Halloween Customs and Traditions

Various customs and traditions are associated with Halloween, and people of different cultures and religious persuasions celebrate Halloween in different ways.

Halloween in the USA

Certain Halloween customs long surviving in Ireland, were brought to the United States by Irish emigrants in the 19th century.

A popular Halloween activity for children is trick-or-treating, in which they dress up in costumes, often of supposedly malevolent supernatural beings such as skeletons, ghosts, monsters, or witches, and proceed from house to house, asking for sweets with the phrase "trick-or-treat?" with the implied threat that, if their demands for confectionery are not met, they will perform some "trickery".

Homes and yards are often decorated for Halloween, with spooky lighting and effects. Halloween parties are popular, with costumes, and sometimes traditional Halloween party games, such as bobbing for apples.

Halloween (Samhain Eve) in Ireland

In modern Ireland, the name by which Halloween is known in the Irish language is still "Oíche Shamhna" or Samhain eve. In Ireland, the last Monday of October is a public holiday. All schools close for the following week for mid-term, commonly called the Halloween Break. As a result Ireland is the only country where children never have school on Halloween.

Hundreds of bon fires are lit each year in Ireland on Halloween night. Traditionally, villagers would cast the bones of slaughtered cattle upon the flames. The word "bonfire" is thought to derive from these "bone fires." With the bonfire ablaze, the villagers extinguished all other fires. Each family then solemnly lit their hearth from the common flame, thus bonding the families of the village together.

In Ireland there are no "tricks", (neither the Scottish party trick nor the American jocular threat), just "treats" -- in the form of apples or nuts given out to the children.

Halloween in Scotland

In Scotland children go guising, named after the disguise or costume worn by the children. However there is a subtle difference from the way trick-or-treating has developed in the United States.

In Scotland, the children are only supposed to receive treats if they perform tricks for the households they go to. These tricks normally take the form of a simple joke, song or funny poem which the child has memorised before setting out. Occasionally a more talented child may do card tricks, play the mouth organ or something even more impressive, but most children will earn plenty of treats even with something very simple. However, guising is falling out of favour somewhat, being replaced in some parts of the country with the American form of trick-or-treating.

Halloween in France - the Danse Macarbre

In some parts of France, there is an old superstition that each year on Halloween, Death has the power of appearing at the midnight hours in cemetaries throughout the country. There he calls forth the dead from their graves to dance for him while he plays on his fiddle. The dance according to the superstition continues until the first break of dawn when the skeletons return to their graves for another year.

This belief was immortalised in the symphonic poem 'Danse Macabre', composed by Camille Saint Saens. In Danse Macabre, and a related shorter piece called Fossils, the xylophone represents the rattling bones of the skeletons in their grotesque dance.

Halloween in Mexico - El Dia de los Muertos

In Mexico, Halloween ushers in The Day of the Dead, (El Día de los Muertos), a Mexican and Mexican-American celebration of dead ancestors, which occurs the days after Halloween, on November 1 and November 2, the Roman Catholic All Saints Day and All Souls Day. This event is not only celebrated in Mexico; it is celebrated in other parts of Latin America, though not to the extent as it is in Mexico.

On El Día de los Muertos, the celebrants wear wooden skull masks called calacas and dance in honor of their deceased relatives. The wooden skulls are also placed on altars that are dedicated to the dead. The altars are decorated with ofrendas, or offerings, which may include photographs, bread, other foods, flowers, toys and other symbolic offerings.

Special food for El Día de los Muertos includes Pan de Muertos, or bread of the dead, a sweet egg bread, made in many shapes, from plain rounds to skulls and rabbits. Sugar skulls, made with the names of the dead person on the forehead, are eaten by a relative or friend.

People visit the cemeteries where their loved ones are buried and they decorate grave sites with marigold flowers and candles. They bring toys for dead children (los angelitos, or little angels) and bottles of tequila, mezcal, pulque or atole for adults. The celebrants sit on picnic blankets next to the graves and eat the favorite food of their loved ones.

Despite its morbidness, this holiday is celebrated joyfully. Everything about this holiday is happy, even the skeletons and devils.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Halloween" and from www.ShiningRise.com

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