Folklore: Belsnickling in early 19th C. Penn.

Subject: Folklore: Belsnickling in early 19th C. Penn.
From: CapriUni
Date: 21 Dec 06 - 10:56 PM

...Before Coca-Cola hired Haddon Sundbloom in 1931 to come up with an advertising campaign, with "Santa" drinking a Coke, dressed in the colors of Coke's logo. Once an image gets on a billboard and into magazines, it's hard to get it out of the culture.

Here's a discription of Belsnickle ("Santa Claus's" predecessor in the Americas), from the Pennsylvania newspaper, The Pottstown Lafayette Aurora, dated December 21, 1826 (180 years ago, today):*

He has the appearance of a man of 50, and is about 4 feet high, red round face, curly black hair and a long beard ... and is constantly laughing, which occasions his chunky frame to be in perpetual shake. ...This genus of the night winds and storms is, when at a distance, entirely non-discript; but when he approaches, his uncouth magnitude deminishes, and you can accurately survey his puncheon frame from top to toe. His cap, a queer one indeed, is made of black bearskin, and fringed round, or rather stuck round with porcupine quills painted a fiery red, and having two folds at each side, with which he, at pleasure covers his neck and part of his funny face. ... His outer garment, like Joseph's of old, is of many colors...

[ETA]: And here's a less literary rememberence from someone who played one of the Belsnickles in Pennsylvania around 1800:

I went belsnickling several times when I was young. We went to every house in half a township where the poor children were. When we had given what we could get from people who could afford it better, we went in some of the big farm houses for fun. ... When we were done visiting the poor children and scared many of them before we did give them the things, we made our headquarters on the farm. We had fiddles and other music.

.*

Belsnickle (or Pelsnichol) came to Pennsylvania with the German immigrants (the name comes from the German for "Furry Nicholas"), and the American illustrator Thomas Nast was also a German immigrant; he drew on his own memories of Belsnickle when he started illustrating images of Santa Claus for Harper's Weekly, starting in 1862; here's an eexample. You'll note that he's still got that bearskin cap described in the Lafayette Aurora article, though he's ditched the porcupine quills and his beard's gone white over the intervening 17 years (beards will do that, after all).

*I've snipped both of these quotes from Santa Claus, Last of the Wild Men, by Phyllis Siefker (McFarland & Company, Inc. 1997)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Belsnickling in early 19th C. Penn.
From: katlaughing
Date: 21 Dec 06 - 11:33 PM

I'd never heard of belsnicking! Thanks!!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Belsnickling in early 19th C. Penn.
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 21 Dec 06 - 11:49 PM

The Belsnickle imported with the Germans was the first, but the Coca-Cola image of 1931 was just a copy of many red-coated or red-suited Santas from the period 1870-1910.

Thomas Nast created and popularized the present Santa Claus in 1862:
http://cartoons.osu.edu/nast/santa_camp.htm Santa Claus

The red-suited Santa with white beard and big belly was in print about 1869 (Nast again), and was popular on postcards before the First World War (I have several from the 1905-1910 period).

He achieved his present form about 1900- see the 1905 cover illustration of the old boy on St. Nicholas Magazine for the Christmas issue, 1905, and the N. C. Wyeth portrait of 1925 at this website on the old boy:
http://www.stnicholascenter.org/Brix?pageID=35

St. Nicholas Magazine was a very popular children's magazine for a very long period.


The Coca-Cola Santa was a late-comer, first only in urban legend.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Belsnickling in early 19th C. Penn.
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 21 Dec 06 - 11:52 PM

History of the images here:
St Nicholas

Subject: RE: Folklore: Belsnickling in early 19th C. Penn.
From: CapriUni
Date: 22 Dec 06 - 12:16 AM

Kat -- neither had I, until I'd read that Santa Claus, Last of the Wild Men, several years ago. Mostly, I just like the name "Belsnickle." ;-)

Q -- Thanks for those further links. Yes, red clothing has always been associated with "The Nickle" ('Santa' is not his first name -- one of my pet peeves). In part of that first quote, which I snipped for length, besides the red porcupine quills in his hat, Belsnickle is described as wearing red velvet knee britches, which you can see as he runs, and his long coat flies out behind him.

But our modern (and unwavering) image of Santa Claus was cemented in the popular imagination by that ad campaign for Coke.

And, in the interest of full disclosure, I should have cited the source of my inforamation about Pelsnichol as the inspiration for Nast's illustrations. It was an article that was first published in Forbes magazine, in 1997, and can be found online, here: A Visit from Coca-Cola. Granted, considering Forbes's target audience, it's likely that the importance of an advertising campaign was overplayed. Still, there's no denying Sundbloom's influence.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Belsnickling in early 19th C. Penn.
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 22 Dec 06 - 06:35 AM

The red clothes are MUCH older. There is a fresco image of St Nicholas in one of the cave churches in the Ihlara Valley in Cappadocia, in which he is wearing almost the same clothes as a modern supermarket Santa except for having a black cap. That fresco must predate the Seljuk conquest so it's at least 800 years old. It's captioned so we know who it was meant to be.

Maybe somebody here is familiar with the Greek iconography for St Nicholas in other places? The attributes of saints were standardized quite early on.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Belsnickling in early 19th C. Penn.
From: leeneia
Date: 22 Dec 06 - 09:51 AM

"But our modern (and unwavering) image of Santa Claus was cemented in the popular imagination by that ad campaign for Coke."

I disagree. I have statuettes of Santa in a variety of outfits. Dwelling as he does at the North Pole, Santa can look south to every culture in the world, and he has outfits from many of them. Naturally the various forms have to be adapted for survival in the rigorous Northpolar climate.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Belsnickling in early 19th C. Penn.
From: CapriUni
Date: 22 Dec 06 - 11:58 AM

From Jack Campin: Maybe somebody here is familiar with the Greek iconography for St Nicholas in other places? The attributes of saints were standardized quite early on.

