Frizzy Hair and Earrings

Zwarte Piet adjusted.

This is how he should look like if some people want to change him. The best solution Mediterranean (Spanish) darkskinned and chimney ashes stripes over it: that would be the most right.  

Just chimney stripes on the face is not really right. Then you see who it is right away and that is not the intention of the festival.  Zwarte Piet isn't what he was accused of first that's said in court. And that's right, he's all about doing good things. So making yourself a little unregconisable for the little ones is nothing but good in this festival.

If you mask yourself you try to be as unrecognisable as you can. And making your face black is the eldest way of masking yourself. The strange way of talking also is part of this. Somewhat Spanish because he comes from Spain. Of course Sinterklaas knows how to talk Nederlands because he already comes here 500 years long. 

In 1934 it might have changed a little in Surinamese because some nice Surinamese men wanted to help and personate the role of Zwarte Piet on a ship in Amsterdam. So that's why there they later on talke a little like that. Purely playing Lookalike is what Dutch people love to do. And the rest of the world also as you can see in "The Voice of"....etc.  In other parts of the Netherlands there was no Zwarte Piet who talked Surinamese a little. Only if they played Zwarte Piet themselves maybe.  Even so there could be a Surinamese Sinterklaas, which was powered white, as a 500 year old St. of course. Just like a spirit. Otherwise he wouldn't be 500 years old. 

1 earring is fine. Ship servants (Schippersknechten) in the old days often wore 2. They often personated Zwarte Piet because Sinterklaas came by boat and the Dutch are a seafaring nation.

A scarf on his face would be good with everything that he's been through.      

The girls with their lipstick and big earrings made him nice and emancipated. Thanks to a lot of people of the Antilles who settled in the Netherlands in the years 1970/1980 and these big earrings became really great fashion here.

Earrings. 

In the first little books in which a Zwarte Piet is drawn, earrings are hard to find. People then made their faces black for ages ( to be free of sins).

In little books, cynical satirebooks en sweet childbooks, there are different Zwarte Pieten in it. Only later on is a man with little curls in his hair and earrings. The earrings are not at all a standard issue in the case of Zwarte Piet. More like: who wants to show remorse and they had earrings, then the Zwarte Piet had earrings also. A lot of different Zwarte Pieten are drawn, looks like white (blanke) people in the surroundings, where models for drawing a Zwarte Piet. From these people a Zwarte Piet, someone who masks his face black with ashes to show remorse, is made off. 

When Sinterklaas came in the villages with a steamer the ship servant wore earrings. They personated Zwarte Piet a lot. Golden earrings for a skipper had the meaning of an insurance back then and were very important. This because sailing was a very dangerous job. Fish was very expensive in that way, there was food but some people never came back. Then the earrings were an insurance for the wife and family. Mostly you see little golden earrings worn by skippers. A Dutch tradition of sailors. In the Netherlands was a film: "Op hoop van zegen." In this film is said: "Fish is expensively paid for". Because a fisherman was doing a hard job and often people didn't come back home. So if they could find the earrings of the man the family could live.

At the first official arrival in Amsterdam there were no earrings. On a lot older photographs they were not there too.

In some little books Zwarte Piet wears Spanish clothes, so it could be that in Spain people wore more earrings than in the Netherlands. The Netherlands were dominated by the Spanish for a long time.

Around 1980 the big metal earrings became important fashion for girls and women. Maybe by immigration of a whole lot of people from the Antilles. A lot of girls and women were personating Zwarte Piet also then: the emancipation of Zwarte Piet: a lot of big earrings from the ladies. Just like in the old days: who wore earrings in normal life, wore them also as a Zwarte Piet. The ladies introduced by personating Zwarte Piet the big earrings. Just a fashion thing in the eighties. 

( a little attention to the negative aspect some people made up: the only real fact is dat a slave when he became a free man and wanted to stay working for a boss he could voluntarily ask for an earring in his ear. This was done at the doorframe of the boss. So he could never be sold as a slave anymore. In that way earrings stand for freedom. He was not obliged to wear earrings. And these rules were there for a few thousand years).

But Zwarte Piet is a symbol, a figure who wanted to show remorse for his little mistakes of the last year. So that had not anything to do with earrings, just fashion and of course the seafaring nation the Netherlands is. 

Frizzy hair

In the beginning you don't see frizzy hair, nor any bigger lips. Later sometimes, sometimes not.

In 1934 when the first steamer with Sinterklaas was there with not like normally 1 Zwarte Piet, like in the story, but 6 Zwarte Pieten.

These were personated by 6 Surinamese ship servants, which accidentely were there in a boat in the harbour. How this went, no one knows. If they decided, while drinking a beer together, they liked to personate Zwarte Piet?

The Netherlands is famous because of its lookalike-programs like Holland's got talent, So you think you can dance, etc. In which everybody tries to personate a celebrity. When Dutch people like someone they love to be lookalikes. The people then weren't any different than now. But then there was no social media. Just people making photographs and films en made radioprogramms. The Dutch only had the Klompendans back then.

One Surinamese man is standing on the foreward deck like a prince on the ship in beautiful Dutch clothes of the Middle Ages. 

There is also a festival at the Dutch islands which is called Sinterklaaslopen. Boys and men walk around with masks and talk strange to not be recognised. This is a centuries old use, making your face black is centuries old and the most simple way to mask your face. 

