foreign word),
assisted by teenage girls, is in charge.
The kindergarten child
has few social rights,
and is considered unruly
or foolish, but not evil.
A small child receives love
and kisses from all sides.
In addition to his specific parents,
everybody else looks out for him.
The bond is especially
strong with grandparents.
- You're okay.
Okay, jump.
(thuds)
(laughing)
We feel that the wisdom of God
is the best education
that first (mumbles).
We want our children to be educated,
but not educated in a consolidated school.
(bell ringing)
- [Narrator] And the
English, a public school,
the state brings its secular authority
onto the colony compound.
The relation is congenial.
The English teacher is
usually a non-Hutterite
employed by the state or province,
teaching the state-oriented curriculum.
The colony willingly pays
proportionate school taxes
while insisting that the children study
on the compound itself.
The unique fusion of the
Hutterite colony school
in both the United States and Canada
is the fruit of a successful
dialogue with the state.
- [Man] While we went to
school, we couldn't talk English
was well as they can now.
They pick it up sure fast
with the English teacher.
- [Interviewer] Do you
think that threatens
the Hutterite way of life to do that?
- I don't think so.
This is an English country and
it has changed, huh?
They do that every year.
They're (mumbles) at Medicare.
I think they're different
nurses every year.
But they're acquainted with
them in a couple hours.
(laughing)
(laughing)
- [Woman] Gum?
- [Narrator] The child may be exposed
to some national or secular influence,
as long as the spiritual
community has the last word.
- Put on your coats.
Fasten it up.
Get your gun.
Let's go!
(tapping)
Hmm, I see a wheat field.
Can't go over.
Can't go under.
Let's go through.
Two big lights.
The big teeth.
And a cool wet nose.
See the bear run!
(tapping)
From the ocean, up the trees, back down.
To the wheat field.
(giggling)
- Okay, enough for you.
Come on, bed time.
- [Narrator] Each individual family
has its own apartment,
with only a limited kitchen,
or none at all.
(praying, indistinct)
Hutterite ideas had been
put into classical form
by the 17th century.
- Well, our sermons are always ready.
We can't thank God enough that
they're already in prepare.
We call it ready-cut
bread, spiritual bread.
It's Acts the Second.
- You usually have your sermons in order,
like, I mean, for these
certain holidays year-round,
you got sermons every holiday.
I'd written some sermons six times.
There are things at service,
a thick book of, what is it, 370 pages.
I've copied these books seven times.
It's all over the colonies
from Manitoba to Montana.
- [Narrator] The minister,
chosen by the casting of lots,
is the head of each colony.
- [Minister Voiceover]
It's a high calling,
very important calling,
very big responsibility,
because everything I've seen it,
not quite in line, it
bothers you right away.
It doesn't bother the average man so much,
but it does you, because
you have a duty to do it
and you tell them that it's not right.
Well, I try them, not in a commanding way,
always in an appealing way,
softly, it works better.
- [Narrator] The head minister
and a younger assistant
lead the colony to focus in
worship every day of the week.
For this observance, no bell rings.
That one had the right remark,
would be too much like the Catholics.
Every one in the colony
seems immediately aware
when the minister has left his house
for the worship service.
And all follow, dressed in dark clothes,
within a few minutes.
The building in which the service is held
is not sacerdotal.
It is the place for the meeting,
located in the center of the colony,
near the dining room.
Sometimes the schoolhouse may be used,
with school equipment placed in closets
and flags removed or covered.
(singing)
The sermon is read from
one of the minister's
large collection of handwritten
or photocopied manuscripts.
(singing)
(speaking in foreign language)
My dear brothers and
sisters of our gathering,
may it be acknowledged,
known, and recognized
that all that is done here
is only for the glory of God.
Every day, every moment,
we are to consider
whether our offering is pleasing to God,
or whether it is not pleasing to Him.
Christ said, "A new
commandment I give to you,
"that you love one another
"as I have loved you.
"Thereby, everyone shall know
"that you are my disciples
"if you have love among yourselves."
- When you are willing
to totally surrender your life,
you forsake it all,
then it's no more yours.
You have to do God's will.
Whatever it is, you
can't serve God and man,
you can't serve them both.
You definitely have to
have a total surrender.
- [Narrator] Although raised within
a severely strict system,
Hutterite children enjoy the companionship
of a large extended family of playmates.
Their sense of personal worth comes less
from the freedom to
play, which they do have,
than from becoming
involved in colony work.
(uplifting harmonica music)
- [Boy] Ho!
- [Man] Oh, they can mess things.
You missed the gate.
- Ho, ho.
- [Narrator] As they learn to work,
the children are learning
the fundamental lesson
of giving themselves to the community.
Their efforts are supposed to be seen,
not as expressions of
personal achievement,
but as participation
in the common welfare.
Over and over, they are
taught (foreign word),
mutual resignation, as the
cardinal Christian virtue.
If they ever leave the colony,
one of their most shocking experiences
will be to accept a
paycheck for what they do.
The boy, more than the girl,
feels honored to be given
special responsibility
as this signals his
approach toward manhood
in a patriarchal society.
Young Eli of Saskatchewan is
allowed to come to school late
so that he may take the
dairy herd out to graze.
The beekeeper is often
one of the two ministers.
(man mumbling instructions)
- [Eli] Seal them up?
- [Man] It'll seal 'em.
- [Narrator] Just
growing up in the colony,
several of the boys are likely to learn
a great deal about beekeeping, informally.
(bees buzzing)
- [Man] Don't smoke 'em too hard.
- [Narrator] So that when
a new beekeeper is needed,
someone already has a feel for the job.
- See that, the father bee is here?
(mumbles) how big it is?
See all of these spots in here, okay?
That's sort of queen, lay it eggs.
Over here, you can see
how big they grew already.
See how big they grew?
Over in here, they seal them up already.
- They look like little worms.
- [Man] They're just little worms.
Let me open up one here to show you, see?
See how big that is already?
- [Narrator] At this colony
in Saskatchewan, which belongs
to the conservative
Lehrerleut wing of Hutterites,
the boys get hats instead
of caps at the age of 15,
showing their approach to adulthood.
- What's the word for mother?
- Mudeh.
- How about father?
- Fudeh.
- How about brother?
- Brudeh.
- Sister?
- Suesteh.
- Uncle?
- Ungkle.
- [Interviewer] But when
you talk to an old man,
what do you call him?
- Fedeh.
Fedeh.
(mumbling)
- [Narrator] The boys' visored
caps made by their mothers
are a mark of their
ancestors' sojourn in Russia,
for the century prior to
the migration to America.
A school girl spends much
of her time as a babysitter.
At 15, she, too, will be allowed
a more adult type of work.
A Hutterite girl isn't
used to answering questions
about her personal opinion.
- [Interviewer] What is the thing
you don't like to do the most?
- Babysitting.
- [Interviewer] But you're
willing to do it, aren't you?
- Well, you have to.
- [Interviewer] Do the
children behave for you?
- No.
Can you expect?
- [Interviewer] So what
would happen to you
if you didn't behave?
- We'll get a strapping.
- [Interviewer] Did you ever get one?
- Sure.
- [Interviewer] Is it hard?
- Well, all depends on teacher,
if you have a strict one or...
- [Interviewer] Who straps harder,
the German teacher or the English teacher?
- The German teacher.
- [Interviewer] Do you behave
better for the German teacher?
- Yes, and for the English teacher, too.
Have to respect 'cause
they're ordering you.
- [Interviewer] What if
that doesn't do any good
even if they strap them?
Then what happens?
- Well, you strap harder,
and they don't obey,
that strap mean harder.
- [Interviewer] Did you
ever get a hard strapping?
- No, never.
- [Man] The girls last week
went out driving (mumbles).
They didn't say anything to me.
