I am proud of the fact that most of my ancestors are folks who came to Pennsylvania in the eighteenth century from Germany and the German part of Switzerland. It may be a stretch to call all of them Pennsylvania Dutch, but that certainly is a convenience. Typical of them are the Smiths, my father’s mother’s family. When my father was growing up, the Smiths lived on the farm next to the Oyler homestead, a farm they had acquired following Pontiac’s Rebellion in 1763. When word that year arrived that hostile Indians had entered “the Valley”, most of its residents left for sanctuary on the other side of the Susquehanna River. The owner of what would become the Smith farm, William Henry, stayed behind to defend his property. After the threat was over, his family returned. I remember walking up the lane to the Smith farm with my Uncle Joe when I was young and being shown the (oak?) tree where they found Mr. Henry’s scalped body. Shortly thereafter the Henrys sold the farm to the Smith family (who at that time spelled their name Schmitt).
Jacob Schmitt was born on the farm in 1768. He was my grandmother’s great grandfather. Through this connection our family has come into the possession of a large number of documents associated with Jacob’s family in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Most of them are trivial – promissory notes, receipts for purchases, family letters, etc. Some of them are more interesting, including one that appears to be in some sort of code. For a number of years we tried to decipher this document unsuccessfully. Recently my son John decided to submit it to the Artificial Intelligence (AI) software he uses. He has had much better success with it than I have with mine, probably because he is paying for an enhanced version.
The text of the document appears to be a combination of characters, possibly in German script, and Arabic numerals. John’s AI concluded that the characters were in a German cursive script, “Kurrent”, that was popular in the nineteenth century. It also concluded that the five vowels and four specific consonants (l, n, r, and h) were represented by the numerals 1 – 9. For example, “und” was expressed as “58d” and “herr” as “h299”, with “d” and “h” in Kurrent script. Once this was determined, deciphering the document was relatively easy. It turned out to be a Waffensegen. according to AI. A Waffensegen is a soldier’s protective charm against bullets, powder, and blades, part of the Pennsylvania Dutch practice of Braucherei , a folk tradition of rituals used for treating ailments and securing physical and spiritual protection. This tradition is contrasted with Hexerei (black magic). The implication is that someone (Jacob Schmitt?) had written this text in code as a good luck charm.
My impression is that it may well have been a standard prayer. Reading a few representative excerpts is constructive. “May God the Holy Ghost be over me, so that no bullet may strike me nor any sword wound me …So give way before me, powder and lead, as the sun gives way before the moon…Be thou safe from all bullets great and small, bound, O Lord Jesus Christ.” These are 50 words from a document containing 457 words; I believe they capture its flavor.
My suspicion that this is a spiritual document is compromised by the addition of a strange figure at its bottom, a five-by-five gridwork containing twenty-five letters in a very interesting combination. The five horizontal rows consist of five five-letter words – SATOR, AROPE, TENET, OPERA, and RATOS – as do the five vertical columns.
A little investigation turned up the information that this particular figure is a SATOR square, a well-known mystical element. The literature is filled with interpretations of its meaning and power. With the exception of AROPE, these are common Latin words. Sator is translated as “originator”; Rotas, “wheels”; Opera, “labor”; and Tenet, “keeps”. Most analysts assume Arope is a name. TENET is a palindrome (symmetrical front to back). SATOR and RATOS are semordinlaps (words that spell each other when reversed). Note that semordinlap is “palindromes” spelled backwards.
There are many examples of the use of the SATOR square in contemporary literature. In 2020 Christopher Nolan wrote and produced a science fiction film entitled “Tenet” in which the five SATOR words are used as names in a way that suggests numerous mystical interpretations. The Masterpiece Mystery on the Public Broadcasting System this Fall, Anthony Horowitz’ “Marble Hall Murders”, began with three children mixing a poison potion and chanting the SATOR words as an evil incantation.
Some people consider the SATOR square to be a good luck charm. I am inclined to believe that Jacob Schmitt’s combination of the Waffensegen and the SATOR square on one document is a classic combination of faith and mysticism in an effort to produce a good luck charm that is fool proof.
I certainly am impressed with the ability of AI to translate old documents in foreign languages. It has given our family an enhanced understanding of our heritage. I assume that every family has a similar collection of such documents, somewhere in a box in a closet, that includes some with foreign languages that can no longer be deciphered. Perhaps we can organize a project for the Bridgeville Area Historical Society to provide this service to residents of the community.
This experience has provided me with new insight into the capability of using Artificial Intelligence. It still is merely a tool, but it certainly is a powerful one. Coupled with an imaginative user, it can efficiently access a massive amount of resources and intuitively make the proper decisions regarding their relevance. We are fortunate to have this power of AI and are challenged to use it productively.