It was the night before Halloween and I had just finished having chocolate mexicano y churritos. On my way to bed, mi Abuela joined me for a spooky story—a story that is quite popular within Mexican culture; a story mi Abuela grew up hearing and now is beginning to share with me.
Mama Meli, por favor una historia! ¡Por favor!
Okay. Okay. Mi mijita. Okay. Esta es la historia…
En México, hay una mujer que busca a los niños pequeños durante la noche. Camina en los barrios, llorando por sus hijos muertos. Después que su esposo la dejo, la mujer se volvió loca y ahogó a sus hijos en el río. Todos la conocen por el nombre La Llorona. Ella busca niños para ahogarlos. ¡Ella viene por ti! Jajaja, no no—es una broma mi amor. No te preocupes. Buenas noches, besitos, besitos, mi amor. She pressed her lips against my cheek, wrapped me up as if I was a burrito (as she always did) and turned off the lights. I lay there with my eyes widened, looking over the glassy water that glimmered off of the river across from our property—I could see the mist and hear the cries of La Llorona and feared I would become one of her victims that night.
In accordance with Halloween, my family and I would celebrate Día de los Muertos as well. Un día festivo que mi familia y yo celebramos todos los años haciendo tamales y pan dulce; decimos oraciones para que nuestros seres queridos nos lo devuelvan por la noche. The Day of the Dead was a festival influenced by Samhain, or what some folklorists believe came from the Roman origin in the festival of the dead-Parentalia. What once used to be an ancient Celtic festival of Samhain to welcome spirits home for the night is now a night where children dress up as ghosts, ghouls and goblins and go door-to-door saying “trick-or-treat” in exchange for a Snicker’s bar.
Spiritually, Halloween has a rather dark history. The night before their New Year—which began on November 1st—the Celts would burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the gods so local priests could predict the future of their land. Locals would attend sacrificial gatherings wrapped in the skins of animals, sometimes even wearing the head of an unlucky critter. On the night of October 31st, the Celts would celebrate Samhain, marking the end of their harvest; on this night, the dead would come to visit the living via a bridge between the mortal and immortal worlds.
Over time, a multitude of cultures started putting their own twists on Halloween, or should I say, All-Hallows’ Eve. When the Spaniards came to Mexico, All Saints Day was celebrated and later became known as my family’s favorite holiday, Día de los Muertos. Halloween made its way from Europe to New England and then to Maryland and some Southern Colonies in the form of play parties. As European and Native American views influenced one another, Halloween was a day to celebrate the harvest in singing, dancing, food and telling stories of the dead. It later gained Roman, Christian, English, and Irish influence over the many years.
The candy-full night even became a time where single women would try to find true love. Women would throw apple peels behind them in hopes the skins would spell out their future husband’s initials, bob for apples to see which woman would be the first to marry, and stand in unlit rooms holding a candle up to the mirror to hopefully catch a glimpse of their soulmate.
In the late 1800s, Halloween became more about coming together as a community and having fun rather than celebrating the dead, practicing witchcraft and summoning ghosts (unfortunately). Now, we celebrate Halloween by supporting mass candy corporations, buying costumes that barely cover our torsos, creating a life supply of candy for our children, and by getting drunk. I remember Halloween being the best time of year next to Christmas; carving pumpkins, giving myself nightmares by watching The Ring, and counting all of the candy I had accumulated by the end of the night. Even as a young girl, I remember the main event of Halloween was going trick-or-treating, not engaging in stories of our ancestors. It was a time of year to be scared—but not too scared.
The concept of trick-or-treating was initially created in the late 1930s. Halloween night was a night where kids would tip over cows, play pranks on their elderly neighbors, and cause raucous throughout their areas. To make the tricks stop, neighbors would bribe them with treats in hopes the naughtiness would stop. People would even give out fruit and put razors inside of them as pranks or even poisoned candy! With much influence from the Celts, Americans absorbed the idea of dressing in animal skins and transformed it into dressing up in playful costumes. This later became less destructive and was known as trick-or-treating, where kids would dress up and go door-to-door gathering mouthfuls of chocolate and sugary goodness.
For Americans, Halloween was a time of year to create profit. In the 1950s, Halloween became consumer-based and pushed the purchasing of halloween candy and masks. Promoters wanted to shift the gothic view on Halloween and turn it into a day of civil order by completely erasing the day of pagan traditions. After World War II, consumption-thirsty Americans became clever with linking charity to trick-or-treating. They used the poor and children in need as advertisements for purchasing candy and costumes. The purchasing of candy became much more popular because instead of throwing money away on candy for personal fun, you would be helping the poor. Going to Hollywood, entrepreneurs began to appropriate these traditional rituals, cultures and beliefs to make bank on the spookiest night of the year. The Celtic festival has been overly abused in the box office; horror movies continue to use these traditions and turn them into scary cult films and relating these historic stories to the fictitious serial killer Michael Meyers. SAMHAIN was smeared all over the walls of the school in Halloween 2. This erased everything that the festival of Samhain celebrated—erasing not only their history but ultimately our own.
America seems to change history over the years to seem prettier or to accommodate their own gain. But, the best part of Halloween to me IS the history. It makes it all the more creepy. It makes me believe in the unbelievable and that these ancient rituals actually were alive. We feel the need to make every Brother’s Grimm story into a Disney fairytale. We cover these rituals up with spirit Halloween and KitKat ads. All of this to profit off of the historic traditions of our ancestors. We can’t accept the historic holiday and celebrate it for what it truly meant—reuniting the living with loved ones for one night. I do acknowledge that we may not actually be able to see the dead (or not everyone is able to) but we could still celebrate the idea of All-Hallows’ Eve. However, being someone who believes in the unbelievable, I can’t help but to imagine if we were able to see our grandparents for a night once a year; if the worlds of the living and the dead collided for just one night a year, and how incredible that would be.
Although not every American decides to celebrate Halloween honoring past traditions, I try my best to. On October 31st, every year I remember the traditions from cultures before by reading the legends, the ghost stories and am honored if someone from centuries before decides to drop by. However, I do also contribute to the Halloween cliches: carving pumpkins, watching horror movies, dressing up and passing out candy. I don’t think it’s necessarily bad to celebrate Halloween as we have been celebrating it for the past few decades. I believe it’s bad to rewrite the holiday to our standards and forget that Halloween was a night to celebrate the dead, to honor them and to see them.
There is a lot to uncover with the origins of this Holiday and why Americans decided to change the true meaning of All-Hallows’ Eve… Was it that we didn’t believe in the unbelievable? Or is it that we didn’t want to believe in the unbelievable? Most likely, the American culture wanted to erase all stories of the dark holiday and turn it green. But, whatever the true case may be, Halloween is much more than what we have made it out to be—it is much darker.
Sources:
Kawash, Samira. “Gangsters, Pranksters, and the Invention of Trick-or-Treating, 1930–1960.” American Journal of Play, vol. 4, no. 2. The Strong, 2011.
Rogers, Nicholas. Halloween: from Pagan Ritual to Party Night. Oxford University Press, 2003.
Picard, Caroline. “The Fascinating History of Halloween And How the Fall Holiday Originated.” Good Housekeeping, Good Housekeeping, 6 Oct. 2020, www.goodhousekeeping.com/holidays/halloween-ideas/g4607/history-of-halloween/
History.com Editors. “Halloween 2020.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 18 Nov. 2009, www.history.com/topics/halloween/history-of-halloween
Radford, Benjamin. “History of Halloween.” LiveScience, Purch, 25 Oct. 2019, www.livescience.com/40596-history-of-halloween.html