- [Man] You mean, there
are (mumbles) here?
- [Man] Are you sick?
- [Man] Oh, I haven't seen any yet.
- [Man] Oh, you just
don't know where to go.
(chattering)
- [Interviewer] Are you anxious to be 15?
- Yes.
(upbeat harmonica music)
- [Narrator] Old-fashioned songs like
The Wreck of the Old 97 aren't forgotten
by Hutterite young people.
No one girl has to work overly hard,
and one can socialize
in the midst of work.
With a crew like this one in South Dakota,
a large vegetable garden
can be made free of weeds
in half an hour.
(chattering)
A girl, too, absorbs skills simply
by participating in group work.
She can bake a cherry pie
without anyone teaching her.
But she's more likely to bake 15
with her sisters and cousins
preparing for a weekend meal.
(chattering)
A woman's work is sharply bounded
by sexually-defined roles.
Girls can look forward to
a life of physical work
shared by the community,
and early retirement from strenuous labor.
The only administrative roles
open to women in the colony
are those of chief cook
and head seamstress,
whereas there may be
six or seven departments
for men to be buzzed over.
♪ He knows I've got leaving
on my mind these days ♪
♪ When I get this urge to roam ♪
♪ I'm just like a kid again ♪
♪ Same old jail breaker running away ♪
♪ Here I go once again ♪
♪ With my suitcase in my hand ♪
♪ And I'm running away down River Road ♪
♪ And I swear once again
that I'm never coming home ♪
♪ I'm chasing my dreams down River Road ♪
(bell ringing)
The man in charge of meat-cutting
can always count on a labor pool
to whom no wages are due.
Feeding a hundred or more people daily
calls for expert management.
Much of the food is raised and
processed on the colony farm,
and the rest is bought in bulk
after skillful buying at favorable prices.
- [Man] (mumbles) in chicken barn
and take first responsibility there.
And that's all it takes.
Nobody is forced, nobody is driven to work
harder than his capability allows him.
(singing)
- [Narrator] Freda of North Dakota
is preparing for church
membership as she works.
She keeps her catechism close by.
- (mumbles) that each young person gets
when he's about ready to get baptized.
There's 45 questions and answers,
and we have to learn those by heart,
and also two poems, and we can choose
either one, which one we wanna learn,
which we have to recite
before the community.
- [Interviewer] When do
you recite that to them?
- The Saturday before we get baptized,
so the day before.
- [Interviewer] How would you
say you would have to change?
- You'd be more devoted to
the community and to the Lord,
and also with my fellowmen.
I have to accept
when somebody admonishes me in some areas
and I have to also admonish
others when I see wrong.
- [Interviewer] Do you
think you can do that?
- Maybe (laughs), with the Lord's help.
- [Interviewer] Is it a struggle for you
to come to that choice
to give yourself up?
- Yes, it is.
- [Narrator] (mumbles) of North Dakota
met her future husband at
a young people's concert
among the liberal Schmiedeleut
colonies of Manitoba.
(singing)
Hutterites are a serious
people, modest and restrained.
No projection of the individual
personality is favored.
The ecstasy in Hutterite singing
is in the interflow of personalities
mutually yielded to God
in contemplation of timeless reality.
♪ I am looking for the city built of God ♪
♪ Where the many mansions be ♪
♪ I am walking now the
path that Jesus trod ♪
♪ And His face I soon shall see ♪
♪ Oh, the glory gates are ever open wide ♪
♪ Inviting the world to come ♪
♪ Oh, the glory gates are ever open wide ♪
♪ To welcome the weary home ♪
(chattering)
(clapping)
A birthday party, which
would be considered
too worldly by most Hutterites,
suggests the changing attitude
among the more liberal colonies.
Traditionally, playing
harmonicas has been tolerated
but not publicly.
(mellow harmonica music)
A Hutterite is one of
the most candid persons
you will ever meet.
The man on the left, from a
colony half a continent away,
is here in South Dakota looking for a wife
and everybody knows it.
- [Interviewer] Should a
woman obey her husband?
- Yes.
- [Interviewer] On what do you base that?
- On the Word.
- [Narrator] Young Tom Waldner of Manitoba
got his wife from a colony 120 miles away.
The couple's first home together
is an apartment in the
kindergarten building,
chosen for them by colony elders.
They have no economic anxiety,
no rent or mortgage to pay.
- [Interviewer] Where do you think
they'll put you after this?
- You'll never build a house someday.
- You're not worried?
- Mm-um.
- You're not either?
- No.
- [Narrator] Young Tom
tried life alone in Winnipeg
before returning to the
colony and marrying.
(clanking)
Now he says he wouldn't want
his son to leave the colony
because, as he puts it,
"There's nothing out there."
A machine shop is central to
the business of the colony.
Hutterites service and
even invent and build
much of their own equipment.
- We used to have one of
(mumbles) rust, you know?
There's so much hazard in the
maneuver from the hog barn.
They're rust, now we're gonna
make it out of same machine.
We hope it's gonna last forever.
(whirring)
- [Interviewer] What do you
feel deep down (mumbles)?
And yet the colony makes you buzz in it.
- [Man] Then you just
have to be a blacksmith
and enjoy it.
- [Interviewer] How did you
get picked to work in the shop?
- Oh, I guess they voted me in here.
- [Interviewer] Do you like it?
- I enjoy it.
- [Interviewer] Don't
you ever wish you were
doing something else?
(mumbles)
- (mumbling) for a while
and I didn't like that
so I did it.
(whirring)
- [Narrator] One colony in South Dakota
has a mill that has grown
into a commercial business,
with its own brand of feeds,
successfully competing with larger firms.
- [Man] The business there were modern.
We are thinking about
putting in a computer.
- [Minister] But we do not
try to modernize our religion
or the hope that is given
us for a narrow path.
That, we do not try to modernize.
- [Narrator] A family apartment,
particularly with the
strictest Hutterites,
is as bare as an architect's drawing.
The point of life is not to
be lost amidst the decor.
But the feeling of austerity is softened
by continuous socializing
among Hutterite friends
and relatives from near and far.
(chattering)
Even an evening snack is always preceded
by a memorized prayer, with folded hands.
(praying in foreign language)
The husband, in this case the colony boss,
is clearly the authority in the family.
(chattering)
- We went there, always far from home,
and (mumbles) over our drive (mumbles).
- So we didn't go to sleep on the road.
- [Narrator] Next to the minister,
the steward or colony boss,
called Wiet in German,
has the most authority.
Elected on the basis of what
is considered his superior ability,
he oversees the buying and selling
and is really the head of a good-sized,
legally-structured farm cooperative,
dealing in hundreds of
thousands of dollars.
He is the head of the
various department bosses
in the colony, in charge of cows, hogs,
chickens, shop, or field.
- That guy is the boss.
He is the boss out in the field,
tells everybody what to
do and what he wants done.
- [Interviewer] How do
you like taking orders?
- Don't bother me.
You gotta obey anyhow
if you like it or not.
- In seeding time, they work
right up to 11 and 11:30.
If the field is ready to
get done, or close by,
they're gonna work till
one or two in the morning.
Every once in a while,
they come in at two.
- [Man] Sometimes I put in 18 hours a day.
When we're out seeding
and we wanna get done,
just let it roll 'cause
that's my piece of land
just like it's anybody else's
so I feel I gotta work.
Well, everybody feel what's their piece of
whatever is around the
year and they own it
as much of anybody else does.
We are already in the church,
everybody that lives in the colony
is in church automatically.
- But you're not baptized?
- No.
Maybe next year or the other or the other.
- [Interviewer] You're gonna
be a Hutterite all your life?
- [Man] If nothing happens,
bad, yeah, I can leave it
if I want, but I don't want.
I feel I got it better in
here than any place else.
