Pointed cap
The tip cap also tip cap or tip cap (after medium high German zippel " hood " late medium high German zipf "tip end") is a conical or sack-shaped headgear . Due to their simple production, they occur in all cultures and have remained a popular fashion item from ancient times to today. The tip of the hat is often accentuated by an extravagant element, such as a tassel , a bobble or a similar passament .
Cultural history
Even in the early Iron Age , hoods made of fur were worn by miners at work. This makes them one of the oldest known examples of special work clothing . In addition to hemispherical felt caps ( pilos or pileus ), pointed, conical shapes were also known in antiquity.
In addition, the Phrygian cap was widespread in Asia Minor , which generally could not be worn by women (except for the semi-mythical Amazons ), the tip of which usually protruded forward. The Greeks considered it the typical headgear of barbarians . The equestrian nomads in the steppes north of the Black Sea ( Scythians ) wore similar hats with longer neck and ear flaps, comparable to today's Baschlik .
Coats with a sewn-on pointed hood ( cucullus ) were worn by the Celts, especially when they were traveling, particularly long specimens by the bards . Similar hooded cloaks were later adopted by the Roman legionaries.
From the ancient cucullus came the early medieval cucula , as well as the high and late medieval gugel , a hood with a more or less long collar, which was also worn by the nobility when hunting or traveling. Since the tip of the hood was lengthened more and more for fashionable reasons, terms such as tapering were also used for the Gugel. Particularly extravagant shapes with bells , zaddles or several tips were preserved as fools' caps after they went out of fashion with the nobility.
In the 15th century, the Gugel of the common population developed into two separate pieces of clothing: the head part became the actual pointed cap (also called "Langsack", after the shape of the bag-like cloths through which one sifted ashes), from the collar of the Goller .
At least since the 16th century but were also in the Eastern European boyars in Russia and Poland-Lithuania, next to the tall, cylindrical Bojarenmützen soft fur and felt caps, distributed, similar to the Central Asian Kalpak . The hat-like shapes often consisted of fur turned inwards, with fur cuffs rolled up and out , or of a fur- trimmed pointed cap made of leather, felt or cloth. Since the same time, the so-called pagan hat has been found in Hungarian heraldry , as well as in Germany and in the Habsburg Empire. Other names for this common figure are: Hungarian, Albanian or " Tatar hat ".
From such forms, in addition to the wing cap , the kolpak or the "hussar cap", the military headgear of Croatian horsemen , pandurs and hussars , developed in the 17th century , whose characteristic was initially also a long cloth bag hanging over the fur edge. Similar fur-trimmed pointed hats were still worn by the Ukrainian Hajdamaks until the beginning of the 20th century.
In addition, the pointed cap became part of the respective national costumes in many regions of Europe and was part of the everyday clothing of the male rural population, fishermen and seafarers, such as the Catalan Barretina in the Mediterranean region , until the beginning of the 20th century . Fur-trimmed pointed hats based on Eastern European models were found particularly in Sweden. The Icelandic skotthufa could also be worn by women. The traditional headgear of the Sami ("four winds") even has four corners.
In the German-speaking countries, on the other hand, the pointed hat has not only been worn in rural areas since the 16th century, but was also part of the home clothes of the citizen , where it replaced the federal hood . Since the beginning of the 18th century it has been particularly popular as a sleepyhead .
In Yemen , richly decorated pointed hoods and caps are still part of the folk costume for both women and men. The singer Ofra Haza often presented herself with it in music videos and performances.
In the 20th century were made of thick wool knitted Zipfel- and bobble hats worn by both sexes in the winter sports fashion, increasingly, children. Bag- like or double- sided tuques and beanies have been part of the techno scene since the 1990s, as have headsocks , simple tubes made of wool tied at the top.
Left: dancing farmer (symbolizing the month of May) with goller and pointed cap, around 1540
A Hungarian hussar (1703) with a fur-trimmed pointed cap
Man in Swedish national costume ( Dalarna ), late 18th century
Icelandic woman with scotthufa, 19th century
Catalan barretina
Beanie
meaning
A coat with a pointed hood was the typical garment of the genii cucullati , dwarf-like Gallo-Roman guardian spirits. As a rule, the travel coat is interpreted as an indication of the constant readiness of the geniuses as emergency helpers. The pointed hood may also have phallic symbolism. Even with the Phrygian cap, which was originally made from the belly leather and scrotum of a bull, and which was associated with the fertility god Attis and the bull-killing sun god Mithras , one suspects a transfer of the bull symbolism (including "power of generation") to the wearer . In early depictions of the three wise men (actually the "wise men from the Orient") they are shown with red Phrygian caps to characterize them as oriental magicians , but above all as pagans .
The Catholic theologian and traditional researcher Manfred Becker-Huberti considers, in addition to the Commedia dell'Arte and the Volkstheater , the sometimes quite crude, comical interludes in medieval Epiphany games to be a source of the Puppet Theater . The Kasper should not only get his name from Caspar , one of the three wise men, but also his (often red) pointed cap. His originally sacred role is supposed to shine through from time to time: the Kasper never gets married and fights tirelessly against the forces of evil (devil, robber, crocodile).
Related is the Catalan caganer , literally: "shit" or "poop", a carved figure in the shape of a simple Catalan farmer with a red barretina, which may have been used in traditional Christmas cribs since the late 17th century . Usually the figure is found hidden at the edge of the scene while defecating . According to the Catalan ethnologist and folklorist Joan Amades, this is how the caganer fertilizes the earth, makes it fertile and thus gives prosperity for the New Year. Others find the character tasteless, if not blasphemous .
