Culture Compass Take-Away: What are they celebrating? No. 1 - Halloween (31st October)
- In European culture Halloween was traditionally the night before All Souls Day (1st November) when Christians remembered and prayed for their deceased ancestors. On the night before this day, families would gather at churchyards with candles to show respect to, and remember the dead. In England, All Souls Day was also known as All Hallows Day, so the night before was “Hallow E’en” (from ‘evening’).
- Like most Christian festivals, Halloween was scheduled for a similar time of year as earlier Pagan festivals where people remembered the dead and also prepared for the onset of winter which itself could be seen as a journey from the “season of the living” (spring/summer) to that of the dead (autumn/winter). In England, celebration of Halloween was forbidden as superstitious during the Reformation of the 16th and 17th Centuries
- The celebration rose again in popularity in the United States under the influence of Irish and other immigrants for whom Halloween had been a significant part of the expression of their identity. By the mid-20th century it had transformed into an entirely secular celebration of the onset of winter / darker evenings and had taken the place of earlier European festivals on which a day was set aside for traditional societal roles to be subverted, for example women taking on traditional male roles, children playing out adult roles etc.
- Under the influence of mass media, especially film, Halloween has cemented its place in the popular culture of the United States and, as with many aspects of American culture, has gone on to influence other parts of the world. In the UK this has meant that in the past twenty years or so Halloween has come to challenge the traditional place of “Bonfire Night” as the celebration of transition to winter - more on that next week!