United States. The continued success of these events led to the founding of the (German-Canadian Choir Federation) in Hamilton in 1873 and the Canadian Choir Federation in Berlin in 1893. Major song and music festivals were held by German communities throughout Ontario in Toronto, Hamilton, Waterloo, Bowmanville, Guelph, Sarnia, Port Elgin, Bridgeport, Elmira, and, most often out of all of these, in Berlin. Three of the most spectacular were organized by Berlin's Concordia Club; one 1879 festival which was organized by the club attracted 12,000 visitors. Anti-German sentiment, which arose during the First World War, led to an interruption in the , along with other German cultural institutions, and attempts to re-establish the tradition during the mid-20th century postwar period were largely unsuccessful due to social changes. The last significant in Canada were held in the 1980s. Folklore The antiquarian, archaeologist, and folklorist William J. Wintemberg produced a number of works on folklore in Ontario during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including communities whose traditions and beliefs were based in the Pennsylvania German cultural milieu. With widespread social change in the 20th century, these traditional beliefs began to decline, though some persisted in reduced form. These communities were deeply religious, but also commonly had spiritual beliefs described by George Elmore Reaman as "mystic". Their folkloric traditions included proverbs, rituals, and beliefs about the weather, luck, health and health problems, wild and domestic animals, crops, certain herbs and other plants believed to have special properties, witches and witchcraft, blessings, and particular times of the year, such as specific holidays. The moon and its phases were also important to them, as well as the signs of the Zodiac. They had a complex set of beliefs around thunder and lightning and their cause and avoidance, as well as particular beliefs around fires caused by lightning. The celt had some prominence as a cultural object, and was called the ("lightning stone") or ("thunder wedge"); it was associated with the splitting of trees by lightning. People who were regarded as witches and witch doctors both existed in these communities. Accounts of witches sometimes associate them with curses. Accounts of witch doctors often associate them with charms, or healing of both people and livestock. The famous hex signs painted on barns in Pennsylvania were historically absent from German barns in Ontario, as barns were usually unpainted. There was, however, a strong belief in rituals