Saturday, December 20, 2008
Sinterklaas, episode III: Revenge of de Sint
So this is Christmas.
And it's then normal ending for this esalogy of Sinterklaas to see what went wrong when Sinterklaas crossed the Ocean and went to America.
In fact the figure of the Santa Claus is heavily based on the character of Saint Nicholas, and especially in his Dutch version Sinterklaas.
History say that when they went to America, Dutch conquerors and settlers brought with them their traditions and habits, and within them, Sinterklaas.
Then, during the American War of Independence, the inhabitants of New York City, the former Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, reinvented their Sinterklaas tradition, as Saint Nicholas was a symbol of the city's non-English past.
The name itself of Santa Claus is supposedly derived from the old Dutch form Sinte Klaas.
Despite the fact that this historical reconstruction is not supported by all the experts, it is supported by me (and many others).
But of course also the traditionally Christian Saint Nicholas, or Sinterklaas, is in turn a clone (as all he Christian characters I may say).
The features of Saint Nicholas, a greek bishop pretty popular in Germanic Countries, is in fact molded from the casting of Wotan, the Germanic version of the chief god in Norse paganism Odin.
Odin, as his alter ego Sinterklaas, is often depicted as a old man, with a long beard, a hat and a stick in the hand.
He's ridings his eight-legged white horse Sleipnir, a grand-grandfather of het wit paard van Sinterklaas.
Also the character of Zwarte Piet, Sinterklaas' helper, in the Medioeval traditios was bearing a lot of similarities in role with Odin's ravens Hugin and Munin.
Finally, late Roman historians, such as Tacitus, used to refer to Odin by using the name of Mercury since they shared features and roles.
Ergo: Ermes is Santa Claus.
(This could explain my childish confusion in understanding the meaning of Santa Claus.)
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3 comments:
eh devo cercar su un librazzo che vevo che parlava delle origini dele robe natalizie...
comunque wotan me sembra abbastanza plausibile, hugin e mugin a recia me sona già più strano...
mz
el librazzo rimanda alla deutsche mitologie de grimm che fa derivar tutte le figure simil-krampus (peraltro i se anche in ungheria, fora dall'area tedesca) da sto knecht ruprecht... dal fatto che poi sia i giovani del villaggio a vestirse da krampus lui tira un collegamento al mito dell'uomo selvaggio...
comunque più che una figura mutuada da un'altra figura per decadimento sembreria una figura de per se stessa, specifica dell'area tedesca e limitrofe
...che poi se gà innestà sul mito de s.nicola e el diavolo
invece conferma anche lui la sovrapposizion wotan o simili/sanicolò
fra l'altro sempre sul librazzo scriveva che el fatto che a trieste non sè i krampus significa che la festa non se stada portada dall'austria ma dalla zona veneta
ma podessi esser un po' de campanilismo istro-veneto dell'autor
(e tutti: francesco se le 9.15 e ancora non te ga bevù un brulè corri presto prima che finisi)
mz
Che l'Ungheria sia fora dell'area tedesca se pol discuter, visto che se sta governa' dai Asburgo dal 1437 al 1918, con una piccola pausa ottomana.
Nicola
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