Black Peter, an ancient Yuletide Tradition

On Facebook, I play a game called 'Family Farm'.  A couple of days ago, a new Mission or Quest appeared in the game called 'Darryl's Pipe Dream'.  It included mentions of Black Peter and his White Horse Amerigo.

Black Peter is not a figure in our own family Yuletide traditions but I had a very good friend from Germany who remembered Black Peter and poems about him from his childhood.  He had hunted down a reproduction of a very old, formerly out-of-print book in order to renew his own acquaintance with the tradition.  He sent me a copy.  Both he and I were rather astounded by the actions of Black Peter towards the naughty boys and girls at Yuletide.  One poem involved the consumption of children's fingers!

Cannibalism is not a rare topic in folktales and fairytales.  Every one is familiar with the tale of Hansel and Gretel and the Witch who fattens them in a cage in order to make a feast of them.  Their ultimate revenge is to shut her inside her own oven.  The whole business of cannibalism is related to ancient rites of fertility, of making grand sacrifices in order to bring fertility to the soil.   'The Golden Bough' includes an entire chapter on human sacrifice.  It originally was more of a barter system that anything else.  Crops and Animals were considered to be as valuable as human beings and the sacrifice to the land of the latter was the price paid to gain a good harvest and have good hunting.

Now, I find that the figure of Black Peter is causing all sorts of absurd political controversies, much like the poor innocent Golliwogs beloved in British culture until accusations of racism made them less popular.

 

Black Peter or Zwarte Pieten is one of the many companions of St. Nicolas.  Another is Krampus.  Some believe that the companion of the Saint, whatever his name or appearance, originally was a devil or The Devil himself, chained and forced to serve as slave for the day (or period of Yuletide when St. Nicolas is actively pursuing his self-imposed duty of giving gifts and performing acts of charity and kindness).  Where Black Peter is concerned, some have postulated the old conflict between Moors and Christians as the origin and the servitude of the Moorish Black Peter as a symbol of the ultimate triumph of Christian rulers over the lands of Europe.   Others simply state that Peter is Black because he goes down chimneys and indeed, the 'black' chimneysweep is a potent symbol of good fortune throughout old Europe.  Ashes are magic and the ashes of the fire of the 'dead year' always had potency.  The chimneysweep who performed the ritual that cleaned the chimney (a potent symbol in its own right when one thinks upon the ritual of birth and emergence from the womb) was a shaman of sorts.

 

No one would suggest that Kabuki is 'racist' because the actors use 'white' paint to cover their faces and yet, 'blackface' is outlawed by stupid governments for being 'racist'.  In fact, Roman Catholics smear ashes on their foreheads on Ash Wednesday but evidently the AMOUNT of ash used or the symbol or lack thereof painted in ash is what determines whether or not such a practice is racist.  Soot IS black.  Ashes ARE black.  That is simply fact.

 

Whatever the origin, however, the fact remains that Black Peter or Krampus are very much part of traditional Yuletide celebrations and any attempt to erase them from the scene would be tantamount to erasure of part of the intrinsic culture of the land.

Here is the article about the controversy in the Netherlands:

'Each November in the Netherlands, the red-and-white-clad Sinterklaas arrives by steamboat to great fanfare. In Amsterdam alone, hundreds of thousands turn out along the canals to greet the tall, bearded saint and his helpers, jolly types called 'Zwarte Pieten' or 'Black Petes.' After riding off on a white horse, Sinterklaas is said to roam the country until December 5th, when he lands on Dutch roofs and sends his Black Petes down chimneys to deliver gifts to good little girls and boys.
The Dutch Black Petes are more fun, and thus more popular, than the staid saint they serve, and in the festive weeks before Sinterklaas returns to Spain (that’s where he lives, according to tradition) they show up everywhere, from schools to shops to company parties. The fact that they do this in blackface, with curly wigs, red lips, and gold earrings, has been a subject of controversy for decades. But this year, following a bid to include the Sinterklaas festival on a UNESCO list of the country’s 'intangible cultural heritage,' the issue has exploded in the Netherlands. One Dutch ethnologist called it 'an existential revolt not seen in Dutch society since the murder of Pim Fortuyn.'

