Halloween for me has never been any fun as I am a scary cat, and I will never see a scary movie. Therefore, I never saw the appeal of dressing up in a custom to scar people around. When I was a child, I enjoyed the treat and trick at my uncle’s private neighbourhood as it was the only place that I was allowed to do this as is it was very secure.
Therefore, I decided to do a little research about the importance of Halloween if any and now I am sharing the outcome.
Halloween is of Christian origin derived from the ‘All Saint Evening’ which was equivalent to the ‘All Hallows Eve’ as attested in Old English. The word Halloween comes from the Scottish version where the word ‘Eve’ from evening became ‘een’ in its contracted form and then just kept the hallow-een part.
Since early church times, most major feast in Christianity have vigils that start the previous night. The Chrisitan celebrations were All Saint’s Day held on 1st November and All Soul’s Day on 2nd November. These three days collectively are called Allhallowtide, which is focused in celebrating all the saints and departed souls who have yet to reach heaven.
The Allhallowtide custom was of baking and sharing soul cakes with all christened souls, which is the origin of trick-or-treat tradition and dates back to the 15th century. Additionally, the soul cakes and food would be left overnight on the dinner table for the returning souls. The traditional hot cross buns were used as soul cakes due to the cross on the top.
The Halloween customs were associated with vengeful ghosts as the souls of the departed wandered the earth until All Saint’s Day and All Hallows’ Eve provided the last chance for the dead to gain vengeance on their enemies before moving to the next world, and the use of the custom was to avoid being seen by other souls seeking revenge.
At cemeteries in Spain, France and Latin America priest lead Christian processions and services during Allhallowtide, after which people keep an all-night vigil.
It is now believed that the Halloween traditions are based on the folk of Celtic-speaking countries like Ireland and Scotland, as the customs are linked to the Gaelic festival Samhain which was celebrated between 31st October and 1st November. The Samhain was rooted in the belief that in order to survive the winter they had to make some offering of food and drinks to the Gods which was left outside. They also believed that the souls of the death will revisit their homes seeking hospitality, so they set a place at the dinner table, and candles were lit.
After these offerings, the game would begin. Since the 16th century, the festival involved disguised people going house-to-house reciting verses in exchange for food, which allows the wearer to protect themselves for those souls. The belief was that if the house donated food, it could expect good fortune, if not they would threaten them to do mischief.
Since the 18th century, wearing customs and playing pranks became part of the Halloween tradition where pranksters used hollowed-out turnips as lanterns. This concept spread to other parts of Britain and became known as jack-o-lanterns.
Halloween arrived in North America in the 19th century after a mass Irish and Scottish immigration as they brought all these traditions. However, these traditions were spread to many other countries by late 20th century and early 21st century.
The celebration of Halloween in North America coincided with the end of autumn and the harvesting of pumpkins. Therefore, the tradition was fusion with the local elements like the colour of Halloween are black and orange for the autumn colours and the black cats associated with witchcraft. The Halloween decorations have autumn elements like pumpkin, husks, and scarecrows. The pumpkin was adopted instead of turnips as the jack-o-lanterns due to their availability.
However, the major source of imagery includes Christian eschatology (which is the study of end things, and they focus on death, and afterlife), works of Gothic and horror literature, and classic horror movies.
All Saint’s Day and All Soul’s Day are when all the death is celebrating by performing cemetery and grave rituals which include offering of flowers, candles, and prayers of the loved ones.
All Saint’s Day is a Christian solemnity celebrated in honour of all the saints of the church, whether they are known or unknown. All Soul’s Day is a day of prayer and remembrance for the faithful departed.
Since living in England, I have been celebrating both All Saint’s Day and All Soul’s Day in my Mexican style as Day of the Death. In Mexico we celebrate Day of the Death as two-day event as on 1st November we celebrate all the children and babies that passed away as we considered them our beloved angels, and 2nd November we celebrate all the adults that passed away. The Mexican style Day of the Death has become a national symbol and has been part of the UNESCO List of intangible cultural heritage of humanity since 2008.
Although the scholars disagree with it origins, the Mexican celebration is a combination of the European tradition and the Aztecs celebration making it unique, as it was fusion by the Spanish during the evangelisation era. The Aztecs celebration was placing altars with food next to the burying grounds of warriors using decorative skulls and bones as they hold enormous sacred power.
Currently, we celebrate the death of our loves one by creating unique altars (ofrendas) which are set in a table in two levels depicting the earth and the heaven, and they need to have:
1. Water,
2. Candles,
3. Incense,
4. Flower in particular marigold flowers [cempazúchitl in Spanish] (mine has a wide variety of orange and yellow flowers),
5. Images of saints (mine always has the Guadalupe Virgen as it is native of Mexico),
6. Photographs of the departed souls (mine has a collage of photographs will all the souls that I want to honour).
7. Salt,
8. Food and drinks, their favourites including sweets and typical day of the death bread (mine includes mole, fruits, nuts, and tequila),
9. Decorative skulls [calaveras in Spanish] made of different materials including sugar and chocolate (mine includes colourful clay skulls),
10. Perforated paper [papel picado in Spanish] (mine is always homemade and in various colours),
11. Death type decorations (mine always has papier-mâché catrinas in various colours),
Off note, Catrina is the colloquial name of the dapper (female) skull which was created by lithographer José Guadalupe Posada around 1910 which it is the icon of Mexican identity for Day of the Death.
In my lack of knowledge, I always believed that Halloween was a commercial holiday with no intrinsic relevance, while All-Saint’s Day was more solemn and with better transcendence.
However, I am glad that I was able to do this research as I can now understand the meaning of it. I started researching about Halloween to see how it compare with Day of the death and I realised that they are all part of the same event.
Halloween is the day where wicked souls are still on earth and people use disguises to protect themselves of any vengeful soul. All Saint’s Day is the day where we celebrate all the saints. And All Soul’s Day is the day where we honour all our loves one that have passed away by offering them flowers, candles, and food for those souls returning home seeking hospitality.
Since living in England, I have been very reluctant to celebrate Halloween as I hate horror because it makes me very anxious. However, I am happy to recognise that only some part of Halloween is horror, and the rest is rooted in traditional. Therefore, this year’s challenge is how to merge my newly found understanding of Halloween with my unique Mexican celebration of Day of the Death. I would let you know.
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