To me, Halloween will always remain a day to revisit some of my favorite horror and slasher movies or to dip to Bramstoker’s Dracula, or Lovecraft’s dark stories. Nothing else. Buried in layers of myth, the origins of this curious day of celebration of ghosts masks, and costumes is more a pagan ritual, than a Christian one. The Christians ( Catholics, I mean) decided to dedicate Halloween to the celebration of their departed saints. “Hallow” comes from the world “Holy” and “een” indicates the evening before. Therefore Halloween is the act of paying our gratitude to all the good souls and the saints, before all the Saint days – a popular Christian commemoration established by Pope Gregory around the 8th century AD. But legends of its origin go further back in history when Christianity was not yet an established religion, and faith was rooted in nature worship and its cyclic rhythms. The Celtics ( The original inhibitors of the landmass of Britain) believed that this was the time of year when the veil between the human world and the netherworld was thin, and evil spirits, who in their bodily form, did not do well during their tenure on earth, have the opportunity to make their way back to our side. Therefore, It was a day to be cautious and on the guard for any dangerous intrusions from those departed souls, we don’t really miss at all. The ritual of wearing terrifying costumes is to fool such evil spirits into believing that we were one among them. Not a bad idea at all, if one wants to avoid confrontation.
The lighted pumpkin is perhaps the most visible symbol of Halloween. The legend behind the presence of this curious artifact during Halloween began as an Irish tradition about a drunkard who arrested the devil in the bark of a tree and nailed a Cross to prevent his escape. The cunning devil entered into an agreement with Jack ‘O Lantern ( the drunkard in our story) to never claim his soul. Jack was overwhelmed by the gracious offer, released the devil, and began to live of life of frolic and disobedience. Upon Jack’s death, he was denied entry into heaven, and Satan also kept his word for a change but showed his displeasure by throwing a piece of burning coal on Jack. Jack’s spirit dodged it, collected the blazing coal, placed it within a turnip for use as a lantern. Legend has it that Jack still wanders with a lighted lantern searching for a final resting place. Over time, the turnip transmogrified into carved pumpkins. Not surprising at all. It is rather difficult to imagine stuffing a piece of smoldering coal into a turnip. Pumpkins are handier for that sort of thing. And pumpkins are much more stable, fat, oddly good looking, and orangish – matching the color of the flame. There is also a sense of spookiness about a Halloween pumpkin that is difficult to describe. If you look at one closely enough, it starts resembling the face of somebody you dislike and has come to haunt you in a perversely humorous way.
Apples have also played an important role in Halloween. As an aid to divination, especially in finding the right spouse for oneself, eligible girls would mark an apple and float it in a tub of water. Boys would dip their heads in the water hoping to take a bite of the apple. It is a difficult activity if you have ever tried it, and those who are lucky are said to be cosmically ordained to pair with the girl who floated the apple. It is interesting that parallels to this ritual are found in Indian marriages where the bride and the groom search blindfolded for rings dropped in a pot of milk. To skeptics, these childish display of meaningless beliefs would seem primitive; but that is what it exactly is – a return to primitiveness, a natural state of being, a dropping of our intellectual boundaries, and giving oneself into the hands of something unfathomable – that which cannot be rationalized.
The trick-or-treat is an act of communal joy. In its modern avatar, children are paraded across the neighborhood in spooky costumes to scare the hell out of the inmates until they were rewarded. This is a toned-down version for children, who anyways love to wear masks and enjoy the official time offered by parents to play pranks. In earlier days, it was grown-up Men and women, who went about knocking at doors offering prayers in exchange for “soul cakes”. The practice of wearing costumes, dancing on the streets, letting down one’s inhibitions, is as old as human nature itself. There is an indescribable joy in hiding behind a mask and doing things that we wouldn’t dare to do otherwise. In her wonderful study of communal joy in the book “Dancing in the streets”, Barbara Ehrenreich writes “The urge to transform one’s appearance, to dance outdoors, to mock the powerful and embrace perfect strangers is not easy to suppress”. Halloween parties are essentially costume parties. We hide our daily social selves, and transform ourselves into somebody else, possibly a little wilder and carefree than we normally are. That joy of living a different persona, even if it be for a few hours, can be therapeutic. That is why Halloween parties are a big hit across the world. Man will do anything to live a different life than he is currently living. For many, losing the shackles of individuality and merging with the crowd is a joy is in itself, is cathartic. It cleanses and reenergizes the soul.
The sound of the word “Halloween” has also a ring of eerieness as it rolls out of one’s mouth. Try saying it, deliberately and slowly, a few times in a dark room, I am certain a faint shudder will course through your spine. Horror fiction writers and moviemakers love the atmosphere of darkness during Halloween to stage their frightful stories. It gives them the perfect setting and license to unleash the basest forces within man. For serial killers, paranormal activities, possessions, and resurrection from the dead – Halloween is a bright day for their work. The slashing legend of Michael Myers, the bloodthirsty doll in Child’s play, the demonic possession in Exorcist, the vengeance of Stephen king’s Carrie, the weirdness of Poltergeist, the horrid tales of werewolves – all of them, in one way or the other inspired by this dark moonless night. If you have watched enough of these movies, It would seem morally alright to kill on Halloween night. After all, with evil lurking perilously close, we are not in control of ourselves.
Wishing someone “Happy Halloween” is a misnomer. There is hardly anything happy about it if one truly believes in its legends. The fact that we don’t, and we are sure there are no invisible doors through which evil can pop in, we have transformed the day into one of comic relief. In most of the slasher movies, a joy-filled, drunken, and lascivious Halloween party suddenly turns really bloody. What was considered a bad joke minutes before becomes real? Somebody dies horribly!! But that is only in art. In real life, we can wear all the weird costumes we like to, we can sing and dance and make merry to our heart’s content, and then go home without a shred of fear. Ten centuries ago, our Celtic brothers were dead serious about Halloween, today we thank them for inventing this day to celebrate and enjoy. Myths are reinterpreted with the times we live in. Halloween is no exception.
Happy and dangerous Halloween everybody.
God bless…
yours in mortality,
Bala