Vingodo
Why never do the Smurfs take off their hats, are they all big bald heads? /Animated screenshots
"On the other side of the mountain, on the other side of the sea, there's a bunch of Smurfs. They are lively and intelligent, they are mischievous and sensitive, and they live freely in the great green forest. ”
Seeing this lyric, maybe you have unconsciously hummed it. In the 1990s, an animated film imported from Belgium, The Smurfs, became a favorite of Chinese children. Wearing white hats, these elves live in mushroom houses, are able to stealth and become transparent, and have various superpowers.
What puzzled the children was not whether there were any such creatures as Smurfs, but why did these 99 Smurfs never take off their hats, and were they all bald?
In fact, this hat of the Smurfs has a lot to offer. Look closely at this hat, the tip of the hat is curved forward, the body of the hat is soft and elastic, and it can be worn closely to the head - from these characteristics, this is the "Phrygia boundless hat". The statue on display at the Louvre that slaughtered the sun god of the bull has one; Marianna, the national symbol of the French Republic, also wears one.
Look, is Marianna's hat exactly the same as the Smurf's hat? /Wikipedia
You guessed it, this hat is a symbol of the Smurfs' "free spirit". Therefore, the Phrygian boundless hat is also known as the "freedom hat".
During the Roman Empire, freed slaves wore this hat to mark the identity of "free body", and their descendants were also required to wear this hat. Although the hat brought freedom, the predecessor of the "slave" could not be washed off, which was quite humiliating.
By 44 BC, the dictator of the Roman Republic, Julius Caesar, had been assassinated, and two years later, Brutus, the senator who planned the assassination, had issued a currency with two daggers and a "cap of freedom" on the obverse. Brutus wanted to use the coin to declare that Rome had been freed from Caesar's tyranny.
Although Brutus was killed in the civil war that followed, the "Cap of Freedom" officially became a symbol of freedom and revolution around the world from the previous low-level social identity marker.
Statue of the Mithraic god Slaying Cattle in the British Museum. /Screenshot of the official website of the British Museum
By the 18th century, the symbolic significance of the liberty hat was more pronounced. During the French Revolution, revolutionary militants attacked Tuileries's royal apartment and forced Louis XVI (later executed by revolutionaries) to wear a freedom hat; during the American Revolutionary War, rebels declared a rebellion against British rule by hanging freedom hats on telephone poles in public squares.
If you have noticed, this "freedom hat", which is highly recognizable in shape, also appears on the national emblems of Nicaragua, El Salvador, Colombia, Paraguay, Cuba and other countries that have escaped colonial independence.
Seeing this, you should understand how important the Smurf hat is - in the Smurfs' utopia, free life is above all else, and for the sake of freedom, they have to constantly wrestle with the witches.
But today, when you mention the "freedom hat" again, people may think you are talking about a hallucinogenic mushroom. Why is a hat, a symbol of freedom, related to hallucinogenic mushrooms?
In today's North America, the gymnostic mushroom is also known as the "free hat".
Bare-lipped mushrooms are also known as "free caps". /Wikipedia
The first person to call the gymnasium a "cap of freedom" was the English poet Samuel Taylor Colerich. With a rich romantic imagination, he gave the mushroom a free soul. He wrote, "The pillar of freedom given by nature / and the hat of freedom / so accurately symbolizes Gaulsianism"—presumably the two are really similar in appearance. (Note: Gaulsianism refers to the policies of the French church and government used to limit the power of the pope)
Interestingly, Coleridge himself didn't really know that the Freedom Hat was a hallucinogenic mushroom. Britain's first recorded magical journey to eat mushrooms took place on 3 October 1799.
Early this morning, a man named J.S. went to the park as usual to pick small mushrooms for breakfast for his family. However, shortly after breakfast, the J.S. family behaved strangely.
J.S. claimed that a colored lightning bolt with black spots blurred his vision. He began to lose his way and sat still. His family had terrible symptoms of numbness in their hands and feet, difficulty breathing, and slurred speech.
Shortly after breakfast, the J.S. family behaved strangely.
It was not until almost a century later, in 1871, that the British botanist M. C Cook officially identified the source of the toxin of the psilocybin mushroom, Psilocybin, in the book "Edible and Poisonous Mushrooms", and officially named the psilocybin mushroom "Free Cap".
However, the relationship between the Smurfs and hallucinogenic mushrooms is not limited to their hats - the red and white-spotted mushroom hut where the Smurfs live is actually the "hallucinogenic king" poison fly umbrella of the mushroom world.
In 1958, a team led by Swiss chemist Albert Hoffmann isolated Psilocybin, the main psychoactive compound in it. This is the reason why humans hallucinate and "see the elves dancing" after eating the poison fly umbrella by mistake.
Hallucinogenic mushrooms are the "super IP" in fairy tales. / Stills from Alice in Wonderland
It is precisely because of the strange appearance of the poisonous mushroom and its hallucinogenic effect that the mushroom has become the eternal protagonist of fairy tales and fantasy movies. So, on the "super IP" in fairy tales, no one is better than hallucinogenic mushrooms.
Resources
[1] Freedom Hat: How european magical mushrooms are known | Adrastos Omissi
[2] Welcome to the Hallucinogenic Mushroom Wonderland | Leviathan
[3] A Journey of Reason and Sensibility: The Symbol of the French Republic – Marianne's Origins | The Chinese Constitutional Network