What is Halloween?
Halloween is a North American children’s festival held on the night of October 31st. It is not a holiday. Halloween is like the summer time Bon Festival in Japanbecause it is a festival for the dead. Originally Halloween was a religious festival. Long ago in Europethe Celtic people believed that on Halloween Night the souls of the dead returned to wander the earth. It was a summer’s end festival and also the New Year of the Druid calendar. So it was a night for prayers and celebration to remember the dead and to guard against evil. People - especially farmers in the countryside - protected their homes, fields and animals using vegetables with carved scary faces placed near their doors and windows.
So Halloween was a Celtic religious custom. But as Christianity spread through Europe it absorbed many pagan customs. October 31st is an example of a pagan custom that was absorbed into Christianity. Even today Roman Catholic Christians call October 31st “All Saints Eve” or “All Hallows Eve,” which is where the name “Halloween” comes from. Then November 1st is called “All Souls’ Day” or “All Hallows Day” to pray for the souls of the dead and celebrate the lives of ancestors and saints. It was Irish immigrants who brought their Halloween customs to North America during the 19th century. At that time they began using large pumpkins to make “Jack-o-lanterns” to protect their homes on Halloween Night. They carved scary faces in the large vegetables, scooped out the inside and put candles inside to make the Jack-o-lantern glow spookily in the dark. Pumpkins were convenient because they are an autumn vegetable, commonly eaten in pies and soup. Slowly the custom of “Trick or Treating”developed. Young children dressed up as ghosts and monsters and walked from house-to-house in their neighborhoods asking for sweet food by shouting “Trick or Treat!” The children represented the dead - ghosts and demons - and giving them sweets was a kind of bribe to make the ghosts and monsters go away. If the children were not given sweets they threatened to do some mischief in your garden. Today Halloween is mostly for fun. Children dress up in any kind of costume they like, including Disney movie characters: pirates, clowns, fairies, princesses, aliens, animals and still the traditional ghosts and witches.
While Trick or Treating is for young children, teenagers and even adults still sometimes have Halloween costume parties of their own.
Although Halloween is known as an American holiday, it is slowly becoming popular in many other countries in the world, even Japan. Many Tokyochildren dress up in costumes and have a Costume Parade in Omotedando. ¥100 shops and department stores now sell many Halloween costumes and decorations here. In the American calendar Halloween is followed by Thanksgiving in November and finally Christmas at the end of December.
I love Halloween. I love black and orange. I love the autumn weather. Dark night time is my preferred time of the day. But I do not favor the popular attractionof Halloween with its costumes and parties. Instead, I am more attracted to the three Ds and E - Death, Decay, Darkness and Evil. That’s what Halloween is about for me.