In here, I don't have
to worry about nothing.
Just live.
When I would be up there in (mumbles),
you're trying to make a living,
if things go wrong, you don't work,
you ain't got no money.
You know how it goes.
- [Man] We use the most modern equipment
that's on the market today.
We feel it's only equipment
and has nothing to do
with religion of any kind.
- [Narrator] Building their own barns
and installing the latest
equipment by themselves,
Hutterites make vigorous competitors
in the agricultural marketplace.
This herd of (mumbles) at
a colony west of Winnipeg
was ranked as the highest
in milk production per cow
in the province of Manitoba.
A hundred miles south, another colony
had a herd of brown Swiss
that was ranked second in production
of all breeds in the
state of North Dakota.
- [Man] I have to keep
up with the Joneses here.
I feel he has the edge over us right now.
Our neighbor here.
I farm 70 acres per capita.
What does he farm, 600.
- [Narrator] Unlike
the better-known Amish,
Hutterites don't hesitate to reap
the benefit of technological advance,
and they use big equipment.
If it isn't big enough,
they make it themselves.
(whirring)
- [Man] Most of our boys
have, you might say, been
working big money on the oil
rigs but they all come back.
Most of them, I would say,
80%, 85% of them come back.
So it must be security and
this is what men live for,
it seems like, I mean, the
human nature, wants security.
- [Man] You have clubs, (mumbles)
What are they for?
Having people want to live together.
They don't want to live as an individual.
- [Interviewer] What do
you do for recreation?
- [Man] Recreation, work harder.
Sometimes, Sunday afternoon,
we'd go out and play baseball
and stuff like that.
- We don't encourage
all kinds of recreation.
The colony doesn't object to it
so much as when they start yelling around
a bit too loud, we don't like this at all.
It reminds us of the
outside world so much.
If they can do it in a more reserved way
and enjoy playing, it's more acceptable,
because Christ was quiet all the time.
We wanna be a true follower of Christ.
You are following His footsteps.
He was quiet, reserved, this
is what we like to have.
(kids squealing)
(yelling)
(chattering)
(cheering)
We don't like the sick kid
coming too close to cities.
If we can keep them right
out in the countryside
like we do it, we don't
encourage town visits too much.
It's more than there used to
be because all your produce
has to be hauled to towns and cities,
but it's always better if
they stay away from there.
In the countryside,
it's next to (mumbles),
not too tempting, you know.
I know in my days, I
never seen so many shows
but when the minister,
when they found out,
that you had to stand in church (mumbles).
- I am tempted but I don't yield.
- Well, we have no
objection to taking a drink.
We approve it if you take it in moderation
because I think we have a
Biblical basis for this, too,
because Paul said, he commanded Timothy,
he could drink for thy stomach's sake.
He never encouraged to overdrink
because the Bible speaks against drunkards
and there's ruin (mumbles).
- [Interviewer] What do you
do when somebody overdoes?
How can you deal with it?
- Well, they usually have
to stand up in church
and be corrected, or
later they're brought up
in what we call a (foreign word)
just to have a court
session like the elders
will talk over it.
They correct him up there.
You have to either stand
up and apologize for it.
We don't approve of it.
- [Man] Or we are clannish, too,
just like the Indian.
But the Indian is very clannish.
He could never do without,
he's got to be amongst his own
and the Hutterite is much the same.
And you don't find no place
better than right here.
When you have to live with your fellowmen,
you know what that's like.
You live with me and I live with him.
The ordinary individual
can go around the block
and circumvent his neighbor, but not here.
You can't do it.
You have to live with them.
And I tell you, it's the supreme test.
- [Man] It is only
possible through the Bible,
through Christian bringing up.
So I put that in under myself.
Blessed are those who
create peace around them.
And I'll tell you,
there's more than one way
you can create peace around you.
- [Narrator] When the Red River overflowed
and endangered the city of
Grand Forks, North Dakota,
Hutterites from a small
colony 40 miles away
joined the volunteers
working night and day
to contain the river.
(radio chattering)
As far as basic physical,
non-political needs are concerned,
the separatist Hutterites
feel complete solidarity
with their uncovenanted neighbors.
In such an emergency, they don't mind
working with the Red Cross,
or even the military,
though they themselves
are conscientious objectors
to military service.
(chattering)
- Yeah, we're sandbagging
couple of days ago,
sandbagged for eight hours.
- Are you tired?
- Oh, yeah.
- [Interviewer] How many
came from the colony?
- I think there was 20 or something.
- Can I get through
all the way up, or not?
- As far as this forklift is up there,
as far as you can get.
- Okay, and there's nobody up there.
- Right.
- Okay, try to go around then.
- [Narrator] The Hutterite colony
brought their heavy equipment
and kept it going until
the emergency was over.
(plaintive harmonica music)
(upbeat harmonica music)
- [Boy] Don't have my tools.
This fish bite my hook.
They're doing right at me.
They ought to.
(upbeat harmonica music)
(mechanical whirring)
- [Narrator] The medieval European village
was a largely self-sufficient unit,
performing its own crafts.
Hutterites retained some aspects
of that village self-sufficiency.
- I didn't used to like it but now I do.
I've been at it for 16
years now, you know.
I (mumbles) every year.
I wanna take some more time,
I was making a pair of shoes.
Now you multiply that by 150,
besides feeding ducks and
geese and repair work.
It's a lot easier repairing than it is
to fix a button shoe
because of them button shoes
are already glued together or
cemented together, you know.
And that's hard to fix.
Sometimes you get a shoe,
and I got a good example
hanging over there on the wall.
Well, the one fell apart
whereas the other one
was just a good shoe,
but you are not gonna walk one-legged.
- [Narrator] The shoemaker in
this colony in Saskatchewan
is also responsible for
the ducks and geese.
While most of the other
men are 60 miles away
building a new colony,
the shoemaker oversees
the annual duck killing.
Helping him are the girls and women,
several of the older men,
and some of the older children
excused from school for the day.
(quacking)
Since this seasonal
activity is exactly the same
from year-to-year, it has a
predictable ritual flavor.
Every person seems to
know his or her own role,
with the children
considering it a privilege
to be included in the adult project.
(whirring)
(quacking)
(quacking)
(chopping)
(quacking)
♪ Lord, help me today, show me the way ♪
♪ One day at a time ♪
♪ Do you remember when
you walked among men ♪
♪ Well, Jesus, you know
if you're looking below ♪
♪ It's worse now than then ♪
♪ Show me the stairway I have to climb ♪
♪ Lord, for my sake, teach me to take ♪
♪ One day at a time ♪
♪ One day at a time, sweet Jesus ♪
♪ It's all I'm asking from You ♪
♪ Just give me the strength ♪
♪ To do everyday what I have to do ♪
♪ Yesterday's gone, sweet Jesus ♪
♪ And tomorrow may never be mine ♪
♪ Lord, help me today, show me the way ♪
♪ One day at a time ♪
(chattering)
Dipping the duck in hot wax
and then in cold water
leaves a coating of wax
that takes the little
thin feathers with it
when it's peeled off like a crust.
There isn't great physical stress
on older people in the colony.
After the age of 45 or 50,
they find the hard labor
carried by the younger people,
who greatly outnumber them.
The older folks can do as much work
as they feel able to do.
And they never have to worry about
writing a will or
bequeathing their property
to the next generation.
All they have, except for
a few personal mementos
already belongs to their children.
(quacking)
Broom-making is another
of the village crafts
that has survived here and
there in Hutterite colonies.
It allows an old man
some meaningful activity,
as this particular man in South Dakota
just a few months before
his death in his 80s.
Skills learned in his
youth remain in his hands
even after his physical
responses have slowed down.
A handmade Hutterite broom will last
until its very fiber deteriorates.
