Each year on October 31st

Halloween has traditionally been associated in America with dressing up in costume and with consuming sweets; however, the roots of the holiday lie in late autumn harvest rituals that correspond to natural, seasonal changes and that are expressed in commemorations of the dying year. During this period of transition, cultures across the world remember those who have passed on by drawing an analogy between human death and the dark, cold winter months that loom ahead.

While trick or treating in princess and hobo costumes, carving jack-o-lanterns and telling spooky ghost stories like Washington Irving’s tale The Legend of Sleepy Hollow are traditional hallmarks of the American holiday, other cultures experience their festivals of the dead in very different forms. This EDSITEment feature can be used with students as a framework for discussing the origins and history of the Halloween festival and introducing them to the Mexican festival, the Day of the Dead (el Día de Muertos), recognizing the common elements shared these festivals of the dead as well as the acknowledging the differences between them.

Here are several guiding questions you might pose to your students:

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  Why are the Halloween and el Día de Muertos festivals held at the end of the agricultural year in conjunction with the autumn harvest?
  
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  Do the Halloween traditions practiced in America today continue to carry any of their more ancient meanings or historical significance?
  
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  Why might the making and offering of special foods be an important part of festivals dedicated to the dead in America as well as Mexico ?
  

The origin of our Western holiday known as Halloween is found in the ancient Celtic festival,Samhain (pronounced SOW-in). From present-day Ireland to the United Kingdom to Bretagne (Brittany), France, the ancient Celts marked this as one of their four most important festival quarter days of the year. Samhain commenced on the eve of October 31st, and ushered in the Celtic New Year on November 1st. The Celts experienced this as a liminal (threshold) period when the normally strict boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead became mutable. On the eve of Samhain, they believed the veil between the two realms was the most transparent, allowing the spirits of those who have died to return to visit earth.

The timing of this festival coincides with an important period in the natural calendar, one to which all cultures adhered until fairly recently. It is the time of the final harvests of the year, when animals stockpile stores of food for the winter months ahead, the sun sets earlier and rises later, and the trees shed their leaves. With the end of harvesting season, the entire natural world moves into its annual dormant state of hibernation, essentially “dying” until its annual rebirth the following spring.

After the Roman conquest of much of the Celts’ lands in France and England, Samhain  was affected by the advent and subsequent spread of Christianity. The Church attempted to subsume the festival under the celebration of martyrs and saints, which was established on the ancient Celtic new year — November 1st — and recast it as All Saints Day (with the following day, November 2nd as All Soul’s Day). This festival was called All-Hallows, while the evening before was called All-hallows-eve — later becoming, by contraction, our present-day “Halloween.”

The many traditions associated with the contemporary American holiday, including dressing up in costume, holding parades, playing scary pranks and tricks on one another, bobbing for apples, and lighting bonfires are holdovers from the Celtic Samhain festival as outlined in The Fantasy and Folklore of All Hallows from the Library of Congress’s American Folklife Center. Our most popular custom of dressing up on Halloween emanates from the Celtic belief that the ghosts of the departed along with the fairy folk would be abroad roaming the fields and roads near their homes on this night. Fearful of encountering these otherworldly beings on their way to and from the celebrations, they began to wear masks and other ghostly gear in order to fool the spirits into believing they, too, were of the spirit world.

Your students may trace how this holiday has evolved in America from the 19th century into the 21st century. Take a historical look back at Halloween with the EDSITEment-reviewed website theAmerican Memory Project, which has numerous original documents, including photographs ofchildren and adults celebrating Halloween from the 1930s, to descriptions of Halloween festivities by Americans early in the 20th century, to late 19th-century magazine articles about the holiday.

Ancient Celts in Europe and contemporary Americans are by no means the only people with long histories of acknowledging the close of the harvest season by honoring ancestors, hanging ghostly décor, and donning ghoulish apparel. Students will find commonalities within the seasonal festivals of the dead from cultures celebrating Halloween Around the World and explore the origins of our practices in the History of Halloween. The tradition of leaving food on doorsteps on All-hallows-eve in many parts of Europe in the hopes that it might prevent wandering spirits and fairies from entering the house and placate them evolved into the practice of trick or treating. Such offerings of food for the spirits forms an integral part of many fall festivals of the dead around the world, such as the Day of the Dead, el Día de Muertos, in Mexico highlighted here.

