Many of the facade heads seen on the street today wear oriental clothing. The turban and cloak are a possible reference the origin of exotic medicines.
The National Pharmaceutical Museum writes that the oriental gapers are divided into two categories: the muzelman and the moor. Both words referred to Muslims from northwest Africa, but the word moor later became synonymous with black person.
Painted darker and darker
According to Van den Hooff, the new generation of gapers is a parody of what they used to be. “Those who now hang out at stores are often much coarser cut and brighter. They have more outspoken clothing and are more of a caricature.”
Archival research also shows that gapers with a brown skin color became increasingly dark. “If you look at the paint layers, you can see that the eastern gaper has been getting an increasingly dark coat of paint. Why don’t we know,” says the historian.
“Nothing to do with racism”
The gaper in Herenstraat also had a dark brown skin color. But according to the sculptor, the head was created in 2017 after the previous one was stolen, it isn’t meant to be racist. “The gaper has nothing to do with discrimination”, he says to NH Nieuws. “It was in fact a striking advertising pillar and here a Moorish sultan was chosen to show that the herbs came from far away. But there were also gapers in a firefighter’s suit.”
Racism or not, intentionally or unintentionally: Van den Hooff thinks that the commotion about the statue “fits in with the questions we now see ourselves as a society”. And he would rather have seen a traditional gaper again. “Even if it had been white, I wouldn’t have thought it was a nice specimen. If you compare it to what originally hung, it’s too cartoonish.”
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