The good Pieterbaas is regularly the cause of complaints about the racist nature of the traditional Dutch Sinterklaas party. But where does the black helper of the Saint actually come from?
The veneration of Saint Nicholas as a Roman Catholic saint has been around for centuries. That he managed to become one of the most beloved saints was not so strange:Nicholas was the patron saint of many. From sailors to prostitutes and from children to thieves. By 1200, his veneration was common and his image widespread, often accompanied by a vanquished black devil. Important in Christianity was the distinction between good and evil, which was depicted by the contrast of white and black. Saints and angels were white, devils and demonized pagan gods were black.
The enslaved devil at Saint Nicholas increasingly took on an educational function:he kept the children on the right path by frightening them. He used the still well-known bag and rod. In other European countries this creep is still part of the folklore, but in the Netherlands the black devil disappeared from view. After the Reformation, the new Calvinistic Church wanted to banish the Roman festivals and customs.
The Sinterklaas party may have disappeared from public life, but indoors the fun continued unabated. Some elements are clearly recognizable in a painting by Jan Steen (circa 1663) about the Sinterklaas feast. The children have been given presents and treats, but the boy on the left, who has probably been less well-behaved, has to make do with an empty shoe.
In the Northern Netherlands , the Saint only operated on cover . He came by at night and rattled some chains before delivering the presents. The image of Sinterklaas as bishop disappeared, as did his servant who had become redundant. Thus it could happen that the Saint developed differently in different parts of the country. He even turned into a real creep at times. There is no question that the terrifying and punitive task previously assigned to the black devil was now in the hands of the Saint.
Servant returns
With the Batavian Revolution of 1795, the French ideas of Freedom, Equality and Brotherhood came to the Netherlands. Catholics were no longer second-class citizens and with that Roman customs seeped back into Dutch culture. The Saint became visible again in his old capacity as a Roman bishop. He was just not very friendly at the beginning of the 19 e century. The Saint still operated alone and beat the naughty children himself.
In the time of Romanticism, in which the view of the education of children also changed, people no longer saw much good in a too narrow Saint and its effect on the delicate soul of children. Jan Schenkman (1806-1863), teacher in the Amsterdam working-class district De Jordaan, created a new Saint:a venerable and wise man. This civilized old man couldn't carry the presents himself and keep the youth in line. Schenkman devised a helper for this. Around 1848 the first edition of his book Saint Nicholas and his servant . was published in which a nameless black servant was depicted in a kind of tropical outfit.
The second edition, about two years later, shows the black servant much more as we know him:in a colorful page costume with a beret with a feather on his bunch of curls. Schenkman had already introduced the steamboat and homeland Spain, so that the link could now be made between the clothes of the servant and the Spanish fashion from the 16 e century.
Historical research, and certainly the history of the Dutch Revolt (1568-1648) against the Spanish oppressors, was popular and Schenkman probably referred to this. It is not possible to determine exactly why Schenkman described a dark servant:he did not name it himself. Dark helpers of the Saint had in any case remained a tradition for centuries in countries around us. This is also the case in Germany, a country that in the 19 e century had a lot of influence on Dutch culture.
What's in a name
At about the same time, the booklet St. Niklaasgoed by Jozef Alberdingk Thijm (1820-1889). In the front was a handwritten text between 'St. Niklaas' and 'Pieter-mê-knecht'. This is so far the oldest reference to the Saint's helper named Piet. This name could be a reference to a typical servant name, such as Jan and Piet, or to the helper Schwarze Peter from some German areas.
Not much can be said for sure about this. The servant of Sinterklaas would be known under many special names in the coming century, such as Ansipan, Hans Moef, Rabbadoelie or Nicodemus. The latter name also traveled with Sinterklaas to the Dutch East Indies. References to black were also common, such as Moortje or Pikkie (from pitch black, or black pitch).
The combination 'Zwarte Piet' appeared for the first time in a picture book from 1868, but would not become the standard name for Sint's helper until the twentieth century. The national character of the festival became more important and the national television broadcasts of the entry from 1952 also contributed greatly to this.
In the 1970s, the trend in Sinterklaas literature arose to give each Piet a logistic function with an appropriate name, such as Wegwijspiet, Inpakpiet and Dichtpiet. The national television broadcasts of the annual entry took over these names. New Pieten are added every year, such as the Twitter Piet recently. The still-sounding myth that we owe the entry with several Piets to the Canadian soldiers is not correct. Even before the liberation in 1945, the Saint can be found in literature and even during some entryways with several servants.
Protest
Zwarte Piet is today seen by some as a derogatory remnant of colonial times. The white ruler with his black slaves. The origin of Zwarte Piet is a popular research topic these days, but the various studies contradict each other. The existing information falls short:at the moment there are still too many gaps to make an unambiguous statement, but theories about Zwarte Piet regularly appear.
Last year Henk van Benthem wrote an article in the glossy magazine Sint. His thesis was that the book Ivanhoe, or the Return of the Crusaders by Walter Scott (translation from 1824) had served as inspiration for Zwarte Piet. Schenkman would have taken the faithful Saracen from the Middle East as an example for the dark helper of the Saint. In the meantime, John Helsloot of the Meertens Institute has refuted this:from the footnote of the translation by Ivanhoe it appears that the Saracen slaves did not mean the Muslims themselves, but their Negro slaves. It is certain that the servant in Schenkman's book is of Negroid descent.
Frits Booy concluded in 2003 that from the Middle Ages up to about 1950 reference is made to the frightening and usually black appearance of Saint or his servant. Changes in society and in the way of thinking always caused the external changes of the Sinterklaas party.
The serious servant, performed by Schenkman, changed from 1865 more into a bogeyman who dumped naughty children into the sack. Around 1950, frightening children was seen as pedagogically irresponsible and Zwarte Piet was relegated to a bumbling gibberish-spreading idiot. This lonesome Piet did not last long:around 1965 this image was considered discriminatory with regard to dark fellows. Piet no longer called Sinterklaas master but just Sinterklaas, and he turned into a respectful helper. In addition, Piet became a real children's friend with qualities that appeal to children, such as humor and flexibility. The Pieten expressed this in jokes and acrobatics.
All in all, Sinterklaas's servant is an age-old European phenomenon. The time and the changing views that go with it made him subject to transformation. The Zwarte Piet as we know it now does not actually last fifty years. There is a good chance that he will adapt again in the future.