The Perfect Gentleman Issue 8 - Halloween | Page 18

Second only to Christmas in its lavishness and
the preparations involved with a whopping
estimate of $ 6 billion spent by the Americans
on costumes and candy alone, Halloween is
viewed by many as another commercially
exploited occasion brought to the world by the
cultural magnetism of the great US of A. As
with most misconceptions, there is a grain of
truth to it, even though the roots of this fall
festivity are as old as the human desire to
reconnect with the world beyond ...or beneath
...depending on what your dead greatgrandmother got up to during her life time on
this earth...The tradition of Halloween or Oíche
Shamhna, has its roots in the Druids seasonal
harvest festival, and if the figures published by
the Washington Post in 2013 are correct there
are 34 million Americans who cast themselves
as having Irish heritage, the assumption that this
combinations of history and commercial might
have indeed, brought Halloween in its modern,
secular re-embodiment to the rest of the
western world is somewhat correct.
So whether it is Teng Chieh of China, Oban of
Japan or El dia de los Muertos of Mexico, that
still ascribe a religious sentiment to the occasion
by commemorating the souls of those who
passed through erecting shrines of pictures,
flowers, candles, food and water to please the
ghosts of the past or a more habitually
pragmatic approach of the Germans, who mark
the occasion by hiding the knifes to avoid
harming or being harmed by the Vorfahren (1) ,
or the Sweedish Alla Helgons Dag, who
incorporated their social awareness convictions
by granting the adults a shortened working day
and a day off school for the kids, Halloweens
undeniable charms of decorations, candles,
sweets, carved up Jack O’Lanterns and scores of
joyful children in costumes has even managed
to impel the French, whose love for cake,
partying and costume events surpassed their
traditional resentment of everything
’Americanized’.

1- Forefathers- German

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In the UK, Halloween is back in favour after
being abandoned following the Reformation of
Martin Luther and even though carries less
superstitious characteristics than in the old days,
when it was used as a fortune telling tool for
everything from sudden depth to marital bliss
or the lack of such, the British are happy to
welcome this two millennia old tradition in to
their yearly calendars.
The Jews, off course, as briefly mentioned
earlier, have little to do with this celebration.
Again, by keeping the long standing tradition of
aloofness, the Jews, just like the French, do not
tend to embrace imported trends and prefer to
safeguard their own customs. Neither the less,
Sukkot, the Biblical harvest festival falls on the
same period of time in October and Purim,
celebrated in the spring, which might resemble
Halloween in its child friendly atmosphere of
colourful costumes and especially baked goods,
defers much in the message.

INTERNATIONAL GENTLEMAN