As early as the 16th century, Georgius Agricola mentions reports from miners about partly good-natured, partly vicious mountain spirits who either wear the miners' work clothes with hood and ass leather , or monk's robes , also with hoods. In contemporary pictorial representations, however , the same chthonic beings appear in the form of demons and devils .
Only since the beginning of the 19th century were hoods and pointed caps, e.g. B. in book illustrations, emblematic of dwarfs , gnomes , brownies and goblins , as well as the Scandinavian Nissen (Denmark, Norway) and the Tomten (Sweden, Finland). With this reference to the medieval and contemporary folk costumes, the popular character of the traditions concerned should be underlined.
This was accompanied by the secularization of the holy bishop Nikolaus von Myra as a traditional gift bringer during the Christmas season. In Scandinavia, the Julenisee took over his role as Santa Claus (Nisse is a Danish nickname for the name Nikolaus), or the Jultomte , a small, fat, old, bearded man with a red pointed cap. His companions were even smaller in modern American and today's globalized pop culture to Santa's little helpers . The characteristic fur-trimmed pointed cap of Santa Claus, however, probably originated from the miter , the episcopal headgear of Bishop Nicholas, through assimilation with his "rough", rather "furry", punitive companions in the German tradition, such as the servant Ruprecht , the rough Perchten , or the tamed devil.
In Canada's cultural battles between English- and French-speaking immigrants in the 19th century, the "tuque" played a role as a polemical symbol. It was seen by the Anglophones as a sign of Francophone backwardness and peasantry and liked to mix with anti-clerical statements, since the Catholic Church in Quebec for decades dominated; the French-speaking wearer of the hat was called "Jean-Baptiste" (after: John the Baptist ), because the Francophones had gathered under this name very early, since 1834. The famous Montreal artist manifesto "Refus Global" (Total Resistance) from 1948 demanded in the critical tradition:
"To the devil with the holy water font and the cap!"
The cap was also to be understood as a bishop's cap, miter.
German-speaking area
From the 17th century onwards, the name for this hat , which was mostly only worn by men , was also common in northern and central Germany. Pointed hats have only been worn by children and women since the 19th century and increasingly since the middle of the 20th century.
Other names are Kasper (le) cap , Michel hat , bag cap , sack hat , Pusse (western Lower Saxony), Klingelbüdel (jokingly Low German), Flöhseckel (jokingly Swabian) Zöttelchappe , Troddelmütze , Quasterkapp , Bammel-, Bambel-, Bimpel-, Bummel- , Bumpel-, Pampel-, Pimpelmütze (Rheinland to Thüringen), Klöppelmütsch , Pinnmütze , Plümm (s) cap (Ruhr), Plüsmütze , Büsselchappe , Fäuselchappe (Switzerland), Schnud (d) elkappe , tail cap (Oberhessen, Westerwald); for knitted pointed hats: stocking cap , stocking sack ; For those trimmed with (white) fur: Santa hats , Santa hats , and many more.
Also since the beginning of the 19th century, the pointed cap became the distinguishing mark of the German Michel , the national personification of the Germans, especially in political caricature . Based on the proverbs of humanism and the baroque, the German Michel symbolizes the alleged "national character" of the Germans , their virtues and especially their vices. Here the pointed cap stands either for the headgear of the staid , naive, uneducated, to the uncouth and boozy, but also by foreign fashions "unspoiled" country man, or, especially in connection with the failed revolution of 1848 , for the sleepy head of the equally staid, cozy , phlegmatic, politically disinterested, “sleepy” citizen or philistine . This connotation still has an effect today in the iconography of the garden gnome , which is considered typically German .
Other well-known pointed cap wearers are The Smurfs , the Mainzelmännchen (with Phrygian caps) and the Sandman .
The three wise men from the Orient with red Phrygian caps, Ravenna 6th century
Coat of arms of Köditz , Upper Franconia, heather hat with ermine forend
Punch and Judy
Caganer
Norwegian Christmas elves on a postcard from Christian Magnus, ca.1917
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See also
literature
- Ingrid Loschek : Reclam's fashion and costume lexicon , article “Zipfelmütze”, 5th, exp. Ed., Reclam, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-15-010577-3 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www.heilige-dreikoenige.de/symbolik/vom_kaspar_zum_kasperle.html M. Becker-Huberti: Holy Three Kings - Symbolism
- ↑ website of Friends of caganers
- ↑ derogatory for the Anglophones, positive for the Francophones
- ↑ A clear caricature in Collections Canada shows the pointed cap wearer Jean-Baptiste, who runs in vain as a jumping devil against the modern, technically adept Anglophones led by Abraham Lincoln (see the telescope, the train). A forerunner group of the "Société Jean Baptiste", which still exists today, had already succeeded in 1834 in making the maple leaf known as a symbol of northern North America, whose resemblance to a lily from the lily banner is striking.
- ↑ To hell with the holy-water-sprinkler and the tuque!
- ↑ In his dissertation, Hans-Friedrich Foltin mentions around three times as many synonyms for the German-speaking area alone: Hans-Friedrich Foltin: The headgear and their names in German . Inaugural dissertation , Philipps University of Marburg; Wilhelm Schmitz Verlag, Giessen, 1963, DNB 481945059 , pp. 155-288.