The uproar began with an interview with Verene Shepherd, a professor of social history who, as chair of the United Nations’ Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, received letters, spurred by the UNESCO bid, saying that the Black Pete tradition is racist. Calling the practice a throwback to slavery, she told a Dutch journalist that, 'As a black person, I feel that I, if I were living in the Netherlands, as a black person, I would object to' Black Pete, she told a Dutch journalist. Her wholly informal suggestion that Black Pete be done away with was met with pro-Black Pete protests, a stream of social-media vitriol, and a call from the far-right politician Geert Wilders to do away with the U.N.
Even the Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, weighed in, saying that 'Black Pete is black, and we can’t change that.' Two ad agency employees started a Facebook petition against 'the abolition of the Sinterklaas fest.' 'Pietitie,' a play on 'Piet' and the Dutch word for petition, got nearly two million 'likes' in two days. With posts that included a photoshopped Brad Pitt in blackface (and the question 'Brad Piet?'), Pietitiehas set records for online petitions in the country.
Two weeks ago, J. C. Kennedy, a professor of Dutch history at the University of Amsterdam, was invited to comment on the Black Pete debate on 'Newshour,' one of the most important news programs on Dutch television. 'Zwarte Piet, as experienced by the Dutch, is complex,' Kennedy explained to me. 'As I confessed on TV, I have a hard time, as an American, seeing this as an entirely innocent thing.' While the origins of Black Pete are unclear, the emergence of the figure as he is known today 'coincides with the rise of minstrel shows in the U.S. It’s a kind of black figure, not so intelligent, subservient—it’s the emergence of a stereotype of a black person or an African, the rise of the black ‘other,’ ' he said. 'But I know a lot of Dutch don’t see it that way.'
One contemporary interpretation is that the figure, now sometimes known simply as 'Pete,' is black because he climbed down the chimney (skeptics point out that Pete’s page-boy outfit remains suspiciously clean). Some have suggested painting Pete in rainbow colors, or scaling back to a simple soot-like smudge on the chin.
Peter Jan Margry, a professor of European ethnology at the University of Amsterdam, said Dutch defenders of the tradition have trouble seeing Black Pete as a racist figure because they like him so much, and have for so many generations. 'It’s in the genes of society,' he said, adding that the figure of Piet has changed over the years. 'He used to be a ‘boo-man,’ a scary person to scare children. Nowadays, he has developed into a children’s friend. The change that took place in the character of Piet didn’t take place in his appearance, which the Dutch didn’t notice has so-called racist semiotic elements, because they saw him already as a good figure.'
'From an insider point of view, this is a children’s festival and a family festival,' one that plays an important role in family togetherness, added Margry. When children outgrow Sinterklaas, the celebration involves something called 'surprises': 'a fake parcel, which often contains dirty things, that you have to go in with your fingers and find the poem written about you by a family member, which is usually sarcastic or ironic. With Sinterklaas, you can say things with a smile on your face that you are annoyed about to other family members. It’s a family festival. That’s why the Dutch are so stirred up at the idea that the U.N. might abolish this.'
'Looking from the outside, people say, ‘How is this? This isn’t possible! This is just a racist portrayal of black people,’ ' said Margry. 'Insiders say he is a nice figure for children. The two sides have such different perspectives. They don’t talk to each other, but next to each other.'
The poet and playwright Quinsy Gario, who grew up in the Netherlands and St. Maarten, echoed this. 'Both sides are not understanding where the other side is coming from,' he said. 'We’re still working on that.'
'For me, it started six or seven years ago,' said the twenty-nine-year-old of his engagement with this issue. 'One of my mom’s colleagues told her, in front of clients, ‘We were looking for our Black Pete, and there you are.’ My mom is the strongest person I know, and she called me, shaking. It’s such a micro-aggressive way of saying, ‘You aren’t one of us.’ I thought, I need to do something.'
Gario began inserting lines about chimneys and blackface into his poems at readings. He made a T-shirt that read “Black Pete is Racism” and wore it at a poetry slam, where he recited facts about Dutch colonialism, slavery, and the history of Black Pete to an unsympathetic crowd. Next, he created a performance piece in which he wore the shirt in public places. “A lot of people came up to me and started screaming,” he said. “They said, ‘What are you talking about, I’m not a racist! This is my childhood; you’re ruining my childhood!’ I would just present the facts, and they would simmer down.”
Two years ago, when Gario wore the shirt to a Sinterklaas parade in the Dutch town of Dordrecht, he was arrested by police and pepper sprayed. In August, he submitted an official complaint against this month’s Sinterklaas parade with the city of Amsterdam. 'After that, it’s been one death threat after another,' said Gario. 'One article said I was crazy. But there have also been a lot of articles finally realizing that this is racist.'
At a City of Amsterdam Complaints Commission hearing earlier this month, twenty strangers who had seen Gario’s complaint on the Internet lodged similar protests. 'They said things like, ‘Every year, I have to tell my kid he’s not a Black Pete,’ and that they hear, ‘You don’t need face paint, you’re already black,’ or ‘Your boat just arrived, shouldn’t you entertain us?’ ' he said. Amsterdam’s mayor, who urged respect and understanding but also called any disruption of a Sinterklaas parade 'clearly morally objectionable,' on par with shouting in public that Sinterklaas doesn’t exist, announced that the city would hold the event, as usual, on November 17th.
'For me, it’s not about saying this figure is racist,' said Gario. 'It’s about activating and empowering others. It’s a very interesting moment in the Netherlands, when we have to see that being Dutch doesn’t mean having white skin. It’s about being accepting of heterogeneity, because the Netherlands is black and white and Indonesian and Moroccan. It is Muslim and Christian and Buddhist and Taoist. We need to accept that to move on.'
Photograph by Michael Urban/AFP/Getty

