Who is Black Peter?

Daily Life, Swiss News and General Topics
1
Just been staying in the sticks (country) in central Switzerland & there seems to be a tradition in songs or poetry & sayings in the local village (which I would like not to name) that has a strange fixation about 'The Black Man'...

...I've heard children in the Gymnasium chanting a song along the lines of "who is scared of the black man..." said by the teacher "I am" is the reply "& then they run away"..

Oh, I also notice these cards in the local shop, anyone know what these are all about too?

[](https://www.englishforum.ch/attachments/daily-life/9871d1257247791-who-black-peter-schwa.jpg)

2
Well, in Holland 'black peter' can be 2 things:

- it is the helper of sinterklaas (here in CH: sammiklaus), in Holland he is the one that punisches the children that were behaving badly that year

- it is also a card game which can be played with regular or specialty cards.

Guessing from your description its the same here in Switzerland

3
Do you know the words to that?

It's a game that they do during ice hockey training and gymnastics for my son and I'd like to know. I guess that we live in the sticks as well. Maybe the same village? Does it start with an "E"?

4
Schmutzli..

5
This looks rather like a gollywog, of the type that Robinsons retired quite a few years ago. This definitely wouldn't be acceptable in the UK these days, I'm surprised they're still depicted commercially here.

6
Swiss_folklore Zwarte_Piet Blackface#.22Darky.22_iconography

7
He's "black" cos he has to climb down chimneys...

.

8
The "Wer hat angst vor den schwarzen Mann" game is not limited to villages--my daughter has played it in a dance class right in the middle of Zurich city. I was shocked when I heard about it and asked around some Swiss friends of mine. Some said that the game was about a chimney sweep. Others, however, looked embarassed, said that it was just as it sounded, a black man, and offered that it was shocking that the game was still played in this day and age. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fangen_...Schwarzen_Mann#Wer_hat_Angst_vorm_Schwarzen_Mann)

I imagine that it did start out referring to a chimney sweep, but since they are no longer such a fixed and understood part of modern society, I am not sure what sort of association a child would make in hearing an authority figure offer it up. Perhaps in an overly politically correct moment, I sat my daughter down and had a discussion about it. She subsequently refused to play the game when her dance teacher offered it again. I think the game is different from Schmutzli, as there seems to be no relationship with Christmas, albeit there may well be a common ancestry as it were.

9
Thanks for the lyrics. Everybody knows the chimney sweeper in my village and it's true, he's normally black from the soot. I'm going to allow my kids to keep playing that game as I see nothing un-PC about it. If the teacher was wearing white robes and a pointy hat, then I might feel different about it.

10
Black Pete comes from modern history where colonies were built and the Europeans (bless us) were enslaving the colonised people.

But try to ignore the negativity - consider how this is celebrated in the Netherlands Antilles, for example. I believe Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet sail on a boat into Willemstad, Curacao , on 5th December.

Historical - yes; racist - was then, isn't now; politically correct? Who cares - the locals don't and surely that's the measure we seek?

11
Which 'he'? The Robinsons Golly, Schmutzli or Zwarte Peter?

So are Schmutzli and Zwarte Peter basically the same figure?

And why do Zwarte Pieter and the Golly have the same outfit?

NB: That for Robinsons only the original figure had the Zwarte Peter-like outfit. I don't think the Robinsons Nurse Golliwog went down chimneys . . .

This all appears to be a bit tangled . . .

12
That's the one and I'm quite shocked to hear your story & that it was in ZH!

Mmm..

13
So many memories boohoo!

14
Being Swiss – and married to a Dutch man – I think I have to clarify a couple of things:

1. the game “Schwarze Mann” of my childhood (1980s) was definitely not black but a chimney sweeper.

2. while the Dutch zwarte Piet (sorry, my Dutch spelling is bit random) is a black person, the Schmutzli of my childhood was a white man with a black/grey/dark blue coat and a dark beard. He was the helper of Samichlaus.

3. There is a card game called “Schwarzer Peter” and I have no idea where that name comes from.

Never did I think of a black person when we played the game or went to see Samiclaus as kids. Oh, and the last chimney sweep I saw in this country (a year ago or so) definitely still wore black clothes. Admittedly not a top hat or a ladder on his shoulder...

15
ps. Of course Schmutzli has a very definitely basis in meaning. "li" means small and cute, the rest of it I'll leave to the bilingual masses to work out

16
Whilst we as grown ups (some who even remember when the chimney sweep came to clean our chimney) can see Schwartze Peter is a sweep, my issue with things like this is the explanation (or lack of it) given to the children.

I recently had to have a long and upsetting talk with my son (5) about the wearing of headscarves not meaning that the person comes from India and that anyone not white was an auslander here!?.

At this point I would like to mention both my husband and I are not non-swiss and have lived in many places - such attitudes are not something that are tollerated in our house so it was certainly nothing he picked up from home

We too are in central Zurich and my son went (we recently moved him) to the local kindergarten which actually has a very good reputation. It was a very diverse class 16 kids - 14 nationalities between them but at no point in almost 2 years were their diverse backgrounds and percieved difference addressed. Now I am not overly pc wishy washy, but in amongst all the immigrations-forderung that is supposedly going on, kids were left to draw their own conclusions - or to my horror learn from each other negative impressions and this really not good enough in this day and age.

These games are fine and well, but best make sure your kids understand the history behind them or the correct interpretation - they may not be getting that message at their school/club!

17
'Qui a peur de l'homme noir' is a pretty common game here in the French speaking part of Switzerland. 'Pierre noir' is scary because he's very dirty, and he is the 'bad' card which makes you lose in the card game.

In the card game of my childhood, he was clearly pictured as a dirty chimney-sweeper, so I never saw anything truly offensive in it - except for chimney-sweepers of course

18
you lucky woman

Well, in Dutch having the Zwarte Piet is like the English expression 'having drawn the shortest straw'

The card game is about getting rid of your cards as quickly as possible (according to the rules/game

mechanism) without ending up with 'de zwart piet' (which is the jack of clubs if I remember correctly)

19
I like in that Wiki article about Zwarte Peter that it isn't a master/slave or master/servant relationship, more of an employer/employee relationship.

Ain't that just the way . . .

20
You'd be shot for saying that these days.

Still, i know what you meant.