True. Of course, our modern (And by modern, I mean post-Moore/Nast) "Santa" has more to do, I think, with the figure known as "Father Christmas" in Britain than the actual former Bishop of Myra from the 3rd century C.E.

For one thing, he arrives at Christmas Eve, rather than the Eve of Saint Nicholas' feast (December 5). And depictions of Father Christmas, in Victorian art, was probably, in turn, influenced by Charles Dickens' description of the Spirit of Christmas Present in 1843.

And that account from the Lafayette Aurora predates Dickens by a generation. If it's accurate, and not a mis-remembering of almost-forgotten traditions, belsnickling was also a tradition more closely associated with Chritmastime, rather than the Feast of Saint Nicholas.

It was only after Moore's poem was published that the idea that "Santa Claus" comes down the chimney on Christmas Eve became widely accepted (again, this is something I picked up from that Forbes article, linked to, above).

From Leencia: I have statuettes of Santa in a variety of outfits. Dwelling as he does at the North Pole, Santa can look south to every culture in the world, and he has outfits from many of them.

Exactly. But if you look at modern American popular culture (whether in malls around the country, or on our T.V. or movie screens), you'd think that Santa Claus has only one outfit in his closet,

Subject: RE: Folklore: Belsnickling in early 19th C. Penn.
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 22 Dec 06 - 03:18 PM

The cola add was a late addition to the already ubiquitous image. Strange how this 'urban legend' persists.
For over 130 years, the magazines, Christmas postcards, dolls, costumes worn by parents, etc. had firmly impressed the red-suited Santa Claus in our minds.
He had a green outfit, and a coat decorated with astronomical bodies, until Nast published his cartoons in the 1860's. Later, color postcards printed in Germany (c. 1900) but sold in America showed the red-coated old man with a cane, and a wicker basket on his back, filled with the gifts, but those from 1905 dropped the cane and showed a normal American Santa. American children's magazines from c. 1900 also showed the American Santa, now a typical American, his immigrant forbear completly forgotten.

The poem, "A Visit from St. Nicholas," by Moore, was popular from the 1820's, and may have been written as early as 1807. St. Nick-Santa already had his complement of eight reindeer.

Washington Irving in 1809, A Knickerbocker's History of New York," popularized a jolly St. Nicholas character. St. Nicholas was named the patron Saint of the New York Historical Society (1804).
Accounts from the late 1700's have St. Nicholas visiting the Dutch in New York.
The Sons of St. Nicholas patriotic Society was founded in 1773.

It becomes evident that Pelznickle was a country bumpkin, never of any importance in genteel Dutch-New York and New England society, and had no part in the St. Nicholas (and later incarnation, Santa Claus) of Dutch (and later) American Christmas.

(St. Nicholas was absent from in the Spanish and Mexican Southwest from 1580 until Anglo culture became dominant about 1900; the Kings visited in January. St. Nicholas-Santa Claus was an illegal alien as far as Hispanic culture of the time was concerned.)

Much of this may be found at the St. Nicholas site previously linked; also see www.snopes.com/cokelore/santa.asp.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Belsnickling in early 19th C. Penn.
From: CapriUni
Date: 22 Dec 06 - 04:23 PM

All you say is true, Q. And Santa Claus's red suit had to have been recognisible enough before Sundbloom's campaign for the campaign to have worked as well as it did.

Though the first Dutch settlers to New York were devout Protestants, and wouldn't have celebrated the saints' days, nor would they have used the figure of a saint to celebrate Christ's birthday.

The Sons of St. Nicholas was a patriotic, fraternal order for Americans of Dutch ancestry, and the figure of Saint Nicholas was more of a figurehead than a being of religious importance (Saint Andrews was a similar order for Americans of Scots origin, for example).

And Pelznichol may have been a country bumpkin, as you say. But, in this forum dedicated folk traditions, there's no shame in that. Nor is there any reason why our genteel cousins from the Town can't borrow a little rustic style to spice up their holidays...

Just look at the popularity of Martha Stewart's faux-rustic style; I doubt that's an entirely modern phenomenon, either.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Belsnickling in early 19th C. Penn.
From: CapriUni
Date: 24 Dec 06 - 05:19 PM

For the third times in as many weeks, I heard a version Lois Armstrong's "'Zat You, Santa Claus?" on the radio, this morning (I'm reluctant to post a link to the lyrics, because every site I've checked so far is full of popups).

That song makes Santa more of a spooky goblin than a jolly elf, and it reminds me that one Belsnickler's recollection of "...visiting the poor children and scared many of them before we did give them the things..."

I wonder if there's something in the air, this year, that I could have gone nearly my entire life without even knowing this song, and then, hearing three different versions from three different performers all in one season...

Subject: RE: Folklore: Belsnickling in early 19th C. Penn.
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 24 Dec 06 - 05:37 PM

It's time Santa Claus was replaced, or went on a strict diet. He is not a man of the times- one with a Swartzenegger (sp?) build, and approval by the Surgeon-General is needed.
Santa is a bad example for our children!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Belsnickling in early 19th C. Penn.
From: CapriUni
Date: 24 Dec 06 - 06:02 PM

You're such a Humbug, Q! Santa has always been a subversive sort (the real Santa, that is, not the corporate clone, churned out to increase retail sales in November.

Governmentally-Sanctioned Santa Claus, indeed! Next you'll have us want to do is to put his name and image on the facades of debtors' prisons and workhouses.

;-)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Belsnickling in early 19th C. Penn.
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 24 Dec 06 - 06:20 PM

Why not? aren't workhouses charities?