The History and Meaning of Black Pete

This video is about the servant of Saint Nicholas. It is based on the book of Adriaan de Groot: Saint Nicholas, a Psychoanalytic Study of his History and Myth.

I will explain about the devilish origins of Black Pete. I will also explain the Jungian approach to the profound meaning of the tradition and I will explain how Black Pete is linked to the archetypical fool. I hope you enjoy and I hope you learned something new.

[satyawantarar]

Hey, thanks for sharing, the great effort behind the video is evident. Love choice of book and the succinct and crisp summary of the book. Looking ahead for the next video. 🙏🙏

[blackcobra]

*Swarthy Pete is based on a Moorish boy of nobility tasked with assisting Sinterklass. He’s a Page and the route Pages take to Knighthood entails serving Bishops, Saints and others put in positions power. The closest example to a modern day page with any connection to early times would be a ring boy at a wedding.*

*Swarthy Pete’s being a boy and a part of nobility explains his playful demeanor, his lack of facial hair, and his clothing(Sooty Pete makes no sense because no one clothes staying after trips up and down chimneys).*

*This day wouldn’t get as much scrutiny in my opinion if the people who actually resemble Swarthy Pete were told this story of his origin and participated in the holiday when it came around. This story is not in the west in my opinion because of the importance Swarthy Pete plays. So he disappears, the elves and gingerbread men are added, and Santa Klaus is the one giving out presents, visiting the children, and seeing who was naughty and nice.*

[oliverzavala]

I think the Afro has more to do with the connection to slaves. Either way, if the rest of the first world countries do as they please, then do as you please and keep on celebrating your way.

[geoffhoutman]

My Dad was Dutch and the way he explained it the Black Peters were chimneysweep/ enforcers for Sinta.

There’s a great horror movie called SAINT as well (prob SINT in Dutch)

[ahmedkamala]

I am Psychology student, and very much interested in philosophy. You present your content perfectly. Do continue. I will be waiting with bated breath for your next video!

[Beanmachine]

Black peter is an old maid style game, really fun. I wish i could play tarot games but no one wants to

[NielsAlderding]

Interessant! Dank voor deze boekbespreking. Hopelijk ga je hier mee door. Ik zou zelf een bespreking in het Nederlands wellicht nog meer waarderen. Door consistentie in je content zal je kanaal vast verder groeien! Ik vroeg me nog af (na je interview bij Cafe Weltschmerz) wat voor soort kerk jij bezoekt. Welke christelijke stroming past bij jouw filosofie? Wellicht heb ik dit gemist tijdens het interview. Je hebt in ieder geval mijn interesse gewekt om het christelijke geloof weer nader te bestuderen. Ik zou daar graag meer over willen leren/weten.

[Beanmachine]

German fairy tales are brutal making me proud of my swiss-german heritage lol

[arposkraft]

heeft met sint weinig te maken maar de CITO toets meet geen IQ maar is een classificatiesysteem waarmee we schoolstructuur bepalen, indirect heeft dat natuurlijk wel met IQ te maken maar niet als een drecte relatie

[matthewkopp]

As you point out the ritual evolves as the culture evolves.

So I think that the character does not necessarily need to be represented in black face, which is the racist element that many people don’t like.

There is a bit of irony to the whole debate, because of certain historical facts. One is that Schenkman was part of a society that took an abolitionist stance when the Netherlands was still active in slave trade. So there is some evidence that Schenkman’s intentions were not racist and may have been the opposite sentiment and the character in his book is not derogatory.

Another widespread cultural fact is that the European clown is actually “whiteface” as well as Mime, Bufoon, Comedia del arte. In this tradition there is an “othering” aspect as they play various eccentric characters, but also actors were de facto “tramps” so it was self deprecating humor.

There are historical records of many Moorish performers including musical, acrobat, moresco dancers, etc. So the modern origin of Black Pete may have very well have come from Real Moorish and real African performing artists that is hundreds of years old. Erasing black Pete might be erasure of a parallel tradition of the white face mime and clown troops.

There is another cultural layer that you mentioned only briefly. In England when the Puritan’s took over they outlawed theater for 80 years. This was directly after the great success of Shakespeare and the Globe theater and Shakespeare had some blackface plays most notably Othello but other characters as well. And the plays were also “drag” as men played female parts.

In Germany the anabaptist also prohibited Theater, I am sure the reference you have were likely low land anabapists.

The activists are now in the cultural role of the Puritan or Anabaptist. But just as they could not end the tradition neither will these New Protestants.

There are many ways the tradition can transform, they can make black Pete into sooty pete which is a tradition in Germany with Scmutzli. They can make Black pete into Blue pete which seems not the best idea. They can go with the medieval or pagan versions.

Or they could actually explore the modern history and play with racial issue in positive and transforming ways. There is a racial history in it. Moors were part of Netherland culture, African slavery was part of the culture, and modern liberal multicultural society is part of the culture.

Transforming the tradition however in a deeper way will take Dutch African artists not Dutch African “new Puritans”.

[Drevenhaven]

Thank you for reminding us of this perspective on the story. I miss the Sinterklaas Wodan/Odin connection. That would explain the chocolate letters as rune-stones, the staff as ones being a spear and the horse that can walk on the rooftops as the flying horse Sleipnir from Norse mythology.
The problem I hear is not so much the skin collour of a fictional character but that the entity we now call Black Pete was slowly transformed into a human with a dark skin collour. That was the idea that people stood up to but there was no space given for a dialogue. The slave connection can only be formed in ignorance, as a simple search on the Wikipedia website will show that the characters are celebrated in countries with no colonial background. Timing the origin of The Sinterklaas and The Black Pete figures as far back as the times of Zoroastrianism in the form of Amu Nowruz and Hajji Firuz or even proto-Indo-European times by writer/investigator Arnold-Jan Scheer in his book Zwarte Sinterklazen. In a radio discussion one of the starters of the Black Pete is racist discussion left the penal of speakers, discarding academic studies and taking complaints to the streets stating that the problem is the racist remarks people make calling people Black Pete and not the fest itself.

The European mainland Dutch abandoned core principles of there fest in favour for materialism and projected realism. Now they do not know how to defend the hero they forgot about.

[MsMounen]

Do you think this story might be a Christian story overlapping an original pagan festival? St Nicholas being a Christian invention, and the pagan character being demonised.

[keys]

You’ll never understand that’s why you “guys” as in you n your type of people lost n coming to the end of days we will see who will last n understand the right way the truth in all knowledge hopefully you get save but time is coming sooner then ever hopefully you still Exist to tell the real truth on history

[keys]

You don’t even know what you taking about n he was black ! N sound very uneducation