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Top comments (12)
Isn't it the other way around?
My five-years old nephew understands halloween, but I don't.
Where does the pumpkin tradition come from?
I don't know.
Halloween was pretty much non-existent in France when I was young.
It's a relatively recent thing here.
November 1st is a bank holiday but for another reason, it's a catholic tradition of All Saints Day
Don't forget to pray for both those who have passed on and those who are still alive!
Hallowe'en is short for "all hallows evening".
Like Christmas eve is the evening before Chirstmas day, halloween is the evening before all hallows day. Hallow is another way of saying saint, so all hallows day is also known as all saints day*.
There are two, seemingly unchristian traditions involved with halloween.
Pumpkin carving started in Ireland, and started as turnip carving. This tradition is nothing to do with Christianity and all to do with Samhain, a Gaelic tradition, celebrating the end of harvest time. The carved vegetables were turned into lanterns and used to represent or ward off spirits.
Trick or treating is essentially a type of shakedown with diguises, a shakedown being where a criminal threatens to harm you or your property if you don't give them what they want, but greatly watered down for children. There are many similar traditions through out history, although not necessarily performed during all hallows tide. Trick or treating itself seems to have first started in Canada about a hundred years ago, and is derived one of the traditions of the British Isles and Ireland, either soulsing, mumming, or guising, soulsing being of Christian origin, the other two coming from the need of people to eat.
The reason trick or treating caught on and guising at other times of year petered off, I don't know. Possibly because dressing up to scare spirits away is part of Samhain.
Trick or treating is not really done outside the US, Canada, and the UK and Ireland, but guising at other times of year is.
*This is a day in the Christian calendar for the Christian saints, not a day that celebrates the British pop act All Saints. Don't worry, you're too young to know about them.
Catholic parts of Germany not only had All Saints Day (which used to be a church service and a quiet walk to the cemetery to place candles on our ancestors' graves), but also St. Martin's Day where kids walk in the dark with self-made colourful lanterns, singing songs at the neighbours' houses to get some sweets or fruits. And there is Carnival where people fancy dress and party in the streets (maybe like Mardi Gras in the USA). St. Martin is coming up now in late autumn, and the Carnival week is in Spring, but some hard core carnival enthusiasts insist that the season starts on 11th of November (11/11) so they can have about half a year of carnival events.
Where you don't have either tradition, Halloween fills a gap: dress like a fantasy creature, walk around at night, party on the streets, visit neighbours and exchange sweets. Except that there are no Halloween songs (unlike St. Martin's Day) and the whole celebration culture is much more unhappy and sinister compared to the positivity of carnival. Especially teenagers and grown-up people seem to celebrate horror movies and dress up like ghosts, zombies or injured people, which is not positive at all. Mexicans at least have the happy Day of the Dead (dia de los muertos).
As a humanist and former catholic, I am mostly opposed to religion, but some traditions like Carnival, St. Martin, Christmas (and probably Holi, Eid al Fitr etc.) do add positive value to people's lives and I'd rather see those happy celebrations all over the world instead of commercialized americanized pseudo-traditions spreading everywhere.
That makes sense. Christian celebrations themselves were a syncretism invented during the late roman Empire. Meaning former pagan celebrations that were not abolished but given a new meaning, like the winter solstice, Saturnalia festival, ... which morphed into Christmas.
I feel the same. It's same in India as well.
It is a night where you wear a costume, shout "Trick or Treat!", and get some candy.
Simple as that :)
talk about the traditions?
Yes?
But isn't 11/11 Remembrance day?