To me, it seems truly arrogant for individuals to attempt to destroy a legitimate cultural tradition and to reinvent its interpretation by applying trendy contemporary labels such as 'racism' to it.  The fact of the matter is that

Another more frightening manifestation of the companion of St. Nicholas is the Krampus.  No one is certain of the origin of his name.  It could be a derivative of 'Grampus' or 'Kralle' (Claw) or a Bavarian word, 'Krampn', signifying  'lifeless, dried-out, gone to seed, withered'.   I personally would opt for the last one as ancient Yuletide traditions include a symbol of the dead, dethroned or otherwise discarded ruler of half of the year's calendar and the birth of the ruler of the other half.  The death of the tiny Wren at the end of the year is a tradition in the U.K. that involves one such symbol.

The Krampus usually is seen on the 5th of December, the Krampusnacht, in Alpine villages and cities.   Many residents will dress in Krampus garb, wearing thick fur and horned 'Larven', masques that feature his almost demonic countenance.  They grip tall bundles of birch branches called 'Weidenruten' to discipline those who have failed to exhibit goodness throughout the year.

Another object sometimes carried by the Krampus is the 'Butte', a child-sized tub, whispered to be used to bear off wicked children to be made into sausages.  In fact, 'Butte' is a word that denotes a sausage casing.  A less terrifying accoutrement is the Cowbell, strapped to the bodies of the Krampus actors.

Krampus Cards have become increasingly popular throughout the Alpine areas and depict adult encounters as well as the traditional assaults upon often unwary, naughty children.

The messages on these card include:

'Gruß vom Krampus!' (Greetings from the Krampus!)

'Seid ihr heuer brav gewesen? Sonst krieg ihr’s mit dem Krampusbesen!'

(Have you been good today?  If you have been naughty, you will be beaten with the Krampus Switch!'

 'Geh mach dei’ Fensterl auf, der Krampus wart’ scho‘ drauf!'

(Go open the window!  The Krampus is waiting!'

'Mit Bomben und Granaten soll dich der Teufel braten!'

(With Bombs and Grenades, the devil will fry you!)

As you can see, the Krampus often is equated with the 'Teufel' or 'Devil' and indeed, his appearance has much in common with medieval depictions of the Devil.  He appears to be part-goat with cloven hooves and horns.

