Kittochtinny

Kittochtinny of He Flew Too High is a storybook county located somewhere between 1946 and 1959 in the fertile limestone valleys south of the Endless Mountains (‘Kittochtinny’ in the Delaware Nation tongue). It resembles the real-life Pennsylvania Dutch counties of southeastern Pennsylvania—Lancaster, Lebanon and Berks

The Land.

These valleys and their fertile farms were cultivated by German and Swiss refugees in the 1700s, attracted by Englishman William Penn’s offer of a land of religious toleration, unlike the ethnically and religiously cleansed Europe they were fleeing. (Photos of Pennsylvania Dutch country. Photos © Blair Seitz. All rights reserved. To view more Dutch country pictures, click here.)

The People.

Within a century, most of these German settlers had joined the Anglo world into which they immigrated. The Mennonites, however, cocooned within a Pennsylvania Dutch-speaking (not Holland Dutch but South German dialects), pacifist and to varying degrees isolationist communities, continued to speak German until the 1870s and resisted assimilation into American culture until the 1960s. Their communities were ruled by a circle of deacons, ministers and bishops who enforced ‘Rules and Ordinances’.

Other Mennonite communities.

The Pennsylvania Mennonite community has perhaps been the most socially and spiritually conservative. But there are many Mennonite communities across North America today. For a list-up of some communities, click here.