Halloween By Turnip Light

How strange that we celebrate Halloween on the 31st of October in the southern hemisphere when we enter the sunniest time of the year, the time when crops are burgeoning. I tried to initiate a 'Halloween in Oz' celebration on May 31st for several years but running against the trend was a lost cause. American Halloween was splashed everywhere. But all praise to America and the Pennsylvanian Dutch who have kept the celebration so vibrant.

Now is a good time to look back and remember Halloween's history which began in Europe with the cyclical Celtic year and the celebration of Samhain. With the harvests over and facing an uncertain future in which a long winter could cause many deaths if food supples ran out, Samhain (pronounced sow-an) was a day of mixed emotions. Samhain roughly translated means 'summer's end' and it marked the end of the months of light. It was also symbolically the death of the lusty Green Man of the verdant summer woods, losing in battle to the ruler of winter. Last harvests were stored, cattle intended for winter food were slaughtered, bonfires lit and the skeletons of slaughtered beasts thrown upon the fires. It was a time for a last feasting.

It was also a time to remember lost ones, a time when for a single night the veil between the living and the afterworld thinned and the dead might contact their loved ones. In Ireland burial mounds were lit and food and drink were provided for those returning. In both Scotland and Ireland a candle or lantern was placed in a western window as a guide and welcome. Malevolent spirits, which were equally free to cross the boundary, were frightened away with swede turnips, variously also known also as rutabagas and mangelwurzels, hollowed out and carved into fearful faces then lit with a candle. This practice still persists at Richterwil on Lake Geneva.

 On the night when the veils thinned, there was a widespread belief that it was the best time of the year to carry out divination. Scrying and Tarot card readings became popular activities. This degenerated at many parties into games designed to predict the identity of a new lover or a future husband, often involving the fruits of the season such as chestnuts and apples. But with the first cockcrow, all festivities ceased and the dead were compelled to depart for another year.

 Samhain was overlaid in the medieval period by the three day Christian festival of All Hallows Eve (a name gradually changed to 'Halloween'), All Saint's Day, and then All Souls. All Hallows referred to the blessed dead or hallowed dead. While the saints were remembered on the first two days, the souls of all good people who had passed beyond earthly life became the focus of All Souls. Like many attempts to destroy older beliefs and festivals, the ancient ways survived. After all, they had deep meaning for those who celebrated the Celtic Samhain and lived close to the earth. In Germany Halloween was known as Walpurgisnacht, a rather ominous name much celebrated in 19th and 20th century Gothic literature.

Two herbs are particularly associated with Halloween and both are under the dominion of the European goddess Holle (Hulda), guardian of the dead and messenger between the living and the dead. Both elderberry and holly are associated with her in Europe and also in Pennsylvania. She later became caricatured as the black witch of the modern Halloween. It was also said that the Devil picked the fruits of the deadly henbane (pictured) on the night of Halloween in France while elsewhere it was said he spat on the last blackberries so that they were not fit to eat.

Winter and summer squash are native to America. Pumpkins with their bright orange colour, larger size, and easy-to-grow habits took over from the turnip for carving scary faces to be lit by flickering candles. Orange and black have long been the colours of Halloween, perhaps a reflection of the ancient Celtic bonfires in the midnight black skies. But don't mention using a pumpkin for such wasteful purposes in Provence. My Provençal friends were horrified. What, destroy a delicious and undoubtedly beautiful deep red 'Rouge d'Etampe' pumpkin! Are you mad? Waste good food! I only raised the topic once. Never again.

 In that most French of all American cities, my beloved New Orleans, all things Goth run just below the surface and it is a popular place for Halloween celebrations. But in the cemeteries where the dead are buried above ground to escape the perilously high water table, you will see the old ways enacted as families remember their loved ones, dining with the dead, lighting candles and laying beautiful wreaths of immortelles (the French word for everlasting flowers). The day is celebrated as 'Touissant', the French All Hallows.

No mention of the day of the dead is complete without the thousands of years old Mexican Dia de los Muertos which was based on very similar beliefs in some respects to the Celts and was truly a celebration of those who had died as well as of a happy expectation of the afterlife. The colonial Spanish overlaid the day with the Catholic festival of All Hallows and today the festival is a blend of the old ways and the new. As in Greece, the cheerful marigold has become the symbol of the dead. In Greece it is the orange calendula or pot marigold (itself a corruption of a medieval name 'Mary's Gold' in honour of the Virgin Mary) while in Mexico it is the deep gold or orange flowered Tagetes.  

All of which is the long way round to say that it feels strange to be celebrating Halloween on such a hot and sunny day.

Despite which, Happy Halloween!

Bye from Oz