On the subject of the descriptions of 'Black' and 'White' when applied to individuals, I recently saw the film, 'Thor' and was rather perturbed by the depiction of Heimdall by a Black actor.  The reason why it disturbed me was because one of Heimdall's traditional titles is 'Heimdall the White'.  The misguided desire to inject 'racial diversity' into the film included an Asian in the role  of one of the other gods of Asgard.  This really does not make sense.  The culture of the Eddas is Northern and at the time when the inhabitants of the North worshipped the gods of Asgard, Asians would not have been included in their ranks.  No one expects Chinese filmmakers to use Caucasian actors in depictions of their ancestral gods or any deity associated with Buddhism for example.  Why must our own native traditions be changed or diluted by multi-national concerns?  Is it not sufficient to celebrate the traditions of ALL cultures???

Magic Carpets and Candlelight

My maternal grandfather died when I was 10 years old and it was an extremely traumatic event, as it was my first experience of death in my own family.  My mother's reaction and grief as well as that of my grandmother and her other children that compounded the dramatic effect.  My grandfather was an artist who signed his work with the single name 'Conde'.  It was his first name rather than his last, but our family is descended from the De Conde family of France.  It therefore is very much a part of my own heritage.

Along with the blue blood of the De Conde family (albeit blood slightly tainted with insanity, it was rumoured at the Court of France), I inherited many of his interests and loves.  He had a passion for light and movement and their interaction.  He loved candles and candlelight and he loved traditional prayer rugs.  He was not Muslim and I do not know how much of the Qur'an he ever read or recited, if any, but he loved the symbolism as well as the incredible calligraphy that is associated with Islamic Art.

It was only in the past two decades that I began to believe in the concept of a permanent home for myself rather than a perpetual nomadic existence.  Having a child contributed to the change.  I then began to collect a few items with profound significance to me, even if I did not really have anywhere to place them or display them.  Among the items I collected were a few prayer rugs.

Before I became disabled, I actually used some of my prayer rugs for the traditional Muslim prayers or salat.  At the time, my daughter Freya was attending a parochial Roman Catholic school and I had many interesting dialogues with the Monsignor who was in charge of the parish.  Unlike many of his brethren, he did not see that there was anything wrong with the practice of praying Salat AND attending Mass to take Holy Communion.  We spoke of the ancient practice of the 'Hours' in Catholicism and how those prayers, set at specific times, were quite similar to Salat. 

Unfortunately, his successor was more rigid and less charitable in nature and blasted me to Hell in no uncertain terms for daring to send my daughter both to Roman Catholic Church and School and to an Islamic Madrasah and Mosque.  My poor child suffered quite a lot because of my desire to give her a wider view of the world than the narrow one afforded by parochial schools.  She thanked me later, though, for giving her the ability and freedom to choose her own faith rather than forcefeeding her any specific creed.  

In any case, it is the prayer rug and not my personal experience of crossing religious sabres with any priest that is the topic of this post.

The prayer rug probably is the origin of the legends about 'magic carpets' for it is indeed a magic carpet that acts as a ladder to heaven, allowing the worshipper the chance to gain 'nearness to God' or 'qurbatan ilallah' and possibly even a moment of true ecstacy.  There is no need for any specific design, although Islamic art does not include the depiction of the human figure but relies upon abstract designs and symbolism.  The latter can include animals as well as any scene from Nature.  It is in the art of calligraphy, though, that Islamic Art truly excels.

As a left-handed writer, I never became truly adept at many of the Western Roman alphabets when I practiced calligraphy.  Arabic, however, was a different kettle of fish, as it is written from right to left and suits a left-handed person perfectly.  There are many different styles of classical Arabic lettering.  I love the rounded forms of the Thuluth and Diwani scripts.  The intricacy of the latter, in which letters are formed within the embrace of other letters, delights and fascinates the eye and aesthetic sense of some one who essentially is of a Baroque nature.   Any one who has studied calligraphy without delving into Islamic lettering has missed a truly grand artistic tradition.

