At Easter Christians celebrate the resurrection of Christ from the grave. The Feast of the Resurrection is the great high point of the entire Church Year in churches and communities, in Rome, and in Jerusalem with the "Way of the Cross Procession." Easter is for Christians the most sacred, glorious and spiritually meaningful day of the year. The trauma of Jesus' crucifixion on Good Friday is erased by the message of the angel at an empty tomb "He is not here. He is risen!" The message of the Resurrection has echoed around the world winning millions for Christ.

As the Passover commemorates the central event of the Old Covenant, the deliverance from Egypt, so Jesus with the Resurrection accomplished a new supreme deliverance, the redemption from sin and death. In the Protestant Churches Easter was reserved for the baptism of adults and new converts to the faith who had been prepared during the Lenten and Pre-Lenten Season. Their baptism at the time of the Resurrection signified their "rising to a new life." At least at Easter, Catholics are obliged to participate in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper (the Holy Communion). Attendance, in comparison to other Sundays, may double, but not everyone who comes to church on Easter morning, is there to celebrate the resurrection or rekindle memories. A portion of the crowds that swell area churches is made up of people who feel attending church on Easter is simply the thing to do. In general, however, the number of churchgoers is smaller at Easter than at Christmas.

It is not by chance that Easter is celebrated at the beginning of Spring. Easter and Spring go well together because the Resurrection of the Savior in the Christian religion is reflected in the "resurrection" of nature after winter. The Christian doctrines and feasts were being worked out at the same time as Christianity was spreading over Europe. Very often Christian missionaries in central, northern and western Europe deliberately used pre-Christian rites, holy places and holy times of the year to make the new creed meaningful to the people, by enhancing the old customs with new beliefs. The same may have been the case with Easter, the oldest Christian feast, first introduced in the early second century.

It would be of interest to find out about the astronomical knowledge of the ancients. One possible reason why the solar calender was so prominent in Northern Europe may have to do with the fact that European cultures evolved at high latitudes, where the changes of day length and other seasonal effects are quite pronounced. The Germanic peoples were very dependent on the waxing and waning of the sun and the seasons. Egypt, which also had a strong solar influence with the yearly seasonal changes regarding the Nile, had a similar emphasis on the sun and related seasonal deities. This, more than anything else, explains rituals and symbols. The early Christian Church and its missionaries then placed Christian celebrations and symbols on top of the early Pagan ones. But the older symbols refused to die.

There has been much speculation about the connection between the name "Easter" and an ancient Anglo-Saxon lunar and spring goddess named Eastre, Eostre, or Ostara. (Editor Note: Eleanor Parker disputes these connections in her work Winters in the World - no Anglo-Saxon evidence in this instance.) Her name has come down as Ostern or Easter, the English name of the Christian Holiday Season. Eostre, apparently is a European version of Astarte/Isis and some even associate her with the Hindu goddess Kali. Eostara is a lunar holiday, honoring a lunar Goddess at the Vernal Full Moon. The Church placed the Easter celebration on the Sunday, following the Vernal Equinox. Thus Easter is always the first Sunday, after the first full Moon, after the Vernal Equinox. If Easter Sunday were to fall on the Full Moon itself, Easter will be postponed to the following Sunday instead.

Eostre's chief symbols were the hare, both for fertility and because her worshipers saw a hare in the full moon, and the egg, symbolic of the cosmic egg of creation. Related terms are "estrus" and "estrogen," the female hormone. Not only is estrus related to reproduction, it is also seasonal and in the case of humans (one of the few animals that does not exhibit strict seasonal reproduction) it is also approximately lunar.

Early Anglo-Saxon people at this time of year used to honor Eostre at the first Spring full moon, when mother Earth awakened and the first green and spring flowers appeared. Eggs were used in these celebrations because they represented the beginning of life. The Easter rabbit is most commonly believed to be a symbol of fertility, and in ancient Egypt it represented birth and new life. Because they have been associated with fertility for centuries, eggs symbolize the beginning of Earth's fertility period in many areas of the world. The hare (Osterhase) and the Easter bunny, eggs, newly hatched chicks (the tiny yellow fluffs were not playthings, they would grow up in the hen house) all are symbols of birth and rebirth. They are folk/cultural symbols and not religious ones.

Vernal Equinox rituals center around the annual warming of the earth and the renewal of her fertility; seeds sprouting in darkness after a winter of dormancy; and the rising of the spring constellations in the night sky. In German households there will be Spring cleaning and decorations are brought into the home, budding twigs, crocuses and daffodils, willow and birch, the first shoots of grasses, or wheat sprouts in an earthenware pot. Easter trees, small trees or branches, decorated with eggs, have long been a part of German Easter celebration. Recently they have shown up in some parts of the U.S. The Easter Bunny (Osterhase), so the story goes, arrived much earlier with Palatine immigrants (see below) and has become a part of the American Easter tradition.

