Common Halloween activities
include trick-or-treating, wearing costumes and attending costume parties,
carving jack-o'-lanterns, ghost tours, bonfires, apple bobbing, visiting
haunted attractions, committing pranks, telling ghost stories or other
frightening tales, and watching horror films.
Halloween is not celebrated
in all countries and regions of the world, and among those that do the
traditions and importance of the celebration vary significantly. Celebration
in the United States and Canada has had a significant impact on how the
holiday is observed in other nations. This larger North American influence,
particularly in iconic and commercial elements, has extended to places
such as South America, Australia, Europe, to Japan under
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the auspices of the Japanese
Biscuit Association, and other parts of East Asia.
The Celtic harvest and
New Year festival Samhain was celebrated on 1st of November. Celts usually
lived in Ireland, United Kingdom and northern areas of France. This festival
marked the end of pleasant summers and the beginning of bitter cold. These
people believed in evil spirits and witchcraft and thought that they get
loose on earth and roam about on the night before the 1st November, in
search of preys and victims. So, on the night of 31st October, they painted
their faces and wore terrible costumes to frighten away these ghosts and
witches, so that they would not harm them and their cattle and crops. The
inexplicability of certain natural occurrences was what gave rise to most
of
their fears.
Traditionally, during
the time of the Samhain festival, the Celtic peasants used to take stock
of their supplies and slaughter livestock for winters. The ancient Celts
held the belief that on the said night, which is now observed as Halloween,
the boundary between the living and the dead was dissolved and the dead
souls became dangerous for the living, by causing them sickness and damaging
their crops. Hence, the Celts arranged for bonfires and slaughtered livestock,
throwing their bones into the raging inferno, to do away with the evil
spirits. In Scotland, the young impersonated the dead with masks, veiled
or blackened faces and dressed in white.
Initially, Celts used
to place a skeleton on their windows on the night before Samhain, to represent
the departed soul. They also used the head of a vegetable to frighten off
evil, as they believed head to be the most powerful part of the entire
body, possessing the spirit as well as knowledge. By 43 AD, Romans
took hold of the Celtic territory. |
When brought together,
the social interaction between the two societies and the cultural and traditional
influence of the each society over the other resulted in the amalgamation
of Samhain, the harvest festival mentioned above, and two Roman festivals
- one to please Pomona, Goddess of fruits and trees and other Feralia,
to commemorate the passing of the dead.
It is the festival associated
with Pomona Goddess that gave rise to the custom of 'bobbing' apples on
Halloween. Though, Christians tried to celebrate 1st November as the peaceful
and serene All Saints' Day, but soon the festivities of Samhain caught
favor among the Christian youths and Halloween became the day of big bonfires,
grand parades, costumes, trick-or-treating, Jack-o'lanterns and carved
pumpkin décor. The two main colors that have been traditionally
associated with Halloween are orange and black, which continue to be used
today as well. As for the Halloween costumes, they are usually those of
monsters, ghosts, witches and devils, depicting traditional horror. |
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