Every month the Meertens Institute, a research institute for the study and documentation of the Dutch language and culture, answers a pressing question. This month:When did Sinterklaas first arrive in the Netherlands by steamboat? And when did he make his first entry?
The idea of having a real Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet(s) arrive in a place arose in the second half of the nineteenth century. The children's book Saint Nicholas and his servant (Amsterdam 1850), with verses and beautifully colored illustrations, by the Amsterdam former teacher Jan Schenkman played an important role in this. The first two pictures show how Sinterklaas enters a harbor on a steamboat, where children enthusiastically wave to him, and then how he makes his “solemn entrance” on horseback in a city, where the flags are outstretched for him. The booklet begins with the well-known “See yonder comes the steamer / From Spain again”. Soon all kinds of other Sinterklaas books with similar illustrations appeared. Those almost reportage-like pictures will have given people the idea to reenact such an arrival and entry in real life.
From local initiatives to annual tradition
Where and when that first took place, John Helsloot of the ethnology department is trying to figure out. An early piece of information comes from Zwolle about a real Sinterklaas on horseback. In a suburb in 1873, a couple of well-to-do farmers had “let a well-known prankster, disguised as St Nicholas, on a white horse, ride for an hour through that suburb, scattering and distributing sweets, etc. to the poor children. share. After that, as in the whole city, the crowds were enormous.”
That doesn't seem to be a real entry yet. Quite close to this is the costumed procession organized by the Utrecht students in 1876. In addition to all kinds of other figures, Sinterklaas was also part of it:“In Utrecht the Sint-Nikolaas festival was celebrated in an unusual way. The students brought the greatest merriment into the streets all day long. They rode about all day in four, two and one-horse chariots. St Nicholas with his black servant was carried through the streets by four black horses, ridden by two negroes, showing a bounty that seemed inexhaustible; not only was confectionery amply strewn among the crowd, but neat flower bouquets were thrown to the ladies graciously.”
The parades elsewhere, also repeated in later years, will have attracted attention. As in Breda in 1880:“It was a peculiar idea of the Harmonie 'Caecilia' to already Sunday evening ll. [28 November] by St. Nicholas and his servant, both on horseback and preceded by music, through our city. do take place. The general approval of this idea among the bourgeoisie was sufficiently evident from the fact that the proposed saint received gifts from many to pass them on to others, and from the many hundreds raised by this circulation.”
This was then mainly a way to draw attention to the poor school children and a party to collect presents. Such tours were later held in several other places. Local associations -like in Breda the harmony - and committees of notables often worked together. When a real Sinterklaas starts visiting primary schools from the 1860s, the 'run-up' to the school sometimes also develops into a kind of arrival, especially in smaller places.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, shopkeepers also saw the advertising possibilities of a real Sinterklaas. For example, they let Sinterklaas deliver the orders in a carriage. That, of course, attracted a lot of attention. Gradually, with an acceleration in the 1920-1930s, the real 'entry' grows out of these kinds of different initiatives, which also includes the greeting by the mayor. The entry will probably only become an annual tradition in many places after the Second World War.
Saint on television
Nowadays there is virtually no city, town or (larger) village in the Netherlands where Sinterklaas does not make his entry at the request of all kinds of socio-cultural associations or shopkeepers' organisations; on a horse, in a carriage or in a nice old car. The interests of the children are paramount, but the desire to put their own place on the map culturally and commercially also plays a role. Paradoxically enough, the annual television broadcast of the arrival and arrival of Sinterklaas since 1952 probably contributed to this. This offered an opportunity to give one's own entry a special, individual character and thus support feelings of local identity.
Has much changed since the first annual broadcast of the entry?
Departure by hot air balloon
It is not yet known where Sint and Piet were first allowed to arrive on a boat. The arrival on a steamboat in Amsterdam in 1934 attracted a lot of attention at the time. Nevertheless, this had already been set up in Arnhem and Zierikzee about ten years earlier. Because not every Dutch town is located on the water, it was thought that Sinterklaas arrived there by train. This probably happened for the first time in the 1910s. Possibly earlier than the arrival by boat, which of course requires more organizational capacity.
Drawings in Sinterklaas booklets sometimes also show how Sinterklaas travels to the Netherlands in an airplane, but that was of course rarely possible. In his booklet from 1850, Jan Schenkman also had Sinterklaas and his servant leave the Netherlands again, in a hot air balloon. In later editions and in other booklets, this is done by train. In recent years, that departure of Sinterklaas is - often with a boat - played in several places. Marking the end of the Sinterklaas season in this way is good for children, but obviously less attractive for shopkeepers.
- Eugenie Boer and John Helsloot, The Sinterklaas Book. Zwolle:Waanders 2010.
- Jan Schenkman's booklet has been reproduced in its entirety in Henk van Benthem, Sint-Nicolaasliederen. Original lyrics and melodies. Leidschendam:Kemper Conseil publishing 2009.
- Film about Sinterklaas rituals among students (Interview with John Helsloot)
- The Knowledge Link File Sinterklaas