Who is Black Peter?

Daily Life, Swiss News and General Topics
41

> Neger is the normal word, while Nigger would be an insult

> "Schwarzer Peter" is a popular cardgame for children. The saying "jemandem den Schwarzen Peter zuschieben" means to make somebody doing something unpleasant and having him taking responsibility". It is supposed that the name Schwarzer Peter refers to a friend of famous robber Schinderhannes, named Johann Peter Petri, known as "der alte Schwarzpeter" due to his black beard.

> back to "Neger". Neger in Germany is also a family name, and one of the most famous German comedians of the 1960ies was a Mr Neger.

42
Guess it depends on your definition of racism... I still call them Mohrenkopf and I love them...

But Mohrenkopf means basically a moors head (not sure if this is common; a term for Africans and Muslims from northern Africa).

Most of the old producers of this delicious treat used Golly pictures as their trademark, I think those have been phased out only in recent years... I still can remember them from a few years back....

43

The modern term is "än Schwarze", and this term is also used by "in-your-face racists", but does hardly make a difference.

And there in Zürich even is a Café Mohrechopf, and another Café of the same name in Schaffhausen. And here the advertisement of a producer

Mohrenkopf: Fast schwarz und glänzend soll er sein Das Produkt besteht aus hellem Biscuit, Vanille-Diplomatcrème, Schoggi-Fondant-Glasur.

Wir bleiben bei der Bezeichnung Mohrenkopf, auch wenn’s nicht ganz korrekt ist – Schoko-Kugel tönt einfach schlecht.

» Preisliste Patisserie

» Druckansicht [](http://www.beck-eberhard.ch/)

As they say correctly, there is not yet a decent replacment word around.

44

schoko or schoggi-kugel sounds ok to me - thanks wollishofener - i shall now refer to them as schoggi-kugel

45
I'd love to hear if the staff will now what you're trying to order...

46
I found the story just now :

It is not astonishing that the Mohrenkopf has its origin in the Germany of the end of the 19th Century. Germany just in 1884/85 succeeded to capture Togo, Cameroon, German South-West-Africa (Namibia) and Tanganyika. Newspapers and magazines were eagerly reporting about these successes, and some Zoos made "Völkerschauen" where groups of "natives" were shown to the public as exotic sensation. In that time, a Confiseur had the idea to name his creations, in the colonialist ways of his time, Mohrenköpfe .

47
No, Mohrenkopf was "established" at a time when the term "Mohr" had shifted southward and no longer meant Arabs

48
I always suggest native English speakers to call them with the best known German brand name:

(Just found it in Dutch... the German tag line would be "Man, sind die Dickmann")

49
The Moor's Head is a common pub name in the UK.

50
the same goes for Basel Zoo where they had "Voelkerschauen" until 1935... shocking to imagine this now but not unusual at the time.

51
Don't know Old Maid game..

52
And for further clarification, not all Moors were Arab. The first Moors were from NW Africa in the region of present day Mauritania. The Arabs didn't come through with their influence for many centuries.

53
Slight exaggeration?

54
Most Arabs of the Arab World are not of "Arabian" ancestry. Studies of universities in North Africa, based on genetic investigations, show that a majority of Egyptians are of Maghrebi ancestry, but few people in the Maghreb of Mashreeki ancestry. The "maures" had no racial meaning, but was a term for whomever was on the African continent. Present-day Mauritania even now has just some 3 mio. inhabitants, and until 1960 was not a political or ethnic or cultural entity, and so hardly was giving name to anything. It was a compromise the French had to establish between an "Arab" 60% majority and a "Black" 40% minority in a territory of French West Africa, north of Senegal, east of Spanish Rio del Oro, south of Morocco and southwest of the then still existing Algérie Française.

If you mention "Arabs", you have to realize that they already were there in Roman times. By modern standards, Roman Emperor Traian was an Arab, possibly looking, as he came from modern day Libya, like Hannibal Khaddafi ! The various peoples in the Arab World during the "Arab conquest" adapted a more or less common language and a vague idea of common culture. Only that Lebanese travelling in the Maghreb tend to speak French all over the place, as Maghrebis do not understand the very fast Lebanese Arabic. An almost ancient Arabic in fact is known as Maltese nowaydays, having some very old structures, but of course heaps of Italian, French and English words. But of course, Egyptians walk "ilal office" and the Algerians use not a soushasha for the beverage but a bouteilla .....

55
Agreed. I'm just saying that the word "moor" existed prior to the Arabs even coming into the scene. It seems most likely that the Romans gave the name to the people of present-day Mauritania in the 1st century BC. The initial invasion of the Iberian peninsula consisted of very few "Arabs" and was most likely mainly people from present day Sudan.

56
A) The word Moor was given by the Romans to people between Tripolitania and Morocco. Mauritania only was established in 1960AD. Général Charles de Gaulle was NOT a Roman Emperer !

B) No, the invasion of the Iberian peninsula was done by people from between Cairo and Casablanca. Present day Sudan only was established in the 19th Century by Brits and Egyptians as the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. However, the modern countries of Central African Republic, Tchad, Niger, Mali and Mauritania (French Central Africa & French West Africa) were since about 1800 known as "le Soudan Français". And when the Ummayads established themselves on "Iberia" the Ummayad Empire stretched from the Tigris to the Salé, and they would not have allowed anyone from Africa or Asia to get accross their territory.

57
A) I have read that the Romans named the people from the region of what is now called Mauritania the "Maures". These people were somewhat darker than the people of North Africa as you describe.

B) The invasion of the Iberian peninsula was "led" by people from the Ummayad dynasty but used soldiers primarily from people from the region of what is presently Sudan. These people were also darker than their leaders.

58
A) No, "Mauritania" simply was not existing in Roman times. Mauritania was what today is the Maghreb. This map shows the Roman province of Mauritania, which equals the main part of Algeria and the northern part of Morocco of today :

-

[](http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:Mauretania_et_Numidia.jpg) [](http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:Mauretania_et_Numidia.jpg)

Maurétanie Tingitane (à l'ouest) [orange], Maurétanie Césarienne (au centre-ouest) [orange], Numidie (au centre-est) [rose], et Africa (à l'est) [rose]

B) No, the soldiers of the Ummayad armies were from areas in what are Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria today. No, there was no reason in those times to import people from Africa, as there were enough folks available between Baghdad and Casablanca.

-

Here some info about Andalussiya :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umayyad_Caliphate

www.answers.com/topic/umayyad

C) A very important part of the "Arabs" getting into Iberia were Arab Jews, which was the reason why Andalussiya became place of a unique Arab-Jewish high-culture, excelling in science and in arts.

If you look into these reports here

http://books.google.ch/books?id=egbO...age&q=&f=false

it is easy to realize that fairly "dark" Hijazis ruled over white North Africans and Iberians, and not the other way round

59
The name Mauretania was used already in the times of ancient Rome (provinces Mauretania Caesariensis and Mauretania Tingitana). The inhabitants were called Mauri. I assume that the term was derived from Ancient Greek mauros, which means dark; Modern Greek mavros means plain black.

By the way, maybe twenty years ago there was an attempt to introduce a politically correct term for "Mohrenkopf" in Switzerland. Certain cantonal authorities asked restaurant owners to use the word "Schoggichopf" instead, totally unaware of the fact that that word was a pretty popular and widely used name for Tamils.

60
Thanks for the map.

Unverified info lifted from here:

I'm not a scholar in this and only have a casual interest in it.

Here's a good version of "Black Peter" for your enjoyment: