(: Happy Halloween! :)

Happy Halloween, everyone!

You know, I can’t help myself. Halloween has long been one of my favorite holidays, going all the way back to when I was a kid. Mom and Dad used to decorate the house with hanging witches, skeletons, spiders, and black cats. I can specifically remember a witch over the moon and at least one skeleton and cat that were made of lightweight cardboard, metal joints allowing their appendages to be contorted in the most ludicrous of positions. Another spider I remember in particular was made of black tissue-like paper and lightweight cardboard. I think it’s called honeycomb—I’ve seen Christmas ornaments (bells and the like) made this way—but you could unfold either cardboard side, its tissue-like paper body billowing out like a fan in the process. Then you joined the two sides back to back and hung the ornament, its body (with attached legs) a symmetrical pattern twisting gently to and fro in the breeze. When it came time to take the decoration down, a quick unhooking of these two adjoining sides allowed it be collapsed back flat for easy storage.

Last year (or was it the year before?—memory fails me now) my mom got a cute black spider and bat that make this hideous noise when you accidentally bump them, setting them off, their eyes pulsating red strobes as they wriggle and writhe in electronic cacophony. Needless to say, she soon decided it was high time to leave the batteries disconnected! :)

No, I can’t explain why I like Halloween so much. I guess it is the memories of a child’s wistful imagination. It reminds me of the same world fairy tales bring to mind: witches and goblins and black cats watching simmering cauldrons hatching their magic brews. A childish innocence, a sense of wonder and make-believe, a willing suspension of rational thought, if only for a moment. Whatever, I always look forward to this time of year. And here in America, the leaves even change to the appropriate colors . . .

I thought I would share with you a little about some other related folk holidays from around the world that celebrate the dead and supernatural. The native religion of Japan is a form of animism called Shinto, which translates to “way of the gods.” It competes primarily with Buddhism in its native Japan and is a largely unstructured religious system, honoring nature, the dead, and the kami. (The kami are the pantheon of spirits that inhabit all things, both living and inanimate.) According to “Chapter 11: Shinto & the Japanese Synthesis” in Neighboring Faiths: A Christian Introduction to World Religions by Winfried Corduan:¹

The Japanese calendar of special days by and large follows the Gregorian calendar. Almost every month has a festival arranged so that the special day falls on the day that bears the number of the month, such as the third of March, the fifth of May, and so on. . . . The Buddhist Day of the Dead (which has its counterpart in the Chinese Hungry Ghost Festival) is also observed in Japan, where it falls in the middle of July. It is a period marked by intense provision for the ancestor spirits (331–332).

In Mexico and other Latin countries, the Day of The Dead—El dia de los Muertos—is most often celebrated on November 2nd, though in some regions it is held on November 1st. It is believed that the souls visit our earthly habitation during this time. Participants adorn costumes, attend fiestas, and leave flowers and decorations on the graves, often after cleaning up any debris that might have been residing on the stone. Many leave trails of flower petals or burning incense to the doors of their houses to help the spirits find their way.

There are many variances in the traditional celebration; at times representatives from the Roman Catholic Church oversee the events, and many of the customs are reflective of Native America prior to the Spanish Inquisition. Papier-mâché skeletons are common, and ofrendas (offerings to the dead) are adorned with flowers, in particular the yellow or orange cempasúchil (flower of the dead) and the mano de león (lion’s paw).

As to the Chinese, they are very conscientious about their dead, a tradition that has much to do with the teachings of Kung fu Tzu, better known by the Latinized name Confucius (551?–479? B.C.). Confucianism, which, as many of you may know, is not so much a religion as a moral philosophy, taught strong values including honoring one’s parents. This, in turn, carried over into ancestor veneration. Concerning the Chinese death festivals, “Chapter Ten: Chinese Popular Religions” of Neighboring Faiths has this to say (do you notice any similarities to anything else you have read yet?):

Quing-ming is a joyful spring festival, the highlight of which is a trip to the cemetery. Families take the day to visit the graves of their departed. They spruce up the grave sites and make offerings for food, firecrackers and the usual joss sticks [incense in the form of a stick of dried paste—EncartaŽ]. Then the family gathers together for a picnic on the grounds. It is very important that each family member partakes of the food just offered to the ancestor.

For the sake of any spirit among the departed that has not received proper care, there is the Hungry Ghost Festival. The idea behind this season, which usually falls on the month of August, is that dissatisfied spirits leave their underworld abode and roam the earth, possibly causing havoc. At this time, special observances for the deceased are performed. People erect special roadside shrines and burn paper money in the streets. Older sons may hire Buddhist monks to say special prayers on their behalf.

Other special practices are connected to the Hungry Ghost Festival. Theatrical companies construct outdoor stages and perform musical plays for the public (as well as for any roving spirit) free of charge. The content of the plays themselves is not religious, but a religious dedication ceremony precedes the performance. It is during the Hungry Ghost that temples auction off figures of deities that have been kept on the premises to become imbued with spiritual power.” (304)

November 2nd is also the Roman Catholic Holiday known as All Souls’ Day established in the 10th century. During this time the deceased are venerated by prayer and almsgiving to ease their stay in purgatory so that they might truly “rest in peace.”

