What a Hutterite Woman’s Polka Dots Really Mean

Sometime in the early 1960s, the ministers of all three Hutterite branches made a decision about women's kerchiefs. Afterwards, some women folded theirs away in trunks. Some sold them to museums. And some burned them. I wear a kerchief every day of my life, and until this year I did not know any of that had happened. My name is Eva Wurz. I am the head cook on a Hutterite colony of 150 people in southern Alberta. IN THIS VIDEO - The Tiechl, the Mitz and the cap underneath: what a Hutterite woman wears on her head, and why - "Twenty-four hours a day": the rule for baptized women, and the Bible verse behind it - How to tell the three branches apart from across a parking lot: tiny dots, plain black, or huge starched dots that look almost white - Polka dots stamped by hand with a nail head, a size approved by the colony minister - Russian borders, the girls who painted their grandmothers' patterns, and the ban of around 1963 - Fair to both sides: the "adornment of the soul" and a grandmother's border - The light blue thread on my daughter's old Sunday kerchief, and what it remembers Tell me in the comments: is there something in your family that was put away, sold or burned because somebody decided it did not matter? And do you cover your head for anything at all? SOURCES Marijke Kerkhoven, "Striving for the Divine Ornament: Change and Adaptation of Hutterite Women's Dress in North America," Material Culture Review (1996): https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/MCR/article/download/17661/22287?inline=1 hutterites.org – Dress: https://hutterites.org/the-leut/dress/ Amish America – Hutterite Clothing (answers by Linda Maendel, 2015): https://amishamerica.com/hutterite-clothing/ Peaceful Societies – Canadian Election Politics and the Hutterites (2015): https://peacefulsocieties.uncg.edu/canadian-election-politics-and-the-hutterites/ hutterites.org – Home Life gallery: https://hutterites.org/galleries/home-life/ About the narrator: Eva Wurz is a composite character. Her voice and image are AI-generated. The facts in this video come from the sources above.