At all ages, Hutterites
know why they are alive,
and how they should live.
By old age, they are
surrounded by a large family
of offspring who treat them with respect.
- [Peter Voiceover] In
winter months especially,
I wrote quite a few of those old books
that they had printed
for (mumbles) in Austria.
- [Interviewer] How old
were you when you did that?
- [Peter] 75, 77.
I would do it today if I
had something interest.
I first read (mumbles) writings.
And it's easier to write.
- [Narrator] Peter Ans
found the manuscripts
he had written himself.
He finds the work enjoyable,
in a retirement that comes after 33 years
of being colony boss.
The small size of many
Hutterite cemeteries
emphasizes the fact that
the majority of the colonies
are relatively young.
Paradoxically, though they
always stress community,
the Hutterites remember
each individual vividly.
When the population of a colony increases
beyond a certain level,
there goes a consciousness
of a need to swarm,
to found a daughter colony.
It's called branching out.
- [Man] Hey!
Go away, (mumbling).
- [Narrator] No one worries about this.
The pattern is fixed in communal memory.
Hutterites have had to move and rebuild
for four and a half centuries.
- [Man] Come (mumbles) at the hill!
- [Narrator] At this,
they are professionals.
- [Man] The hair.
- [Narrator] Half the
goods are transferred
to the new colony.
Everybody packs to move, and the group
is divided between the two ministers.
- [Man] (mumbles) Favor the hill.
- [Narrator] Lots are then drawn to see
which of the two sets will move.
- [Man] Okay, do it.
- [Narrator] The new village
is laid out on the prairie,
consciously to the
directions of the compass.
It isn't left or right, but east or west,
south or north.
- No, not (mumbles), I'll do it.
(whirring)
- [Man] When this colony
gets organized to set up,
we want them to be complete,
wanna make it appealing,
so there won't be any hardships moving.
- [Interviewer] You want to drain water
away from the neighbors,
that's right, will you?
- No, we got the rights there.
You talk with government official.
They gave you the okay on it.
We're doing everything within our rights
and to see how it works good.
- [Narrator] The Hutterian
brotherhood has been called
the fastest growing society
known in North America.
There's strong motivation,
hard work and cohesiveness,
give them economic advantages
that are sometimes resented.
This was especially true in
Alberta in the 1960s and 70s.
- We have been criticized
for not patronizing the
local merchants in all this,
but when you just drive
into the big cities
and you see where the neighbors
are doing all the shopping,
but Hutterites have to be the scapegoats
in a lot of this thing and
just criticizing for it.
Christ promises, in the Bible.
If you wanna be a follower of
Christ, you can except this.
I think you should get a write
down and study it deeply.
You can see it's just
motivated by enviness,
and jealousy, and prejudice.
They think they can compete with us.
They look at this big
place of colony being built
and they think the Hutterites
get all kinds of money
and they don't realize that
you've earned the money
like anybody else, but
with our system, I think,
is ahead of the individual system because
we don't have to pay labor cost
in a community life where you're sharing.
And you'd have to pay salaries or labor,
this kind, you couldn't afford
to develop a place like this.
I think it's a high
calling to be a Hutterite.
And a lot of thing, the good Lord meant it
for everybody in the
world to be a Hutterite,
I don't think so.
- [Interviewer] So you think
maybe some other people
will get to heaven that
weren't Hutterites?
- Well, that Bible word
when Jesus talks there,
they did come from all
corners of the earth,
I believe that's very important,
that's very significant.
- [Narrator] A small
group of people in Japan
have not only adopted Hutterian beliefs
and translated the old writings,
but accepted communal living
and even Hutterite custom.
They are part of a
greater Hutterian society
which, in recent decades, has been joined
by several Christian communities
originating in Europe,
and now thriving in the eastern
United States and England.
(chattering)
- [Interviewer] You have
your pick when this is done.
Would you want to stay at
the old colony or this one?
- It doesn't matter.
- Really?
- You don't care where we'll end up.
- [Interviewer] How about the other girls?
- [All] We don't care.
(chattering)
- [Narrator] "Teach us
to care and not to care",
wrote T.S. Eliot.
To be a Hutterite is not
to care about yourself,
but to care about the (mumbles),
community, God's approval.
It is to trust God to reward
you manifoldly in eternity
for what you gave up in time,
for the sake of the kingdom.
(singing)
No one who trusts in God
will be put to shame.
Were I to be the first one?
No, that's impossible, not to a shepherd.
Sooner than I were to disappoint me,
the very heavens would fall.
♪ There's a land that is fairer than day ♪
♪ And by faith we can see it afar ♪
♪ For the father waits over the way ♪
♪ He'll prepare us a
dwelling place there ♪
♪ In the sweet by and by ♪
♪ We shall meet on that beautiful shore ♪
♪ In the sweet by and by ♪
♪ We shall meet on that beautiful shore ♪
- [Announcer] Major
funding for this program
has been provided by
the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Additional funding has been provided by
Mennonite Mutual Aid Foundation
and the South Dakota
Committee on the Humanities.
(tense techno music)
(praying in foreign language)
- [Narrator] 1,265 Hutterites
emigrated from Russia
to Dakota territory in the 1870s.
Their three and a half
centuries-old society
had always forbidden
holding private property
on the basis of Christian teaching.
A century after this migration,
this group had grown to some 30,000 souls,
farming well over a million acres of land
and with colonies in a dozen
states or Canadian provinces.
Scattered from South
Dakota to British Columbia,
the Hutterites prefer
sparsely settled countryside,
where it's too far for the
children to walk to town.
- We're in the world but not of the world.
We're isolated from all
worldly pleasures and lusts,
and so forth on.
Community life is a hard life
if you don't do it for Christ's sake.
- [Man] The name arise
from Hutter, Jacob Hutter.
He was a hat-maker.
(singing in foreign language)
- [Narrator] The Hutterite
community is first and foremost
a Christian fellowship.
It was born in the Protestant
Reformation of the 1520s
out of the Swiss German
Anabaptist movement.
Spiritual cousins of the more
numerous Mennonites and Amish,
the Hutterites came to America
with thousands of Mennonites
when the Russian Tzar withdrew a promise
by Catherine the Great
that Mennonites could be exempted
for reasons of conscience
from military service.
The handwritten Hutterite Chronicle begins
with the bloody saga of persecution
by Catholic authorities in Europe.
Nicknamed the big history book,
it is still kept up in South Dakota.
It recalls the first baptism
in Switzerland in 1525
and the decision a few
years later to establish
a community of goods according
to the Biblical pattern
as recorded in the second chapter of Acts.
This occurred in Moravia.
A period of toleration before
1620 allowed the Hutterites
to prosper and to refine
the art of ceramics,
but their colonies were
depicted by critics
as strange and dangerous nests of birds.
When Jesuits confiscated
their property and children,
they fled to what are
today Hungary and Romania.
- [Gary] The Hoffers, the
Waldners, the Glansers,
the Worts family that's from--
- [Narrator] Gary Waldner,
a Mennonite native of South Dakota,
is of Hutterite ancestry.
- Well, in Clanchester, these
are families that we know
the exact farms where
they came from in Austria,
because that's all on record.
They were Lutherans and
they came as Lutherans
to Transylvania, where they
came up to (mumbles) Hutterites,
there, became convinced
that the Hutterites
have the right teaching, and
joined them eventually, too.
- [Narrator] In the 18th century,
they fled again to the Ukraine.
Here, their minister, Michael Waldner,
led them in 1864 to recover
the communal organization
they had lost in their pilgrimage.
In 1874, Waldner led a group of his people
to purchase a fur trading post
on the Dakota banks of the Missouri River.
Only about a third of his 1,265 immigrants
chose to keep the communal life.
But from those 400 have
come today's 30,000 souls
in 300 colonies.
