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

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:

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:

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

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:

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.