In Asia, the art of lettering was considered a form of meditation and worship, especially by Buddhists.  I always found it so, whether I wrote in Arabic, English, Latin or in Runes.  Shapes have their own power and significance irrespective of their significance in any alphabet.  A meditation upon a single letter, symbol or word can be very fruitful in artistic and spiritual terms.   For those who cannot sit still easily, the act of writing can be a method of relaxation and a conduit to the peace that may be elusive otherwise.

Prayer rugs often include calligraphy, whether it is simply the name of Allah or a verse from the Holy Qur'an.  They often contain elements of traditional symbolism such as the mihrab, a niche or keyhole that in mosques indicates the direction of qibla (the direction in which one prays).  Qibla is Mecca and worshippers at home will place their prayer rugs in the direction of Mecca as well.

When I made a study of traditional Arab embroidery, I discovered that the Palestinian thob or gown often had a mihrab on the qabbeh or 'breastplate'.  The qabbeh protects the heart and it is fitting that it should be embroidered with a mihrab, even though the powers associated with the heart in Western culture are attributed instead to the liver in Arab culture.

Apart from the mihrab, the other symbols that always appealed most to me in prayer rugs were the Lamp and the Tree of Life.  As some one who specialised in ancient Northern mythology, the Tree of Life is a central concept.  Yggdrasil in Northern lore is the Tree that connects the Nine Worlds and is the Tree upon which the All-Father Odhinn hanged himself for nine nights and days in order to gain Wisdom and the Sight.  The Tree of Life is the Ladder to Heaven in most cultures.  Shamans in the North traditionally climbed a birch tree and created a platform near the top from which to 'journey' to other realms.  The prayer rug is a less physically stressful method by which the same goal can be achieved.

Above are some of my beautiful prayer rugs.  The one at the very bottom is the only one that actually was used as a prayer rug on the floor.  The two directly above that one are very small, woven of pure silk and designed to hang on a wall.  The one on the top is pure silk as well and is more suited to be used as a wall hanging than a rug.

The bottom rug is silk as well but was used rather extensively by its original owner as I could see the 'footprint' of both knees upon its surface where it had become rather worn through use.  It has a common design that shows the interior and exterior of a mosque on the upper half and the mihrab on the lower half.

'I am a Child of Earth and Starry Heaven... the Orphic Rites

Mircea Eliade, one of the great contemporary scholars of mystery religions, wrote about the Orphic Mysteries as well as others.  In his work, 'From Primitives to Zen', you can find some of the rites found on plates from the time before Christ:

[Plate from Petelia, South Italy, fourth-third century B.C.]

Thou shalt find to the left of the House of Hades a spring,
And by the side thereof standing a white cypress.
To this spring approach not near.
But thou shalt find another, from the Lake of Memory
Cold water flowing forth, and there are guardians before it.
Say, 'I am a child of Earth and starry Heaven;
But my race is of Heaven (alone). This ye know yourselves.
But I am parched with thirst and I perish. Give me quickly
The cold water flowing forth from the Lake of Memory.'
And of themselves they will give thee to drink of the holy spring-
And thereafter among the other heroes thou shalt have lordship.

[Plate from Eleuthernai in Crete, second century B.C.]

I am parched with thirst and I perish-Nay, drink of me (or, But give me to drink of)
The ever-flowing spring on the right, where the cypress is.
Who art thou?.....
Whence art thou?-I am the son of Earth and starry Heaven.



[Plate from Thurii, South Italy, fourth-third century B.C.]

But so soon as the spirit hath left the light of the sun,
Go to the right as far as one should go, being right wary in all things.
Hail, thou who hast suffered the suffering. This thou hadst never suffered before.
Thou art become god from man.
A kid thou art fallen into milk.
Hail, hail to thee journeying the right hand road
By holy meadows and groves of Persephone.

