October 31 has become a commercialised holiday with scary surprises, but Natalie Bowen explores its religious beginnings and different incarnations around the world.
[attach id=287386 size="medium"]In Mexico, people celebrate the Day of the Dead rather than Halloween.[/attach]
Pumpkins, witches, ghosts and monsters: modern Halloween festivities have developed from a previously sombre occasion to a fun, harmless excuse to eat treats and dress up.
But people have been celebrating and remembering the dead at the end of October since ancient times.
Before the Roman Empire spread, the Celts living in Britain and Ireland started their calendar in November and believed the night before a new year was special as the boundary between the world of the dead was thinner.
The festival Samhain, held on the last day of October, marked the change from summer to winter and so the Celts lit bonfires and made sacrifices to their gods to keep ghosts and dead spirits away.
Yet the word Halloween is actually an abbreviation of All Hallows’ Eve, the day before the Catholic holy day of obligation All Saints Day, which replaced the celebration of Samhain as paganism dwindled and Christianity prospered under the Romans.
The feast of All Martyrs Day was established in AD609 by Pope Boniface IV, and Pope Gregory III (731–741) later expanded it to include all saints as well, moving the date from May 13 to November 1. In Britain and Ireland, it was also known as All Hallows’ Day due to the Middle English translation “Alholowmesse”.
In AD1000, the Church declared November 2 to be All Souls Day, to honour the dead. This was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with bonfires, parades and dressing up as saints, angels and devils, so the three events merged.
With the emergence and dominance of Anglicanism in Britain, All Saints Day was no longer celebrated and so, for centuries, it stayed a predominately Irish custom, which was transplanted to the US by the waves of immigrants that crossed the Atlantic.
The commercialised, modern Halloween is more secular and has gained global exposure due to the American TV and film industry.
Although some critics regard it as glorifying evil, most consider it to be harmless fun
Both adults and children use it as an excuse for a party, to dress up, play games and eat sweets with friends and family.
Although some critics regard it as glorifying evil, most consider it to be harmless fun aside from the Church’s official feast days.
US writer Page McKean Zyromski argues on www.americancatholic.org that Halloween “can be a way to deepen understanding” of Catholicism by using it to explain the communion of saints to children, comparing it to “a Mardi Gras before a very serious Lent”.
But even with America’s exports of pumpkin pie, Jack o’ Lanterns, creepy costumes and trick or treat, there are still countries that follow different traditions.
In Mexico, the Day of the Dead celebrations fall on November 1 and 2 to match All Saints and All Souls Days, but are much more flamboyant, with lots of colour and skull and skeleton motifs rather than monsters.
Similar to Samhain, the modern Mexican Dia de Muertos developed from a Christian incorporation of an Aztec festival.
Many people build small altars with tokens and pictures of their deceased loved ones and will spend time at family graves, then hold parties and gatherings to remember them, often poking fun at their foibles or sharing amusing anecdotes in a convivial, rather than sombre, atmosphere.
In Asia, Halloween has only begun to be observed due to the encroachment of Western culture over the past few years – especially in Japan – so it has little religious attachment.
However, in China and Singapore people celebrate the Hungry Ghost festival in the seventh month of the lunar calendar, during which they honour dead ancestors with food offerings, burning fake money and even setting places for them at meals. They believe spirits roam the land, and put on public operas and dramas, leaving seats for visiting ghosts.