The Surinamese, who were so nice to personate Zwarte Piet, of course were talking Surinamese. This looks like the reason Zwarte Piet sometimes talked like that and of course he didn't talk good dutch, because he came out of Spain. Very simple explanation: in Spain people don't speak Dutch. Some people really think when they talk about Zwarte Piet: in Spain people talk Dutch daily. Sinterklaas learned Dutch after 500 years. Would be strange if someone, even a spirit, couldn't do this after 500 years. The always different Zwarte Pieten who came in the Netherlands didn't talk dutch.

For the Surinamese men and all Dutch people it was a very positive festival about forgiving of little mistakes you made. Otherwise they wouldn't have lend a hand to help. Zwarte Piet never was a slave. Also everybody liked, because of this example of the Surinamese men, the festival much more with much more Zwarte Pieten. And yes, the lips, Angelina Jolie (the most beautiful woman in the world ) is having bigger lips. Is that ugly? 

In other places Sinterklaas arrived by boat already with white (blanke) Dutch men who masked their faces black of ashes (mostly burned cork was used).

Even more bigger lips were mostly there because they decided to make Zwarte Piet more like a clown because they didn't want to frighten kids like nowadays they love to frighten kids with Halloween. People here didn't like to frighten kids like people nowadays do with Halloween with corpses, skeletons, etc. People didn't like that here at all to saddle up children with those scary awful things. I know for instance children who had real nightmares of Michael Jackson's videosongs, etc. So people didn't like it back then to scare kids with such things. Look at the McDonaldsclown en see where these lips are based on.

Nowadays people like to, find it funny, to skare the hell out of little kids, giving them nightmares with Halloween. But back then there was a trend NOT to frighten children.

Behavior Zwarte Piet.

At first Zwarte Pieten were decent, very serious men with their attributes to show remorse like the rod and the sack (sackcloth of jute) In the very beginning there would be even someone making noise with a penancechain behind the door. 

In 1964 the person who personated Sinterklaas in Amsterdam back then said the Zwarte Pieten had to look even sweeter and threw the sackcloth and the rod in the sea and said Zwarte Pieten should behave more like a clown.

The behavior, the jumping, running and dancing was ment to be a very positive thing. This Sinterklaas never thought about it that some people 60 years after his meant to be very positive idea that people might have a problem with that. Zwarte Piet was a clever servant (knecht: knight). The jumping, running en dancing was made up then. And the behavior and more a clownlike appearance started then. 

Knecht: Knegt : Knight

Zwarte Piet was a clever knecht. The word knecht has a lot of important meanings. A lot of wat is made up now by people is simply a lack of knowledge of the Dutch language. It's so sad that people who want to live in the Netherlands do not think the dutch language is important and like to learn it anymore. They want to keep their own language. It's very hard nowadays because there are a lot of migrants. The Netherlands is not able anymore to teach them all. 

Sinterklaas and the organisation back then thought the festival would have to be happier. Maybe thoughtless. Because it makes the festival harder to understand. The reason of the festival, taking care of your little mistakes being forgiven, became more unclear because, of all that stood for this, only the positive masking of your face by making it black with ashes, now paint, stayed. 

So now everything is a little harder to understand. But no reason to bully people to say they are doing something wrong with Zwarte Piet or something. Most of all to elderly people this shows no respect. Elderly people have a hard time already because there is no time for them because there are so many people in the Netherlands who need care now coming from abroad.

Everything is harder to understand, which is a pity. By integration of people who flee to the Netherlands etc. it's good to make the reason clear of the Sinterklaasfestival with Zwarte Piet. Foreigners really like to make a Sinterklaaspoem. Fortunately there are the poems, the surprises and the rebuses do remind of the festival of forgiving your little mistakes.

Sinterklaas also changed from a strict man in a somewhat sweet , sometimes a little forgetful, man (still 500 years old at least). And still a Saint/spirit and not a white (blanke) boss like some people who don't know anything about it sometimes made up. I still don't know a real man of at least 500 years old. Not even 200 years. Unfortunately that's not for human. 

It was a bit strange that a judge in Amsterdam, not in the north, made up that every white (she said "Witte" which is very offending here) man/woman in the Netherlands, as she was concerned, is a 500 year old Saint/spirit. That should mean every white person in the Netherlands could put St. in front of his/her name. Fortunately the final verdict restored these silly mistakes.

The real Sinterklaas: whoever you put next to a saint/spirit is always inferior. That's why someone can't put St. before his name. That has nothing to do with a white dutchman/woman or being less than a white dutchmen/woman.

Change? Of course if the people of the Antilles are not proud of those 6 Surinamese young men back then, role models, who helped the Sinterklaasfestival to be even a bigger festival with even more sweet Zwarte Pieten then change maybe good. 

It would be possible to change the hair to every sort of black hair. Although hair with ashes in it will always be different, thicker than normally. Every sort of black hair would be oke, it's just a white man putting ashes in his hair.

Earrings: Let everyone who wears earrings in normal life wear them also as a Zwarte Piet. Otherwise in normal life they should be forbidden also. It would be then a sign of taking gold and juwelery. Taking freedom, gold, jewelery makes people think of bad  things and bad times in the Netherlands.

Wearing earrings in normal life musn't be seen as something negative.  It's good to have the freedom to wear the earrings you