[Three more tablets from Thurii, of roughly the same date as the previous One. ]

I come from the pure, pure Queen of those below,
And Eukles and Eubuleus, and other Gods and Daemons.
For I also avow that I am of your blessed race.
And I have paid the- penalty for deeds unrighteous,
Whether it be that Fate laid me low or the gods immortal
Or . . . with star-flung thunderbolt.
I have flown out of the sorrowful, weary circle.
I have passed with swift feet to the diadem desired.
I have sunk beneath the bosom of the Mistress, the Queen of the
underworld.
And now I come a suppliant to holy Persephoneia,
That of her grace she send men to the seats of the Hallowed.
Happy and blessed one, thou shalt be god instead of mortal.
A kid I have fallen into milk.'

The declaration of 'I am a Child of Earth and Starry Heaven' comes to me often when I first awaken or when I step in or out of the bath.  It is very compelling for some reason.  Although some of the followers of the Orphic religion believed that the mud of the Titans (our earthly aspect) was tainted and that one should aspire to lose that in the ascension to the higher self, I find myself increasingly uhappy with that philosophy.  Perhaps Orpheus was torn to pieces by the wild beasts because they sensed his rejection of his earthly self.  We are both animal and spirit.  It is the animal in us, oddly enough, that allows us to experience the varied and marvelous experience we call 'Life'.  The spirit would be inclined to view it all as irrelevant.  If computers 'think' in a binary mode, do they translate everything into numbers in order to comprehend it?  Is that how they 'see'?  I know they are not sentient beings but even so, it strikes me as particularly sad if they must reduce everything to a binary mode in order to process it.  What we see is so much more glorious even if it is 'dross' according to the Orphic mysteries.

I neither am a mathematician, nor am I a computer programmer or even particularly adept with code.  Philip K. Dick, whom I admire tremendously, dealt with the issue of the 'thoughts' and 'souls' of machines, particularly computers.  His work, 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' known to more people as the inspiration for the film 'Blade Runner', dealt with this topic.    The Pythagoreans and Orphic followers believed in the purity of numbers.  Numbers were divine.  If not God himself/herself, certainly they were the ladder to heaven.  The 'music of the spheres' was created from numbers.  In a sense, it is difficult to believe that they had no knowledge of 21st century technology, for much that the ancients wrote and thought is in tune with contemporary technology.

I understand how numbers can be the foundation of all things.  I understand that they are the skeleton of the items perhaps that we perceive, but it is in  the flesh and accoutrements, that beauty resides.  Does a computer, when churning out the binary formulae, perceive the beauty or is it all numbers, numbers, numbers?  That is the thought that occupies me today.

I became acquainted with code through gaming.  A game devised in the early 1990s named 'Claw' allowed players to create custom levels of their own.  It was the custom level editor that taught me that ships and sails and trees and even characters in a game are all defined by numerical code.  Change the codes and you change the essence of the thing.  Furthermore, cheat devices in games give players access to codes for unique or rare items.  If one can input the code into the game, one can acquire the rare item magically without any effort.  I basically eshew those cheat devices.  What is the point of a game if one does not PLAY it?

I am not in love with numbers but I do comprehend that numbers, as measurements, define objects.  If one makes an object too small, it can cause an entire structure to fall.  In terms of beauty, a feature that is too large or too small, out of proportion to the rest of the body, can create disharmony.  Some would disagree and declare that it is pecisely those little 'flaws' that generate true beauty.  That, however, is a matter of perception.  Where strength and practicality are concerned, precise measurements can be vital.

In the old Babylonian religion, the gods created humans from 'mud' or 'clay' to be servants as well as worshippers.  They yearned for a race of creatures who would admire and praise them.  They really probably did not NEED servants to perform tasks.  What they needed was love and adulation.  Curious, isn't it? 

How many of us can create iwthout any hope of an audience?  Most artists do not create entirely for themselves, even if the need to express themselves drives them.  They desire an audience.  They desire what the internet language terms 'feedback'.  An interesting word, that.  Feedback means to feed back to the giver or source.  In our culture, there are businesses that have become rich on nothing more than the collection of 'feedback' from consumers or 'users', whether of computer programmes or actual objects.  'Feedback' can make or destroy a firm.  Never mind whether or not it is accurate.  A certain quantity of positive or negative feedback can fuel search engines or sway corporate decision makers.