About a third live south
of the Canadian border.
Two graves in South Dakota
record the death of a pair
of Hutterite conscientious
objectors in World War I,
after abused by soldiers
at Fort Leavenworth.
Such treatment frightened all
but one of the 17 colonies
into resettling in Canada.
But during the 1930s, South
Dakota invited them back
to the farming land de-populated
by the Great Depression.
- [Gary] The Schmiedeleut,
or the Schmied (mumbles),
as we also call them,
come from Michael Waldner who
was a blacksmith or schmied.
And then, of course, the other ones
they're called Dariusleut.
The Dariusleut were
organized in Russia already
and came over as a group
and settled in Wolf Creek.
And then, of course, Lehrerleut
comes from the teacher,
Lehrer, who had studied among
the Mennonites in Russia.
- The conservatives are the Lehrerleut.
The moderate (mumbles)
would be the Dariusleut,
and the most liberal are the Schmiedeleut.
(singing)
- [Narrator] Although
they will never fight
nor take an oath, Hutterites
are far from being anarchists.
- [Man] I respect that very much,
that the government is ordained from God.
We feel that God is a God of order.
- [Narrator] They consider
themselves loyal subjects
of the tolerant
English-speaking governments
under which, after three
and a half centuries,
they found refuge.
But they would be ready to move again,
if North American society
should forbid them
an alternative to military service,
or the privilege of
having their own school.
(singing in foreign language)
(chanting in foreign language)
Each colony has its own
school to teach by route
eternal values and the German language
of the Hutterite origins.
The so-called German school
convenes mornings and afternoons
for an hour before and an hour after
the English or public school,
which meets in the same room.
(speaking in foreign language)
While the sacred duty's being taught,
the symbol of worldly
authority is covered.
(speaking in foreign language)
(slapping)
- It depends a great
lot on a German teacher
in the colony.
I mean, that's where you start
teaching the children
standards and morals.
- [Narrator] The German teacher supervises
the children's manners and
spiritual understanding.
He also has a Sunday afternoon school
at which he tests the children's memory
of the morning ceremony.
In their own way, Hutterites
successfully educate
their children for community and eternity.
Few of these children
would ever be able to feel
comfortable living as
non-Hutterite individuals,
or even as members of a
Christian nuclear family.
They are deeply taught
that they are not here
to enjoy themselves, but
to serve the community
in preparation for eternity.
This collective outlook is
the only understanding of life
that makes sense to them.
The child wakes in a
community of generations.
And he's weaned at the
age of two and a half
from the immediate family.
Hutterites invented the kindergarten
in their thriving colonies in Moravia
over 400 years ago.
(chattering)
Even with large families,
mothers are not overburdened
with child care.
The most liberal of
the three main branches
of the Hutterites, provides playgrounds
with its kindergartens.
A grandmotherly woman or (foreign word),
assisted by teenage girls, is in charge.
The kindergarten child
has few social rights,
and is considered unruly
or foolish, but not evil.
A small child receives love
and kisses from all sides.
In addition to his specific parents,
everybody else looks out for him.
The bond is especially
strong with grandparents.
- You're okay.
Okay, jump.
(thuds)
(laughing)
We feel that the wisdom of God
is the best education
that first (mumbles).
We want our children to be educated,
but not educated in a consolidated school.
(bell ringing)
- [Narrator] And the
English, a public school,
the state brings its secular authority
onto the colony compound.
The relation is congenial.
The English teacher is
usually a non-Hutterite
employed by the state or province,
teaching the state-oriented curriculum.
The colony willingly pays
proportionate school taxes
while insisting that the children study
on the compound itself.
The unique fusion of the
Hutterite colony school
in both the United States and Canada
is the fruit of a successful
dialogue with the state.
- [Man] While we went to
school, we couldn't talk English
was well as they can now.
They pick it up sure fast
with the English teacher.
- [Interviewer] Do you
think that threatens
the Hutterite way of life to do that?
- I don't think so.
This is an English country and
it has changed, huh?
They do that every year.
They're (mumbles) at Medicare.
I think they're different
nurses every year.
But they're acquainted with
them in a couple hours.
(laughing)
(laughing)
- [Woman] Gum?
- [Narrator] The child may be exposed
to some national or secular influence,
as long as the spiritual
community has the last word.
- Put on your coats.
Fasten it up.
Get your gun.
Let's go!
(tapping)
Hmm, I see a wheat field.
Can't go over.
Can't go under.
Let's go through.
Two big lights.
The big teeth.
And a cool wet nose.
See the bear run!
(tapping)
From the ocean, up the trees, back down.
To the wheat field.
(giggling)
- Okay, enough for you.
Come on, bed time.
- [Narrator] Each individual family
has its own apartment,
with only a limited kitchen,
or none at all.
(praying, indistinct)
Hutterite ideas had been
put into classical form
by the 17th century.
- Well, our sermons are always ready.
We can't thank God enough that
they're already in prepare.
We call it ready-cut
bread, spiritual bread.
It's Acts the Second.
- You usually have your sermons in order,
like, I mean, for these
certain holidays year-round,
you got sermons every holiday.
I'd written some sermons six times.
There are things at service,
a thick book of, what is it, 370 pages.
I've copied these books seven times.
It's all over the colonies
from Manitoba to Montana.
- [Narrator] The minister,
chosen by the casting of lots,
is the head of each colony.
- [Minister Voiceover]
It's a high calling,
very important calling,
very big responsibility,
because everything I've seen it,
not quite in line, it
bothers you right away.
It doesn't bother the average man so much,
but it does you, because
you have a duty to do it
and you tell them that it's not right.
Well, I try them, not in a commanding way,
always in an appealing way,
softly, it works better.
- [Narrator] The head minister
and a younger assistant
lead the colony to focus in
worship every day of the week.
For this observance, no bell rings.
That one had the right remark,
would be too much like the Catholics.
Every one in the colony
seems immediately aware
when the minister has left his house
for the worship service.
And all follow, dressed in dark clothes,
within a few minutes.
The building in which the service is held
is not sacerdotal.
It is the place for the meeting,
located in the center of the colony,
near the dining room.
Sometimes the schoolhouse may be used,
with school equipment placed in closets
and flags removed or covered.
(singing)
The sermon is read from
one of the minister's
large collection of handwritten
or photocopied manuscripts.
(singing)
(speaking in foreign language)
My dear brothers and
sisters of our gathering,
may it be acknowledged,
known, and recognized
that all that is done here
is only for the glory of God.
Every day, every moment,
we are to consider
whether our offering is pleasing to God,
or whether it is not pleasing to Him.
Christ said, "A new
commandment I give to you,
"that you love one another
"as I have loved you.
"Thereby, everyone shall know
"that you are my disciples
"if you have love among yourselves."
- When you are willing
to totally surrender your life,
you forsake it all,
then it's no more yours.
You have to do God's will.
Whatever it is, you
can't serve God and man,
you can't serve them both.
You definitely have to
have a total surrender.
- [Narrator] Although raised within
a severely strict system,
Hutterite children enjoy the companionship
of a large extended family of playmates.
Their sense of personal worth comes less
from the freedom to
play, which they do have,
than from becoming
involved in colony work.
(uplifting harmonica music)
- [Boy] Ho!
- [Man] Oh, they can mess things.
You missed the gate.
- Ho, ho.
- [Narrator] As they learn to work,
the children are learning
the fundamental lesson
of giving themselves to the community.
Their efforts are supposed to be seen,
not as expressions of
personal achievement,
but as participation
in the common welfare.
Over and over, they are
taught (foreign word),
mutual resignation, as the
cardinal Christian virtue.
If they ever leave the colony,
one of their most shocking experiences
will be to accept a
paycheck for what they do.
