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Gaast (The Netherlands)

Wûnseradiel municipality, Fryslân province

Shipmate Flagchart : http://www.flagchart.net
adopted 19 Apr 1955; design: Kl. Sierksma

Gaast village
Gaast Coat of Arms

See also:

Gaast village

Gaast is a village in Wûnseradiel municipality in the province of Fryslân.
Flag: per black flydiagonal green and yellow; at the hoist the narrowed municipal flag.
adopted 1955; design: Kl. Sierksma.
Arms: per bend sinister vert, noir and or; in noir a spouting whale argent with head dexter.
This whale was on a gablestone in the house of a commander of a Greenland-whaler in Gaast. That stone has been moved to Makkum.
The black spot behind the whale's eye may be a representation of a tear, as we had to swallow "levertraan" (cod-liver oil), a nasty tasting oily substance, supposed to make us stay healthy. It was easier to swallow if Mum told us that a whale shed tears for our well-being... Never knew why that practice stopped, though!

Gaast is south of Makkum along the IJsselmeerdike, with c. 200 inhabitants. People used to live off hunting and fishing, now off agriculture along the dike, and cattlebreeding in the east.

Nickname: "Otterfretters" - Otter eaters (which they did before cars arrived here, which only roadkill 'em)
"Noarmannen" - rough people, whose main element, where they feel at home, is the sea.
"Tsjettelmigers" people who pee in kettles.
"Potstrogatten" - potstro is flour or buckwheatgroats, boiled in milk. The Gaasters enjoyed that tremendously.

Source: It Beaken, jrg. xxxi, # 3-4, Dec 1969
Encyclopedie van Friesland, 1958
Groot Schimpnamenboek van Nederland, by Dirk van der Heide, 1998
Jarig Bakker, 8 Apr 2005

Gaast Coat of Arms

by Jarig Bakker, 8 Apr 2005