A Social Study of the Russian German 9 
ness of kind” and sets them off from not only the American, but 
even the Empire German, element of the population. 
However an intimate acquaintance with the Russian Germans 
reveals a number of types as varied as the immediate localities 
from which they have come; and different customs, ideals, and 
characteristics are easily accounted for in this way. The more 
isolated a community and the less intercourse it has had with 
neighbors of its own blood and with the outside world, the more 
accentuated and crystallized its peculiarities become. This has 
been the experience in the Volga colonies, those living within the 
same village developing constantly closer ties until they have be- 
come as one large family, while all the time the lines between them 
and the other German colonies have become more sharply defined. 
No one is so sensitive to these differences as are the Russian 
Germans themselves. They can tell from each person’s dialect 
the colony to which he belongs; and furthermore, they profess to 
know certain characteristics of the people coming from each 
village.1 This fact must be recognized in a thorough under- 
standing of this group, and therefore a further analysis of the 
source of emigration is essential. 
As has been seen, the two governments of Saratow and Samara, 
in which are located 181 German colonies, furnish the bulk of the 
immigrants to Lincoln.?, Of the foreign-born Russian Germans 
in the city, seventy-six per cent. are natives of Saratow; eighteen 
1 They often connect nicknames with these characteristics and attach a 
story to explain their origin. For example, the inhabitants of the colony 
of Doenhoff are called “ Geelbaa’n” (Gelb bein), meaning “ Yellowlegs.” 
They are an exceedingly active and busy type of people, as is indicated 
by the fact that they are the most well-to-do of all the German colonists. 
_ Their neighbors tell the story that a villager going to market was once 
asked by a neighbor woman to take a basket of eggs to sell for her. He 
accepted the charge, and others then besieged him until his wagon box was 
filled to the top. But the villagers were still not all accommodated, and 
not content with what he had already done, the obliging and bustling 
Doenhoffer jumped upon the load and began trampling down the eggs to 
make room for more. Hence the name “ Geelbaa’n,” which in the minds 
of the German colonists characterizes their countrymen of Doenhoff. 
2 Of these villages, 131 are Protestant, 39 are Catholic, 10 are Mennonite, 
and 1 is Moravian. 