The boy, more than the girl,
feels honored to be given
special responsibility
as this signals his
approach toward manhood
in a patriarchal society.
Young Eli of Saskatchewan is
allowed to come to school late
so that he may take the
dairy herd out to graze.
The beekeeper is often
one of the two ministers.
(man mumbling instructions)
- [Eli] Seal them up?
- [Man] It'll seal 'em.
- [Narrator] Just
growing up in the colony,
several of the boys are likely to learn
a great deal about beekeeping, informally.
(bees buzzing)
- [Man] Don't smoke 'em too hard.
- [Narrator] So that when
a new beekeeper is needed,
someone already has a feel for the job.
- See that, the father bee is here?
(mumbles) how big it is?
See all of these spots in here, okay?
That's sort of queen, lay it eggs.
Over here, you can see
how big they grew already.
See how big they grew?
Over in here, they seal them up already.
- They look like little worms.
- [Man] They're just little worms.
Let me open up one here to show you, see?
See how big that is already?
- [Narrator] At this colony
in Saskatchewan, which belongs
to the conservative
Lehrerleut wing of Hutterites,
the boys get hats instead
of caps at the age of 15,
showing their approach to adulthood.
- What's the word for mother?
- Mudeh.
- How about father?
- Fudeh.
- How about brother?
- Brudeh.
- Sister?
- Suesteh.
- Uncle?
- Ungkle.
- [Interviewer] But when
you talk to an old man,
what do you call him?
- Fedeh.
Fedeh.
(mumbling)
- [Narrator] The boys' visored
caps made by their mothers
are a mark of their
ancestors' sojourn in Russia,
for the century prior to
the migration to America.
A school girl spends much
of her time as a babysitter.
At 15, she, too, will be allowed
a more adult type of work.
A Hutterite girl isn't
used to answering questions
about her personal opinion.
- [Interviewer] What is the thing
you don't like to do the most?
- Babysitting.
- [Interviewer] But you're
willing to do it, aren't you?
- Well, you have to.
- [Interviewer] Do the
children behave for you?
- No.
Can you expect?
- [Interviewer] So what
would happen to you
if you didn't behave?
- We'll get a strapping.
- [Interviewer] Did you ever get one?
- Sure.
- [Interviewer] Is it hard?
- Well, all depends on teacher,
if you have a strict one or...
- [Interviewer] Who straps harder,
the German teacher or the English teacher?
- The German teacher.
- [Interviewer] Do you behave
better for the German teacher?
- Yes, and for the English teacher, too.
Have to respect 'cause
they're ordering you.
- [Interviewer] What if
that doesn't do any good
even if they strap them?
Then what happens?
- Well, you strap harder,
and they don't obey,
that strap mean harder.
- [Interviewer] Did you
ever get a hard strapping?
- No, never.
- [Man] The girls last week
went out driving (mumbles).
They didn't say anything to me.
- [Man] You mean, there
are (mumbles) here?
- [Man] Are you sick?
- [Man] Oh, I haven't seen any yet.
- [Man] Oh, you just
don't know where to go.
(chattering)
- [Interviewer] Are you anxious to be 15?
- Yes.
(upbeat harmonica music)
- [Narrator] Old-fashioned songs like
The Wreck of the Old 97 aren't forgotten
by Hutterite young people.
No one girl has to work overly hard,
and one can socialize
in the midst of work.
With a crew like this one in South Dakota,
a large vegetable garden
can be made free of weeds
in half an hour.
(chattering)
A girl, too, absorbs skills simply
by participating in group work.
She can bake a cherry pie
without anyone teaching her.
But she's more likely to bake 15
with her sisters and cousins
preparing for a weekend meal.
(chattering)
A woman's work is sharply bounded
by sexually-defined roles.
Girls can look forward to
a life of physical work
shared by the community,
and early retirement from strenuous labor.
The only administrative roles
open to women in the colony
are those of chief cook
and head seamstress,
whereas there may be
six or seven departments
for men to be buzzed over.
♪ He knows I've got leaving
on my mind these days ♪
♪ When I get this urge to roam ♪
♪ I'm just like a kid again ♪
♪ Same old jail breaker running away ♪
♪ Here I go once again ♪
♪ With my suitcase in my hand ♪
♪ And I'm running away down River Road ♪
♪ And I swear once again
that I'm never coming home ♪
♪ I'm chasing my dreams down River Road ♪
(bell ringing)
The man in charge of meat-cutting
can always count on a labor pool
to whom no wages are due.
Feeding a hundred or more people daily
calls for expert management.
Much of the food is raised and
processed on the colony farm,
and the rest is bought in bulk
after skillful buying at favorable prices.
- [Man] (mumbles) in chicken barn
and take first responsibility there.
And that's all it takes.
Nobody is forced, nobody is driven to work
harder than his capability allows him.
(singing)
- [Narrator] Freda of North Dakota
is preparing for church
membership as she works.
She keeps her catechism close by.
- (mumbles) that each young person gets
when he's about ready to get baptized.
There's 45 questions and answers,
and we have to learn those by heart,
and also two poems, and we can choose
either one, which one we wanna learn,
which we have to recite
before the community.
- [Interviewer] When do
you recite that to them?
- The Saturday before we get baptized,
so the day before.
- [Interviewer] How would you
say you would have to change?
- You'd be more devoted to
the community and to the Lord,
and also with my fellowmen.
I have to accept
when somebody admonishes me in some areas
and I have to also admonish
others when I see wrong.
- [Interviewer] Do you
think you can do that?
- Maybe (laughs), with the Lord's help.
- [Interviewer] Is it a struggle for you
to come to that choice
to give yourself up?
- Yes, it is.
- [Narrator] (mumbles) of North Dakota
met her future husband at
a young people's concert
among the liberal Schmiedeleut
colonies of Manitoba.
(singing)
Hutterites are a serious
people, modest and restrained.
No projection of the individual
personality is favored.
The ecstasy in Hutterite singing
is in the interflow of personalities
mutually yielded to God
in contemplation of timeless reality.
♪ I am looking for the city built of God ♪
♪ Where the many mansions be ♪
♪ I am walking now the
path that Jesus trod ♪
♪ And His face I soon shall see ♪
♪ Oh, the glory gates are ever open wide ♪
♪ Inviting the world to come ♪
♪ Oh, the glory gates are ever open wide ♪
♪ To welcome the weary home ♪
(chattering)
(clapping)
A birthday party, which
would be considered
too worldly by most Hutterites,
suggests the changing attitude
among the more liberal colonies.
Traditionally, playing
harmonicas has been tolerated
but not publicly.
(mellow harmonica music)
A Hutterite is one of
the most candid persons
you will ever meet.
The man on the left, from a
colony half a continent away,
is here in South Dakota looking for a wife
and everybody knows it.
- [Interviewer] Should a
woman obey her husband?
- Yes.
- [Interviewer] On what do you base that?
- On the Word.
- [Narrator] Young Tom Waldner of Manitoba
got his wife from a colony 120 miles away.
The couple's first home together
is an apartment in the
kindergarten building,
chosen for them by colony elders.
They have no economic anxiety,
no rent or mortgage to pay.
- [Interviewer] Where do you think
they'll put you after this?
- You'll never build a house someday.
- You're not worried?
- Mm-um.
- You're not either?
- No.
- [Narrator] Young Tom
tried life alone in Winnipeg
before returning to the
colony and marrying.
(clanking)
Now he says he wouldn't want
his son to leave the colony
because, as he puts it,
"There's nothing out there."
A machine shop is central to
the business of the colony.
Hutterites service and
even invent and build
much of their own equipment.
- We used to have one of
(mumbles) rust, you know?
There's so much hazard in the
maneuver from the hog barn.
They're rust, now we're gonna
make it out of same machine.
We hope it's gonna last forever.
