Impaginato 5.p65 - Universitat Rovira i Virgili

EVIDENCE IN FAVOR OF THE PALAEOLITHIC CONTINUITY REFUGIUM THEORY (PCRT)
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to sweep away unhealthy influences. Pig bladders attached to poles were also
used in such prophylactic flagellations. In short, blows delivered by the switches
and bladders were believed to insure good health, promote fertility in animals
and humans alike as well as the fruitfulness of crops: they were intended to
bring about prosperity in general.
3.0. Marginalization: The transformation of the New World «good-luck» visitor
In the United States a series of transformations would take place, altering the
European template of these «good luck visits» and the cast of characters involved
in them, transformations that would lead to the creation of the modern day
consumer Santa, familiar to people around the world. In this process, the dark
ursine companion would be increasingly marginalized. Although there were many
forces at work which, acting in consonance, brought about this situation, a close
examination of the facts allows us to recognize that many of the most familiar
aspects of the American Santa Claus are products of the fertile imaginations of
four remarkable individuals: Washington Irving, Clement C. Moore, Thomas
Nast and Haddon Sundblom.
First, we have Washington Irving (1783-1859) who in his Knickerbocker’s
History of New York (1809) divested St. Nicholas of his bishop’s garb and severe
inquisitorial demeanor, took away his bear companion, leaving behind a
quintessentially good-natured bourgeois Dutchman contentedly smoking his long
clay pipe. Indeed, in a very short time Washington Irving’s writings managed to
turn the popular Sinterklaas or Sinter Klaas of Holland into the tutelary guardian
of New York (Chris 1992: 37-41; Rodríguez 1997; Webster [1869] 1950). 17
The next step in the metamorphosis of the European character was undertaken
by Clement C. Moore, the biblical scholar who, in 1822, wrote his now famous
poem «An Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas» in which Santa acquired a sled
and reindeer. 18 This poem, in turn, was illustrated by the political cartoonist
Thomas Nast in a series of vignettes published in Harper’s Weekly between
1863 and 1886 (Nast St. Hill 1971).
17 For a much finer grained cultural analysis of the evolution of the American Christmas holiday
as well as evidence of European traditions subsisting, especially among the lower classes, cf.
Nissenbaum (1997).
18 Composed for his own six children’s diversion, Moore’s poem first appeared in The Troy Sentinel
of New York on December 23, 1823.