Rumspringa
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According to widespread belief, rumspringa is a traditional rite of passage in the Amish religious denomination, and describes a period lasting months or years during which adolescents are released from the church and its rules. The custom is said to be part of the Amish belief that only informed adults can "accept Christ" and be baptized, along with the belief that the unbaptized cannot enter heaven.
This conception contains some measure of scholars' folklore. Among the Amish (and the term is not universal to Amish culture), rumspringa simply refers to adolescence, when a certain amount of misbehavior is unsurprising, and is not so severely condemned (for instance, by Meidung or shunning) as it would be in the case of an adult who had made a permanent and public commitment to the faith. In a narrow sense, the young are not bound by the Ordnung, because they have not taken adult membership in the church, but they remain under the strict authority of parents who are so bound, and there is no period at which it can be said that Amish adolescents are "released" from these rules (Hostetler 154, Igou 165-66, Nolt 105)
As among the non-Amish, there is variation among communities and individual families as to the best response to adolescent misbehaviour. In some cases, patience and forbearance prevail, and in others, vigorous discipline. Far from an open separation from parental ways, the misbehaviour of young people during the rumspringa is usually furtive, though often collective (this is especially true in smaller and more isolated populations; the larger communities are discussed below). Typically, groups of Amish adolescents will meet in town and change into "English" clothing, and share tobacco, alcohol and marijuana; girls may put on jewelry and cosmetics. They may or may not mingle with non-Amish in these excursions. The age is marked normatively in some Amish communities by allowing the young man to purchase a small "courting buggy," or - in some communities - by painting the yard-gate blue (traditionally meaning "daughter of marriageable age living here"; the custom is noted by A.M. Aurand in "The Amish" (1938) along with the reasonable caution that sometimes a blue gate is just a blue gate). There is some opinion that adolescent rebellion tends to be more radical, more institutionalized (and therefore in a sense more accepted) in the more restrictive communities.
As evidenced by the sources below, popular culture and the media have cultivated the idea that the Amish deliberately countenance adolescent rebellion. Perhaps the belief validates a cherished notion of Amish wisdom, but tolerance for deviation from norms is not counted a virtue among the Amish. In interviews, Amish have shown themselves to be aware of these misconceptions and are by turns bewildered and amused.
Some Amish youth do indeed separate themselves from the community, even going to live among the "English", or non-Amish North Americans, experiencing modern technology and perhaps even experimenting with sex, drugs, and alcohol. Their behavior during this time represents no necessary bar to returning for adult baptism into the Amish church. Most of them do not wander far from their family's homes during this time, and large numbers ultimately choose to join the church. However this proportion varies from community to community, and within a community between more acculturated and less acculturated Amish. For example, Swartzendruber Amish have a higher retention rate than the New Order Amish within the Holmes County, Ohio community[citation needed]. This figure was significantly lower as recently as the 1950s, Hostetler (102-05) provides evidence that desertion from the Amish community is not a long-term trend, and was not less of a problem in the early colonial years. It is very common for those individuals who choose not be baptized into the church to be shunned by their community and even by their own families.
The nature of the rumspringa period differs from individual to individual and from community to community. In large Amish communities like Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Holmes County, Ohio, and Elkhart and LaGrange Counties, Indiana, the Amish are numerous enough that there exists an Amish youth subculture. During the rumspringa period, the Amish youth in these large communities will join one of various groups ranging from the most rebellious to the least. These groups are not divided across traditional Amish church district boundaries. In many smaller communities, Amish youth may have a much more restricted rumspringa period due to the smaller size of the communities. Likewise, they may be less likely to partake in strong rebellious behaviour since the anonymity offered in the larger communities is absent.
According to Donald B. Kraybill and James P. Hurd, a mild form of rumspringa is practised among Wenger Old Order Mennonites when they turn 17.
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[edit] Etymology
The word, literally meaning "running around", in Pennsylvania German, is a contraction of rum, an adverb meaning "around" (also used as a separable prefix as in the case of rumschpringe), and the verb schpringe, meaning "to run" or "to skip."
The word rumspringa is closely related to the standard German word herumspringen, although the rum has more of the meaning of "around" than "about". Omitting the he syllable leaving only the rum is widely accepted in colloquial German and does not change the meaning of the prefix. The modern German word springen means "to jump" and bears no meaning in the form of "to run" anymore. In Swiss German as in some German dialects, springe however does - besides meaning "to jump" - also mean "to run". In modern German "to skip" would rather be translated with the verb hüpfen. The German noun Herumspringen (literally "to jump around") correlates with the Pennsylvanian German word rumschpringe, describing a state of change or unrest, but bears no correlation to the Amish custom of rumschpringe.
[edit] Recent popular exposure
Rumspringa is the subject of the film documentary Devil's Playground. Director Lucy Walker gained unprecedented access to research and film inside the previously closed community, and this documentary film first investigated and publicized this phenomenon. The documentary film has proved extremely popular and gained many accolades including being nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary as well as three Emmy Awards (Best Documentary, Best Editing, Best Cinematography). Spin-offs from Devil's Playground include a book of Walker's transcribed interviews Rumspringa: To Be Or Not To Be Amish and a UPN reality television series Amish in the City. Following the release of Devil's Playground, the practice has also been the subject of plotlines on the TV shows ER, Grey's Anatomy, Las Vegas, Strong Medicine and Judging Amy, as well as being a part of the Abram's Daughters series of novels from Beverly Lewis. A 2002 Oprah episode had as its subject rumspringa and Devil's Playground and featured director Lucy Walker and film subject Emma Miller.
The Dutch band The Nits had a song named Rumspringa on their 2003 album entitled 1974.
Rumspringa is also the title of a song in the Scotch Green's second album, Professional, with its lyrics regarding the rite of passage from the perspective of an Amish teen who does not desire to return to the Amish community.
Contemporary Amish culture and rumspringa in particular play an important role in Tristan Egolf's third novel, Kornwolf, about an Amish teen coping with adolescence and his affliction with lycanthropy (Werewolf-ism). Kornwolf was published posthumously in 2006.
[edit] References
- Hostetler, John A. Amish Society. 4th ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1993,
- Igou, Brad, ed. The Amish in their Own Words: Amish Writings from 25 Years of Family Life Magazine. Scottsdale, PA and Waterloo, ON: Herald Press, 1999
- Nolt, Steven M. A History of the Amish. Intercourse, PA: Good Books, 1992.
- Shachtman, Tom. Rumspringa: To Be or Not to Be Amish. New York: North Point Press (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), 2006. [Based on research for the documentary The Devil's Playground]