(whirring)
- [Interviewer] What do you
feel deep down (mumbles)?
And yet the colony makes you buzz in it.
- [Man] Then you just
have to be a blacksmith
and enjoy it.
- [Interviewer] How did you
get picked to work in the shop?
- Oh, I guess they voted me in here.
- [Interviewer] Do you like it?
- I enjoy it.
- [Interviewer] Don't
you ever wish you were
doing something else?
(mumbles)
- (mumbling) for a while
and I didn't like that
so I did it.
(whirring)
- [Narrator] One colony in South Dakota
has a mill that has grown
into a commercial business,
with its own brand of feeds,
successfully competing with larger firms.
- [Man] The business there were modern.
We are thinking about
putting in a computer.
- [Minister] But we do not
try to modernize our religion
or the hope that is given
us for a narrow path.
That, we do not try to modernize.
- [Narrator] A family apartment,
particularly with the
strictest Hutterites,
is as bare as an architect's drawing.
The point of life is not to
be lost amidst the decor.
But the feeling of austerity is softened
by continuous socializing
among Hutterite friends
and relatives from near and far.
(chattering)
Even an evening snack is always preceded
by a memorized prayer, with folded hands.
(praying in foreign language)
The husband, in this case the colony boss,
is clearly the authority in the family.
(chattering)
- We went there, always far from home,
and (mumbles) over our drive (mumbles).
- So we didn't go to sleep on the road.
- [Narrator] Next to the minister,
the steward or colony boss,
called Wiet in German,
has the most authority.
Elected on the basis of what
is considered his superior ability,
he oversees the buying and selling
and is really the head of a good-sized,
legally-structured farm cooperative,
dealing in hundreds of
thousands of dollars.
He is the head of the
various department bosses
in the colony, in charge of cows, hogs,
chickens, shop, or field.
- That guy is the boss.
He is the boss out in the field,
tells everybody what to
do and what he wants done.
- [Interviewer] How do
you like taking orders?
- Don't bother me.
You gotta obey anyhow
if you like it or not.
- In seeding time, they work
right up to 11 and 11:30.
If the field is ready to
get done, or close by,
they're gonna work till
one or two in the morning.
Every once in a while,
they come in at two.
- [Man] Sometimes I put in 18 hours a day.
When we're out seeding
and we wanna get done,
just let it roll 'cause
that's my piece of land
just like it's anybody else's
so I feel I gotta work.
Well, everybody feel what's their piece of
whatever is around the
year and they own it
as much of anybody else does.
We are already in the church,
everybody that lives in the colony
is in church automatically.
- But you're not baptized?
- No.
Maybe next year or the other or the other.
- [Interviewer] You're gonna
be a Hutterite all your life?
- [Man] If nothing happens,
bad, yeah, I can leave it
if I want, but I don't want.
I feel I got it better in
here than any place else.
In here, I don't have
to worry about nothing.
Just live.
When I would be up there in (mumbles),
you're trying to make a living,
if things go wrong, you don't work,
you ain't got no money.
You know how it goes.
- [Man] We use the most modern equipment
that's on the market today.
We feel it's only equipment
and has nothing to do
with religion of any kind.
- [Narrator] Building their own barns
and installing the latest
equipment by themselves,
Hutterites make vigorous competitors
in the agricultural marketplace.
This herd of (mumbles) at
a colony west of Winnipeg
was ranked as the highest
in milk production per cow
in the province of Manitoba.
A hundred miles south, another colony
had a herd of brown Swiss
that was ranked second in production
of all breeds in the
state of North Dakota.
- [Man] I have to keep
up with the Joneses here.
I feel he has the edge over us right now.
Our neighbor here.
I farm 70 acres per capita.
What does he farm, 600.
- [Narrator] Unlike
the better-known Amish,
Hutterites don't hesitate to reap
the benefit of technological advance,
and they use big equipment.
If it isn't big enough,
they make it themselves.
(whirring)
- [Man] Most of our boys
have, you might say, been
working big money on the oil
rigs but they all come back.
Most of them, I would say,
80%, 85% of them come back.
So it must be security and
this is what men live for,
it seems like, I mean, the
human nature, wants security.
- [Man] You have clubs, (mumbles)
What are they for?
Having people want to live together.
They don't want to live as an individual.
- [Interviewer] What do
you do for recreation?
- [Man] Recreation, work harder.
Sometimes, Sunday afternoon,
we'd go out and play baseball
and stuff like that.
- We don't encourage
all kinds of recreation.
The colony doesn't object to it
so much as when they start yelling around
a bit too loud, we don't like this at all.
It reminds us of the
outside world so much.
If they can do it in a more reserved way
and enjoy playing, it's more acceptable,
because Christ was quiet all the time.
We wanna be a true follower of Christ.
You are following His footsteps.
He was quiet, reserved, this
is what we like to have.
(kids squealing)
(yelling)
(chattering)
(cheering)
We don't like the sick kid
coming too close to cities.
If we can keep them right
out in the countryside
like we do it, we don't
encourage town visits too much.
It's more than there used to
be because all your produce
has to be hauled to towns and cities,
but it's always better if
they stay away from there.
In the countryside,
it's next to (mumbles),
not too tempting, you know.
I know in my days, I
never seen so many shows
but when the minister,
when they found out,
that you had to stand in church (mumbles).
- I am tempted but I don't yield.
- Well, we have no
objection to taking a drink.
We approve it if you take it in moderation
because I think we have a
Biblical basis for this, too,
because Paul said, he commanded Timothy,
he could drink for thy stomach's sake.
He never encouraged to overdrink
because the Bible speaks against drunkards
and there's ruin (mumbles).
- [Interviewer] What do you
do when somebody overdoes?
How can you deal with it?
- Well, they usually have
to stand up in church
and be corrected, or
later they're brought up
in what we call a (foreign word)
just to have a court
session like the elders
will talk over it.
They correct him up there.
You have to either stand
up and apologize for it.
We don't approve of it.
- [Man] Or we are clannish, too,
just like the Indian.
But the Indian is very clannish.
He could never do without,
he's got to be amongst his own
and the Hutterite is much the same.
And you don't find no place
better than right here.
When you have to live with your fellowmen,
you know what that's like.
You live with me and I live with him.
The ordinary individual
can go around the block
and circumvent his neighbor, but not here.
You can't do it.
You have to live with them.
And I tell you, it's the supreme test.
- [Man] It is only
possible through the Bible,
through Christian bringing up.
So I put that in under myself.
Blessed are those who
create peace around them.
And I'll tell you,
there's more than one way
you can create peace around you.
- [Narrator] When the Red River overflowed
and endangered the city of
Grand Forks, North Dakota,
Hutterites from a small
colony 40 miles away
joined the volunteers
working night and day
to contain the river.
(radio chattering)
As far as basic physical,
non-political needs are concerned,
the separatist Hutterites
feel complete solidarity
with their uncovenanted neighbors.
In such an emergency, they don't mind
working with the Red Cross,
or even the military,
though they themselves
are conscientious objectors
to military service.
(chattering)
- Yeah, we're sandbagging
couple of days ago,
sandbagged for eight hours.
- Are you tired?
- Oh, yeah.
- [Interviewer] How many
came from the colony?
- I think there was 20 or something.
- Can I get through
all the way up, or not?
- As far as this forklift is up there,
as far as you can get.
- Okay, and there's nobody up there.
- Right.
- Okay, try to go around then.
- [Narrator] The Hutterite colony
brought their heavy equipment
and kept it going until
the emergency was over.
(plaintive harmonica music)
(upbeat harmonica music)
- [Boy] Don't have my tools.
This fish bite my hook.
They're doing right at me.
They ought to.
(upbeat harmonica music)
(mechanical whirring)
- [Narrator] The medieval European village
was a largely self-sufficient unit,
performing its own crafts.