A century or two before (depending on what sources you read), the Roman Catholic Church established All Saints’ Day (also known as Allhallows or Hallowmas) on November 1st, to honor God and His deceased saints. Today it is still observed by the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican churches, and by the Orthodox churches on the first Sunday after Pentecost. The holiday was originally a pagan holiday, one of four festivals celebrated by the northern pagan nations.

By the way, as a quick aside, do you know where the word “pagan” originates or what it means? It originally referred to one who dwelled in the countryside, a rural, “backwoods” sort of individual. Because of the superstitions and “old wives’ tales” of many of these villagers, it eventually became associated with animism itself. According to the Microsoft® Encarta® World English Dictionary: “The Latin word pagus, from which pagan is derived, originally meant ‘something stuck in the ground as a landmark.’ It was extended metaphorically to ‘rural district, village,’ and the noun paganus was derived from it, denoting ‘country dweller, villager.’ This shifted in meaning, first to ‘civilian,’ and then (based on the early Christian notion that all members of the Church were ‘soldiers’ of Christ) to ‘heathen.’” (It is also the source of the English word peasant.) A fitting aside for a folk holiday like Halloween, eh?

In England, a partriotic holiday has all but merged with Halloween. Guy Fawkes’ Day is celebrated on November 5th, and bonfires and fireworks are all part of the festivities. Children often burn effigies of Guy Fawkes. Fawkes was a New York-born English conspirator who tried to blow up the British Parliament in 1605.

Our modern day Halloween is of Celtic origin, coming from the holiday of Samhain, which tranlates to “fire of peace.”² This was originally a festival celebrated in Druidism, the predominant religion practiced by the peoples of Britain, Ireland, and Gaul from the second century B.C. to the second century A.D., according to Encarta®. The Catholic Encyclopedia further elaborates: “Although the only positive information we possess on the druids is to the effect that their institution existed in Gaul and Britain between the years 53 B.C. and A.D. 77, there is evidence to show that it must have existed from a much earlier time and lasted longer than the limits fixed by these dates.” In the previous paragrah, the entry also stated “The practice of human sacrifices, which has often been imputed to the druids, is now known to have been a survival of a pre-druidic custom, although some members of the druidic corporation not only took part in, but presided at, these ceremonies.” This refers to the animal and human sacrifices that were a routine feature of Samhain observances, where gigantic wooden effigies (known as “wicker men”) were built. These were filled with vegetables, grain, animals, and other sacrificial offerings—sometimes including humans—and then lit afire on sacred hilltops to appease the Druid deities.

Druidism was a very clandestine religion primarily for the elect and elite; precious little is known about it, due in large part to its secretive oral transmission. While the religion may not have been the main stay for the common peasants (who likely observed some form of animism, or a “superstitious,” diluted form of Druid ritual), the Druids were the people of power and affluence: the highly educated judges, priests, magicians, and royal advisors of the day. The supreme patriarch was known as the archdruid, and there were three classes of Druids—prophets, bards, and priests—who were abetted during ceremonies by female prophets or sorcerors (who did not hold equal rank). The Druids practiced magic, astrology, and the practice of herbs. They also highly revered oak trees, and because mistletoe is a parasite that grows on many types of trees and is at times found climbing oak trees, it was also highly regarded, thought to be inbued with magical power. The Druids would often harvest it from the oak with a golden sickle during festive ceremonies. This is where the British and North American tradition of “hanging the mistletoe” comes from.

Lorrena McKennitt, one of my all-time favorite Celtic musicians, writes in the CD liner of her ’92 release The Visit concerning the song “All Souls Night”: “This piece was inspired by the imagery of a Japanese tradition which celebrated the souls of the departed by sending candle-lit lanterns out on waterways leading to the ocean, sometimes in little boats; along with the imagery of the Celtic All Souls Night celebrations, at which time huge bonfires were lit not only to mark the new year, but to warm the souls of the departed. –L.M.”

With all this said, I still can’t help myself. I like Halloween, and probably always will. I hope that you have all enjoyed this very abbreviated glimpse into the origins of this dark holiday. (For a more detailed account of Halloween, see the Encarta® article.) For the time, I bid you adieu and wish you a delightfully chilling Allhallow’s Eve on which the hunter’s moon falls this year—the first full moon on Halloween in 46 years³—and on which Pleiades, the “seven sisters” constellation, is directly overhead at midnight.⁴ :) Oh, and if you haven’t already done so, I would seriously recommend checking out “His Coat So Gay,” a short story by Sterling Lanier, one of my all time favorite tales of dark suspense and macabre. (Perhaps that is why I loaded it on this site?) Much of the story revolves around Brigadier Ffellowes (an English gentleman, hence “His Coat So Gay”—see footnote ⁵), a foxhunting party (where more is being hunted than just foxes!), and the Celtic tradition of Samhain. It was originally taken from the book The Peculiar Exploits of Brigadier Ffellowes. Have I gotten you curious yet? Good. Read it. You’ll like it. I promise.

God bless,
Eric