Eostre is also the Goddess of women and young girls. In the dark of Easter night, girls would go in complete silence, to get Easter water (Osterwasser holen) from springs and brooks to wash with Easter water. If a girl was able to sprinkle her lover with Easter water, there would be a wedding soon. Easter is also a time for Easter fires. After Easter Service or in the evening before Easter Sunday, big bon fires (Search for Ostern) would be lit (great image of a rolling-wheel Easter fire). The sun of spring would be greeted with sunrise services followed by an Easter breakfast. Or the family would gather for a big Easter dinner.

While many Easter customs most likely date before the Christianizing, they have been given new meaning by the Christian Church, and new traditions were added. The Passover lamb of the Old Covenant became the symbol for Christ's sacrifice. Easter music plays a large role in churches and an Easter play may be performed. There may be the traditional Easter promenade (see Goethe's Faust) or an outing. Colorful, painted, hard boiled eggs, but also wrapped chocolate eggs, marzipan eggs, Easter bunnies, sweets and other gifts will be hidden in the garden, so that children can hunt for them. Adults will write Easter greeting cards and give each other flowers, eatables and/or drinkables. More durable presents have also become part of the feast.

Easter presents furnish interesting examples for a discussion of the history of cultural and social change. The first historical mention of colored eggs (although not Easter eggs) goes back to the 13th century. We know that in the 16th and 17th centuries colored eggs were given as Easter presents. In the Baroque period it became customary for young people who wanted to become engaged, to give each other colored and decorated eggs.

Elaborate techniques were used in decorating eggs. They were gilded, lined with paper, and adorned with inscriptions and ornaments. A popular method was to inscribe decorations and verses on the white eggs using liquid wax. Afterwards the eggs were dyed and the spots covered with wax remained and were clearly visible. This complicated technique is applied to this day in a few villages near Marburg/Lahn (in Hessia)-- although no longer for the romantic purpose described above but rather for people who wanted to have the eggs as decorations.

Why the Easter egg custom has become so popular, we do not know. One reason may be, that around Easter time the rural household had plenty of eggs handy. The hens--particularly the less productive strains of past centuries--began to lay eggs again in the spring. Another explanation would be that Easter marks the end of the time of fasting during which eggs and meat were forbidden. All this may have helped to further the custom.

In feudal society one's social standing was set from birth, and this meant that the different social classes had different rights and duties "by birth"--including the right to receive Easter presents or the duty to give them. This too has changed with the times. Presents are now exchanged between all individuals who want to surprise others and show them appreciation.

Children are not obligated to give presents at Easter. They only receive them. In some German regions, children virtually "collect" Easter eggs from their relatives, especially their godparents. In general however, the customs relating to children's gifts have also changed. What once were conventional little gifts have now become more or less "surprise presents," where the "Easter Bunny" has been placed between the child and the giver. Small children believe that the Easter Bunny has brought and hidden the items. The Easter Bunny is less of an "educational" figure than is St. Nikolaus, for the eggs are not given as rewards for being good.

The custom of the "Easter Bunny" (Osterhase) hiding Easter eggs can be traced back to the year 1682. Rabbits were also connected to other Easter customs, maybe because they have their litters at the time and so appear more often in people's gardens to nibble on the fresh greens. In the 19th century, the rabbit gradually became popular as the bringer of Easter presents, and in the first half of this century he finally won out over all competitors.

Some Easter egg games have been preserved at certain places in Germany and in the U.S., or they have been newly developed. Children try to outdo each other in rolling colored eggs down grassy slopes, or they knock the egg's pointed ends together (Eierpecken) and the child whose egg does not shatter gets the broken egg too. And the family would eat hard-boiled eggs for weeks afterwards. Eggs with green sauce (German Grüne Sosse or Beiguss) is a post- Easter favorite.

As it is with Christmas there are increasing complaints that Easter is becoming too commercialized. Next to Christmas, the Easter Holiday is one of the biggest shopping seasons of the year. It is a time when people open their pocket books to bring home tasty treats, fragrant flowers and spring finery to celebrate the end of winter. New ideas, like breakfast at a restaurant to accommodate the working mother, persons dressed up as Easter Bunnies at the stores and in the streets, and watching Easter cartoons or commercials on TV, are cropping up. Video and further information about Easter egg customs and symbolism.

Ruth M. Reichmann
Max Kade German-American Center
Indiana Univ.-Purdue Univ. Indianapolis

Lastly, to quote the late Dr. Shoemaker: "do you know what I mean by an oschter-foggel (Easter bird) or egg bird? Simple. Our Pennsylvania Dutch great-grandparents took a dyed egg, blew it and made four holes in it--one for the head; two in the sides, for wings; and lastly, one for the tail. And these egg birds served as decoration in the living rooms of long ago."

From Es Elbedritsch
Newsletter of the Pennsylvania German Society, March 1994

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