Boo-ty Call

The Web has all sorts of stuff about the origins of Halloween, and, as is usually the case with the Web, who knows what to believe?  Some people with Irish or Scottish connexions seem somehow to have remembered an ancient Gaelic festival (unclear if they think it was common to all Celts, including the Welsh and the Bretons and the Galicians and the ancient Gauls) called Samhain, pronounced something like Soo-wen.  And they do indeed claim it had something to do with honoring and remembering the dead.  That makes sense, because fairly early on, the Catholic Church "baptized" a traditional northern European pagan memorial of the dead which was celebrated around 11/1 by creating the Feast of All Saints on 11/1 and the Feast of All Souls on 11/2, perhaps most spectacularly celebrated in Mexico as los Dias de los Muertos, the Days of the Dead.

I like the following explanation of Samhain, though I have no way of proving it is true: During the year, which according to the Celtic calendar (?!) began on 11/1, when people die, their souls do not go at once into the underworld, but they hang about the surface of the earth.  On the last day of the year, 10/31, the Queen of the Dead rides up from the underworld on a great ghostly horse, accompanied by a vast cavalcade of the dead, and they sweep across the earth, gathering into their number all who have died in the course of the year, and just before dawn on 11/1, they at last descend all together into the underworld.

Meanwhile, since the dead naturally envy and resent the living (?!), it is dangerous to risk encountering them during their ride.  To frighten them from your house, it is prudent to carve a scary face out of a large vegetable with a hard rind, and put it in your window or on your doorstep.  If nevertheless you encounter any of them face-to-face, it is possible to appease them with an offering of something sweet to eat.

Another suggestion that a couple of bright students told me about: It is advisable to dress in a creepy costume, so you will not be recognized as one of the living.  Hmmm ... well, perhaps.  At least it is nice to know they are thinking.

Anyway, it looks like the offering of sweets is pretty fundamental.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

On the earlier subject of veggies + death = X (what?; Halloween joy?): First, it is very possible that back in the "Dark Ages," Northern Europeans were celebrating some sort of harvest feast in the Autumn, with polytheistic associations, as well as with underworld associations; and the horror of all that was what inspired those pure priests down in Rome to come with All Saints and All Souls.  Remember, "Hallowe'en" is "All Hallows' Eve," the night before the feast of All Hallows, aka All Saints.

Another famous autumnal harvest feast, which pins down the dating of the year's beginning, is Rosh HaShannah, of the ancient Israelites.  Of course, the Jews, being a very complicated and constitutionally self-questioning people, also celebrate a sort of New Year soon after the Spring equinox, at Passover.

Secondly, the connexion of agriculture, i.e. harvesting the fruits of the earth, with death and the dead, is common to a number of cultures.  Cf. the very ancient Greek myth of the Rape of Persephone by Hades, king of the underworld, and the search for her by her mother Demeter, goddess of all growing things, as told in that archaic masterpiece, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter.  A favorite among feminists, by the way.  The Roman god who was later associated with the Greek Hades is Pluto; but his name is in fact Greek in origin, derived from the Greek name for the secondary underworld divinity Ploutos.  But "ploutos" means "wealth."  So here we see the connexion: farmers put their "wealth," their reserved seeds, into the earth at planting time -- a sort of sacrifice, because they can now no longer eat those seeds -- ; but the bodies of the dead are also planted in the earth.

So if Umbra and her disciples wish to distribute seeds to trick-or-treaters, regardless of whether the Celts actually thought through the matter this far, good for them!, they will surely be remembered favorably by Persephone.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

Since then we've given out gently used children's magazines, and the tons of stickers that are sent out by every organization that ever heard of the word sticker - small toys that are in perfect - a la unused condition - work well, and I keep my eyes open in doller shops etc throughout the year for inexpensive goodies - we have been candy free for years! I make sure I have decorated pencils and other treats for the older kids for whom a coloring book would be an invitation to trick us in return.

We only get 20 or 30 trick-or-treaters so my years worth of saving lends to generous handfuls in the trick or treat bag.

made from recycled newspaper.. with all kinds of neat scents.