Hutterites retained some aspects
of that village self-sufficiency.
- I didn't used to like it but now I do.
I've been at it for 16
years now, you know.
I (mumbles) every year.
I wanna take some more time,
I was making a pair of shoes.
Now you multiply that by 150,
besides feeding ducks and
geese and repair work.
It's a lot easier repairing than it is
to fix a button shoe
because of them button shoes
are already glued together or
cemented together, you know.
And that's hard to fix.
Sometimes you get a shoe,
and I got a good example
hanging over there on the wall.
Well, the one fell apart
whereas the other one
was just a good shoe,
but you are not gonna walk one-legged.
- [Narrator] The shoemaker in
this colony in Saskatchewan
is also responsible for
the ducks and geese.
While most of the other
men are 60 miles away
building a new colony,
the shoemaker oversees
the annual duck killing.
Helping him are the girls and women,
several of the older men,
and some of the older children
excused from school for the day.
(quacking)
Since this seasonal
activity is exactly the same
from year-to-year, it has a
predictable ritual flavor.
Every person seems to
know his or her own role,
with the children
considering it a privilege
to be included in the adult project.
(whirring)
(quacking)
(quacking)
(chopping)
(quacking)
♪ Lord, help me today, show me the way ♪
♪ One day at a time ♪
♪ Do you remember when
you walked among men ♪
♪ Well, Jesus, you know
if you're looking below ♪
♪ It's worse now than then ♪
♪ Show me the stairway I have to climb ♪
♪ Lord, for my sake, teach me to take ♪
♪ One day at a time ♪
♪ One day at a time, sweet Jesus ♪
♪ It's all I'm asking from You ♪
♪ Just give me the strength ♪
♪ To do everyday what I have to do ♪
♪ Yesterday's gone, sweet Jesus ♪
♪ And tomorrow may never be mine ♪
♪ Lord, help me today, show me the way ♪
♪ One day at a time ♪
(chattering)
Dipping the duck in hot wax
and then in cold water
leaves a coating of wax
that takes the little
thin feathers with it
when it's peeled off like a crust.
There isn't great physical stress
on older people in the colony.
After the age of 45 or 50,
they find the hard labor
carried by the younger people,
who greatly outnumber them.
The older folks can do as much work
as they feel able to do.
And they never have to worry about
writing a will or
bequeathing their property
to the next generation.
All they have, except for
a few personal mementos
already belongs to their children.
(quacking)
Broom-making is another
of the village crafts
that has survived here and
there in Hutterite colonies.
It allows an old man
some meaningful activity,
as this particular man in South Dakota
just a few months before
his death in his 80s.
Skills learned in his
youth remain in his hands
even after his physical
responses have slowed down.
A handmade Hutterite broom will last
until its very fiber deteriorates.
At all ages, Hutterites
know why they are alive,
and how they should live.
By old age, they are
surrounded by a large family
of offspring who treat them with respect.
- [Peter Voiceover] In
winter months especially,
I wrote quite a few of those old books
that they had printed
for (mumbles) in Austria.
- [Interviewer] How old
were you when you did that?
- [Peter] 75, 77.
I would do it today if I
had something interest.
I first read (mumbles) writings.
And it's easier to write.
- [Narrator] Peter Ans
found the manuscripts
he had written himself.
He finds the work enjoyable,
in a retirement that comes after 33 years
of being colony boss.
The small size of many
Hutterite cemeteries
emphasizes the fact that
the majority of the colonies
are relatively young.
Paradoxically, though they
always stress community,
the Hutterites remember
each individual vividly.
When the population of a colony increases
beyond a certain level,
there goes a consciousness
of a need to swarm,
to found a daughter colony.
It's called branching out.
- [Man] Hey!
Go away, (mumbling).
- [Narrator] No one worries about this.
The pattern is fixed in communal memory.
Hutterites have had to move and rebuild
for four and a half centuries.
- [Man] Come (mumbles) at the hill!
- [Narrator] At this,
they are professionals.
- [Man] The hair.
- [Narrator] Half the
goods are transferred
to the new colony.
Everybody packs to move, and the group
is divided between the two ministers.
- [Man] (mumbles) Favor the hill.
- [Narrator] Lots are then drawn to see
which of the two sets will move.
- [Man] Okay, do it.
- [Narrator] The new village
is laid out on the prairie,
consciously to the
directions of the compass.
It isn't left or right, but east or west,
south or north.
- No, not (mumbles), I'll do it.
(whirring)
- [Man] When this colony
gets organized to set up,
we want them to be complete,
wanna make it appealing,
so there won't be any hardships moving.
- [Interviewer] You want to drain water
away from the neighbors,
that's right, will you?
- No, we got the rights there.
You talk with government official.
They gave you the okay on it.
We're doing everything within our rights
and to see how it works good.
- [Narrator] The Hutterian
brotherhood has been called
the fastest growing society
known in North America.
There's strong motivation,
hard work and cohesiveness,
give them economic advantages
that are sometimes resented.
This was especially true in
Alberta in the 1960s and 70s.
- We have been criticized
for not patronizing the
local merchants in all this,
but when you just drive
into the big cities
and you see where the neighbors
are doing all the shopping,
but Hutterites have to be the scapegoats
in a lot of this thing and
just criticizing for it.
Christ promises, in the Bible.
If you wanna be a follower of
Christ, you can except this.
I think you should get a write
down and study it deeply.
You can see it's just
motivated by enviness,
and jealousy, and prejudice.
They think they can compete with us.
They look at this big
place of colony being built
and they think the Hutterites
get all kinds of money
and they don't realize that
you've earned the money
like anybody else, but
with our system, I think,
is ahead of the individual system because
we don't have to pay labor cost
in a community life where you're sharing.
And you'd have to pay salaries or labor,
this kind, you couldn't afford
to develop a place like this.
I think it's a high
calling to be a Hutterite.
And a lot of thing, the good Lord meant it
for everybody in the
world to be a Hutterite,
I don't think so.
- [Interviewer] So you think
maybe some other people
will get to heaven that
weren't Hutterites?
- Well, that Bible word
when Jesus talks there,
they did come from all
corners of the earth,
I believe that's very important,
that's very significant.
- [Narrator] A small
group of people in Japan
have not only adopted Hutterian beliefs
and translated the old writings,
but accepted communal living
and even Hutterite custom.
They are part of a
greater Hutterian society
which, in recent decades, has been joined
by several Christian communities
originating in Europe,
and now thriving in the eastern
United States and England.
(chattering)
- [Interviewer] You have
your pick when this is done.
Would you want to stay at
the old colony or this one?
- It doesn't matter.
- Really?
- You don't care where we'll end up.
- [Interviewer] How about the other girls?
- [All] We don't care.
(chattering)
- [Narrator] "Teach us
to care and not to care",
wrote T.S. Eliot.
To be a Hutterite is not
to care about yourself,
but to care about the (mumbles),
community, God's approval.
It is to trust God to reward
you manifoldly in eternity
for what you gave up in time,
for the sake of the kingdom.
(singing)
No one who trusts in God
will be put to shame.
Were I to be the first one?
No, that's impossible, not to a shepherd.
Sooner than I were to disappoint me,
the very heavens would fall.
♪ There's a land that is fairer than day ♪
♪ And by faith we can see it afar ♪
♪ For the father waits over the way ♪
♪ He'll prepare us a
dwelling place there ♪
♪ In the sweet by and by ♪
♪ We shall meet on that beautiful shore ♪
♪ In the sweet by and by ♪
♪ We shall meet on that beautiful shore ♪
- [Announcer] Major
funding for this program
has been provided by
the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Additional funding has been provided by
Mennonite Mutual Aid Foundation
and the South Dakota
Committee on the Humanities.
(tense techno music)