HALLOWEEN FEAST: TRICKING OR TREATING OUR HALLOWED GROUNDS?

Nobody writes Halloween stories these days. For the good reason that there is nothing particularly hallowed in our lives.
Mikhail Zoshchenko.

The history of modern culture is one that has the unholy mix of religion and secularism; the sacred and the profane. Many annual holidays have their antecedents from profane customs and in other to supplant them; religious customs or rituals and rites were introduced to dwarf the effects of such practices. This was precisely the origin of Christmas for instance which was originally a pagan celebration of the winter solstice to the Roman honoured Saturn, the ancient god of agriculture, in a festival called Saturnalia. This was often associated with boisterous entertainment and rancorous revelry. This was celebrated around December 17th but the Christian introduction of Christmas had to check the pervading moral lousiness that was more associated with it. The same is the background of the public feast of the Halloween. The Halloween feast too has had a Christian deposition in the celebration of All Saints day. This annual feast has its influence on some modern beliefs and practices even on our African people and practices too. The question now is, like the customary Halloween jingle: has the celebration tricked or treated us?

The Halloween holidays which is observed on October 31st in most parts of North America and Southern Europe is one that has its origin in the festival of Samhain; one of the important and sinister celebrations of the Celtic year. The Samhain festival was celebrated in November 1, which commonly marked the end of summer. It was believed at this celebration, the world of the gods was to be made visible to mankind and then the spirits visited humans and the gods played tricks on those whom they visit. Sacrifices were often offered at this period because they were thought to be propitious and vital. The Samhain heralded the Halloween festival.

As it was believed at the Samhain festival, at Halloween, the souls who have died was believed to visit their homes and they play petty tricks on their family members and so members of the family wore masks to prevent the evil spirits from recognizing them and tricking them. This was the foundation for the Halloween practices of wearing masks especially the Jack-O’-Lanterns; a weird and bizarre face, was a traditional costume. The celebration of the Halloween was fraught with folktales, both in its origin and practices. The feast thus, prominently was a feast to celebrate the dead. The wearing of Jack O’Lantern was against a belief that Jack O’Lantern was a certain deceased man who was barred from heaven and earth and thus made to wander the earth with lantern and thus did play tricks on people. Again, other mask were worn but took on representation of witches, ghosts and somewhat monstrous beings.

Another common custom of the Halloween festival is the trick-or-treat practice. This tradition was a borrowing from the original belief of ghosts’ visits but now with a modern overtone. The trick and treat tradition is one where children go from home-to-home to seek for a treat with masks on, now usually the satirical mask of popular figures, actors, celebrities and so on and asking for a treat, especially offer of candies or they play a prank. So, they come in with the mantra: trick or treat which meant give me a treat or I play you a trick.

Today Halloween feast has experienced a lot of reforms but have since served as basis for many common social practices. Since Halloween was a religious practice in Druidism, the religion of the Celts which began from 2nd century BC to sometime around Second century AD. Until this time, this practice thrived but was really swallowed up with Pope Boniface IV in 7th century AD that supplanted this practice bringing the Christian feast of All Saints from May 13th to November 1st and bringing the feast of All Souls to 2nd of November to retain the celebrations of the dead associated with it and for allowing the Christian understanding of the dead to gulp the fetishism and myth of Halloween practices.

Even though Halloween has been transposed by a Christian feast and shaped thoroughly by modern cultures, its effects have remained almost indelible in western understanding of witchcraft, belief in supernatural forces, pageantries, some games like bobbling of apples in inter-house sports, festival visits, etc. These cultures have equally have their own share of effects of effects on the African understanding of some of these concepts and some of these influences have not been positive.

In modern western understanding, the concept of witchcraft came from the understanding a witch moved with a broom and a black cat is symbolic of witchcraft or a bad omen. This belief has had a way of tricking our hallowed African understanding of witchcraft too as one who has the ability to inflict ill on her victim or target. It has also made black a repugnant color and worse still, a black cat irrespective of the genetic component to be a bad omen. Similarly, Halloween spiraled the understanding of spiritual forces because of the belief associated with the deceased.

The celebration of Halloween which is still a practice in Britain, some parts of Europe and America, is one that has been modernized. Since children who go treat-or-tricking were sometimes given poisoned candies, children seldom then went outing. Instead, there is the contest who wears the most psychedelic and sometimes best clothes or mask. This probably has given room for modern pageantry and the like. More so, part of what was game of sack race, who ate fastest a bobbling apple were revivals from Halloween feasts.

Halloween has since remained a public holiday in America and some other countries but has lost its original emphasis. However, the effects of Halloween in modern cultures are ones that when not pruned would leave one with a distorted image of the relationship between the spiritual and the physical, between the living and the dead. Halloween as a religious concept may have influenced Christian understanding of the dead. The dead in Africa are dreaded with an unbridled fear, one not of respect alone but of fear of the unknown. This feast has equally influenced praying to the dead who have lived good lives. These are those that are believed not to trick us but treat us. The same is the basis of the cult of ancestor and ancestor worship, reincarnation and the like.

While the Christian supplant of the feast of All Saints and All souls have helped the African understanding of the dead and our obligation to them and the reverence that should be due to them, it has equally helped us to understand that life is in one continuum. Thus, at death, a person could best be understood as having transited and not annihilated (Cf. Wis 3:5). However, the irreligious part of the celebration which comes with wild, flamboyant celebrations bereft of depth meaning has continually desecrated our hallowed nature as people whose hope is beyond this world. Secular Halloween continues to inadvertently promote the make-belief that life after life is vain, but the Christian feasts of All Saints and All Souls seek to redirect our minds to our original goal and essence of living. While the world by secularism and feasts like Halloween tells us nothing is hallow in our lives, All Saints and All Souls hijacks us from this syllabus of errors. There is something still hallow in you. Modern Halloween: is it to still trick or treat you?