Reggae Christmas in Amsterdam?

On my second day in Amsterdam I went and had a walk around the main centre (called the Dam). Some bandstands had been setup and there were these guys dressed in colourful clothes and had fake black hair and had their faces painted black wearing red lipstick. They were dancing around and singing christmas songs. Later they were rappelling and bouncing off tall buildings in the square as well.

This was pretty surprising because it looked a bit reminicent of Amos and Andy and therefore something unlikely to be seen in North America. Because of the Jamaican theme of many of the coffee shops I actually thought at first that this was a Reggae Christmas!

There were hundreds of families gathering around a parade route and I joined in the wait. While waiting there I talked to a couple Dutch people and found out that - first off to the Dutch I look Norweigian! - and secondly that they celebrate St. Nicolas's day on Dec 6 and that St. Nicolas has a main black helper called Pieter. In their tradition, St. Nicolas rides a white horse and has hundreds of black helpers (like our 'elves') who make the presents, climb up the houses and deliver presents down the chimmney. Pieter is by far the most popular character and is featured in many storefronts and his name is called out continuously by the kids during the parade. Guys who deliver presents are pretty popular.

From what I can gather, originally the 'elves' where Moorish slaves and if you were good, you would be given presents, but if you were bad you would be taken away by the Moors. The current story has been updated so that they are black - not because they are Moors - but because they are covered in soot.