Smurf hats in a group

Beginning BD: Where Did the Smurfs Get Their Hats?

That white floppy hat on top of every Smurf’s head.

What is it?  Where did it come from?

Do Smurfs have bald spots?

We’ve got a history lesson coming up here, folks.  Sit back.

But, first, let’s answer a side question:

What’s Under a Smurf’s Hat?

There’s only one true source for information on this question, and that’s Peyo’s comics.  Accept no substitutes. Yes, there are probably moments in various movies and cartoons where a Smurf can been seen without their hat on.  That’s not Peyo.

Peyo showed us one example of a Smurf without a hat.  Go to the classic story, “The Purple Smurf.”  At one point, Papa Smurf’s lab blows up, along with his hat.

Papa Smurf without his hat

Papa Smurf is bald. This doesn’t necessarily mean that Brainy Smurf isn’t sporting a pompadour under his hat or that Hefty Smurf doesn’t have a buzz cut, but…

The Smurfette hat is the same as the other Smurfs' hat, but has long yellow hair flowing underneath it.

We know Smurfs are capable of having hair.  Smurfette has luxurious blonde locks, but she’s also not really a natural born Smurf.  Technically, she’s a concoction of Gargamel’s.  But let’s give his spell-making the benefit of the doubt.  Maybe Smurfs can have hair.

I mean, where do Smurfs come from?  What’s the genetics at work that would determine–

–wait, no, I’m not going down that rabbit hole.

Papa Smurf is definitely bald.  I bet you already assumed that, though. Let’s move on.

Where Do Smurfs Get Such Wonderful Hats?

It’s called a Phrygian cap, which is about as much fun to type as Vercingetorix, who is an amazing story for another day.

The headgear is over 2000 years old.  Here’s proof:

Bust with a phrygian cap
By Jastrow (2006), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=647031

Handsome fella, isn’t he?  But check out that hat!  He’s totally a Smurf, right?

His name is Attis, and this sculpture comes from somewhere in the 100s AD, though Attis lived even further back, in the 4th century BC.

In that time period, you know who else worse a Smurfs hat?  King Midas.  Yes the guy with the thing for gold. (Croesus is also involved in this story, but let’s not get completely off topic.)

Phrygis, in case your curious, is the name of an ancient group of people who lived in the Balkans region of eastern Europe — Greece, Turkey, Romania, etc.  Their language and culture went extinct by the 5th century AD. Near the end, the Romans thought of them as being lazy and dull.

Those Phrygian caps do kind of resemble a dunce cap, don’t they?  It’s completely unrelated, though.  That’s a dead end.

Liberty and Freedom

The hat is often associated with liberty and freedom. Why?

It was adopted during the French Revolution (at the end of the 18th century AD) as “the red cap of liberty” by the revolutionaries.

You can see one such cap on the French personification of “Liberté”.  Here she is:

Marianne Symbol of french republic and liberty

Looks just like Papa Smurf’s hat.  And while Peyo was Belgian, he was working with French publishers, so drawing inspiration from a French symbol isn’t too crazy.

The thing that Peyo maybe didn’t realize and the French revolutionaries definitely didn’t realize, though, is that it’s the wrong hat.

The Right Hat

Pileus hat from 4th century BC

This is the pileus hat.  It’s a brimless hat, often made of felt or maybe wool.  It started in Ancient Greece as a sailor’s hat, and eventually found its way to Ancient Rome, too.

In Rome, a freed slave had his head shaved.  Then, they would wear a pileus, in part to keep their head warm.  The hat was a sign of the slave’s freedom/liberty.

Somewhere along the line in the French Revolution, they adopted the freed slaves’ head gear as their own symbol of freedom, but picked the wrong one.

They didn’t have Google Images back then, so don’t be too hard on them.

I’m sure Peyo picked that hat because it looked good on the Smurfs, helped further set them apart from all the other characters, and would someday make for an awesome free giveaway at Angouleme.

Side By Side

Wikipedia has an image of the Phrygian and Pileus next to each other on the bottom shelf here:

Phrygian and pileus hats side by side
By MisterPlus65 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46040581

On the bottom shelf, the Smurfs’ Phrygian cap on the left is next to the pileus in the center there.

Yes, there were metal versions of both that were used as head gear during war times.  Imagine an army of Smurfs coming over the hill to attack!

Glad You Asked?

To sum it all up: Some Greeks had a hat that the Romans borrowed and that their slaves used to represent their freedom.  2000 years later, some French revolutionaries confused that hat for a different one from the Phrygis folks and made it their own sign of freedom.

150 years after that, Peyo created the Smurfs and gave them that hat, but in white.

Here endeth the lesson.


What do YOU think? (First time commenters' posts may be held for moderation.)

11 Comments

  1. Funny post.

    For me the smurf hat was always meant to resemble the top of a mushroom, so they could roam the magic forest with some sort of camouflage on top (Azrael is always on the lookout).

    Like this:
    https://www.google.fr/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.duanrevig.com%2FNature%2520divers%2FChampignons%2FChampignon.JPG&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Factivitypedia.org%2Fcueillir%2Bdes%2Bchampignons%2B-%2Bconseils%2Bet%2Bcalendrier%2Bmois%2Bpar%2Bmois&docid=aRJyYTuhuvKbIM&tbnid=QgU9fBcG8gKbfM%3A&vet=12ahUKEwiwsYTm0rnZAhWJ0RQKHbyACe04ZBAzKAYwBnoECAAQBw..i&w=3136&h=2180&bih=745&biw=1196&q=champignon%20photos&ved=2ahUKEwiwsYTm0rnZAhWJ0RQKHbyACe04ZBAzKAYwBnoECAAQBw&iact=mrc&uact=8

    A bit like the roof of their houses, actually.

    The phrygian bonnet is an interesting hypothesis though.
    But I would argue that Peyo being Belgian, it doesn’t have the same historical significance as for us french for which indeed it’s having roots in the Revolution, as a way to identify common folk (as opposed to nobles, royalty and bourgeois). so I’m not sure that passes muster.

    Have you found actual evidence from Peyo interviews that’s where it comes from? Or in-story confirmation? Haven’t read the series since I was a wee lad so I can’t check it out.

    1. I’ve seen numerous references to the Smurfs hat being a Stygian hat, but I can’t honestly say that any of those references points directly to a Peyo interview. It’s possible it’s a coincidence or one of those convenient stories that sounded so good that everybody went for it. Hmmmm

      I also discovered in my research that there’s some kind of hallucinogenic mushroom that resembles the hats. I didn’t want to continue researching THAT one too closely, though…

      1. Yeah, Belgian still being a monarchy, the Phrygian bonnet reference doesn’t make sense. Maybe it was called that way just because it resembles the shape, for convenience sake. These being the late sixties early seventies, the mushroom connection is way more likely. The Marcinelle bunch, led by Franquin, were smoking heavily, drinking beer heavily, so the ‘shroom hypothesis is not a big leap.
        Nice research on your part though, a little bit of culture never hurts.

  2. Side note here: I am wondering why my gravatar picture doesn’t show up on this site when I comment.
    It works pretty much everywhere else, so…

    1. I’m not sure. I checked the settings and they should show up. I have one, too, so I would think mine would be there, too. The theme might be blocking it somehow. I’ll have to investigate that one…

    1. You are right, it’s pointier there than I remembered, not having reread the Johan & Pirlouit series in a veeeeeeeery long time. Definitely not the phrygian shape in these panels, more like some middle ages troubadour or something.
      No idea about the strange pants though.

  3. There is a red Phrygian cap in the seal of the US Department of the Army. It looks just like Papa Smurf’s.