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THE HUTTERITES Out in the rugged West there are colonies of people called Hutterites who embody the pioneer spirit but live entirely removed from the modern world. The Hutterites are Anabaptist farmers and ranchers - close cousins of the Amish - who, after centuries of persecution in Europe, found religious freedom in North America in the 1870s. Their central belief in a kind of Christian communism informs everything they do. They work, worship, and eat …

…skills simply by participating in, group work, as they are not allowed to have a personal opinion. Whatever the task at hand, Hutterite men lay it aside for the day’s main meal, which is eaten communally. The spotlessly clean dining room holds four tables complete with benches. Usually men and women eat at different tables. The women speak almost exclusively in their German dialect, as most in the colony do when conversing among themselves.