 

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Mexico -- El Día de Muertos

El Día de Muertos, or the Mexican Day of the Dead Festival, shares similarities with Halloween, including some similar practices, from decorating with pictures of skeletons, to ghoulishly shaped sweets, like the famous pan de muertos (bread of the dead) or the sugar calaveras (skulls). But el Día de Muertos, which may be one of Mexico’s best-known holidays, consists also of a blending of European traditions brought by the invading Spanish conquistadores and the indigenous traditions of the peoples of Mesoamerica.

The Aztec Festival of the Dead was originally a two-month celebration during which the fall harvest was celebrated, and figures of “death” were personified as well as honored. The festival was presided over by Mictecacíhuatl, Goddess of the Dead and the Underworld, also known to the Aztecs as Mictlán. In the pre-Columbian belief system, Mictlán was not dark or macabre, but rather a peaceful realm where souls rested until the days of visiting the living, or los Días de los Muertos,arrived. Over the course of the festivities, participants place offerings for the dead in front of homemade altars, including special foods, traditional flowers, candles, photographs, and other offerings.

Pre-Hispanic cultures believed that during these days of the year the souls of the departed would return to the realm of the living, where they could visit their loved ones. With the arrival of the Spanish and Christianity, the new rulers of Mexico attempted to marshal the celebrations dedicated to the dead under the auspices of All Saints Day (November 1st), and All Souls Day (November 2nd). The dates of these two Catholic holidays are now celebrated in Mexico as los Días de los Muertos.

November 1st is a day to remember the children who died before experiencing the joys and sorrows of adulthood. Church bells toll in towns across Mexico early in the morning, to call on the souls of deceased children, or angelitos (little angels), to visit their living loved ones early in the day. In the evening of November 2nd, the more involved celebration begins, to welcome the visit of deceased adults.

The celebration includes an invitation for the dead to return to their family home for a visit. Families welcome them back by placing photographs of their deceased loved ones on altars, and may even write and dedicate poems to them. The celebration includes offerings of cempasúchil flowers, drinks and food for the deceased placed alongside their photographs and poems. Another traditional practice is the making of the bread of the dead and the sugar, colorful calaveras (skulls), decorated and labeled with names of people (living or dead). To illustrate this somewhat playful tradition students can view this video (in Spanish, accessible to English-speakers also), Las calaveras están de fiesta (Skulls Having a Party) from the EDSITEment-reviewed site, Mis Cositas, which shows the skulls or skeletons engaged in everyday life in a wide variety of professions. The ritual has special significance for those who have lost a loved one during the previous year, since the festival provides a way of coming to terms with their departure.

Extended families will often gather in cemeteries on the eve of November 2nd, el Día de los Muertos, and congregate at the gravesite of a deceased loved one to hold a commemorative feast. The family may keep a night-long vigil by eating the foods they have made in preparation for the celebration, visiting with each other, and praying for all the members of the extended family, both living and dead. Students can actually witness this celebration in honor of the dead via this highly visual video (in Spanish) from Mis Cositas, which explores in depth the preparations for this important day in Mexican culture.

The creation of the altar is an integral part of the celebration, with many of the ceremonial objects and familiar signature items of Mexican culture to many outside of the country. Altars are often decorated with flowers, whose brief life span is meant to be a reminder of the brevity of life and whose bright, earthly colors are believed to be a guide for the dead back to their loved ones. Brightly colored and intricately cut tissue paper decorates the altar, waving like multi-colored flags. Offerings of sweets, fruits, and other foods are joined by the staples of bread, salt, and water. Grooming supplies, such as a washbasin and soap, may be provided for the spirits to tidy themselves up after their long journey.

Personal possessions of deceased relatives are placed on an altar.  Finally, the well-knowncalaveras that take their place on the altar are representations of skeletons participating in the activities of the living, like cooking, dancing, or even playing in mariachi bands. This somewhat lighthearted treatment of death is characteristic of the remaining Pre-Columbian spirit of this celebration.