Yesterday we talked about Halloween and why we don't participate in it. Many mistakenly think that the Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead Mexican Holiday) is the Mexican version of Halloween. It actually is not, but is rather a culmination of three days of traditions honoring, remembering and celebrating the dead, whose origins may surprise you.
Celtic History
Halloween and Day of the Dead are related and here's why: The ancient Celts in their pagan spirit worship believed that October 31st was the day of the year in which the barrier between the spirit world and human world was the thinnest, allowing the spirits of the dead to return to earth and wreck havoc on the humans until their return to the spirit world on their new year November 1st.
This occurrence on October 31st coincided with the festival of Samhein. A festival to celebrate the end of harvest and the beginning of winter, in which people would light bonfires and wear costumes in an attempt to scare away the roaming spirits of the dead who might be out for vengeance. It was also a common practice during the festival to set a place at the feast table for dead ancestors and invite them to the feast as a way to appease them in hopes they would not harm you. Young people were also known to go house to house in disguises during the festival asking for food and playing pranks.
Catholic History
In 609 A.D. the Catholic church introduced Hallowmas (holy days in honor of dead and martyred saints). It was originally celebrated in May, however, in 835 A.D. Pope Gregory IV changed the dates of the holy days to November 1 (All Saints Day or All Hallows Day) and November 2 (All Souls Day or the Day of the Dead), with the eve of the festival, October 31, being known as All Hallows Ee'n (Eve), which over time became known as Halloween. The Catholic church also adopted some of the pagan traditions of the Sanheim festival and, it seems, created a few of their own.
The custom of wearing costumes has been linked to Hallowmas by Prince Sorie Conteh, who wrote: “It was traditionally believed that the souls of the departed wandered the earth until All Saints' Day, and All Hallows' Eve provided one last chance for the dead to gain vengeance on their enemies before moving to the next world. In order to avoid being recognised by any soul that might be seeking such vengeance, people would don masks or costumes to disguise their identities”. Academic folklorist Kingsley Palmer, in addition to others, has suggested that the carved jack-o'-lantern, a popular symbol of Halloween, originally represented the souls of the dead. In the Hallowmas celebration, households in Austria, England, Ireland often had “candles burning in every room to guide the souls back to visit their earthly homes”. These were known as “soul lights”. (source)
North American History
Due to it's strong Puritanic history, North America did not embrace Halloween until the nineteenth century brought with it a huge surge of Irish and Scottish immigrants. It has slowly been mainstreamed into the rest of the population and is especially sacred to Wiccans and other practicers of witchcraft and the dark arts.
Mexican History
I want to preface this section by saying that the Christians (meaning non-Catholic, Bible-believing Christians) in Mexico do not celebrate the Day of the Dead. In fact, many of them even keep their children home from public schools on the days that the holiday is observed, and make a point to eat and do things that are most obviously not part of the Day of the Dead Traditions. That being said, let's look into the history of the Mexican holiday:
Halloween is celebrated in Mexico, and has been for the past 40 years. It’s gaining in popularity, and unsurprisingly is especially popular among children.
Mexican trick-or-treaters, however, do not shout “trick-or-treat,” which is difficult to pronounce in Spanish. Instead, they chant queremos Halloween (we want Halloween). In other words, the celebration has been Mexicanized a little…
It’s because Halloween falls on October 31st, just two days before Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead {that} detractors of Halloween claim that Halloween and the Day of the Dead have absolutely nothing to do with each other, and so Mexicans should prefer Day of the Dead over Halloween.
That’s the strategy of the SEP (the Mexican education department). Several decades ago Halloween parties were actually being held in Mexican public schools. The SEP banned them and began to promote the Day of the Dead, to encourage people to celebrate the Day of the Dead. – Allan Wall, 2007
The Day of the Dead, November 2, is actually a national and bank holiday in Mexico and is often presented as an ancient Aztec observance. However, some claim that the indigenous Aztec celebration of dead ancestors falls in August, not November. It would be more correct to say that the Day of the Dead is a Catholic celebration that has been personalized to the country, and often the region. Not everyone in Mexico celebrates the same way. Here are some of the things you may see or expect to happen here on Day of the Dead:
- Making, eating, placing at the grave of loved ones pan de muerto, a sugary bread, of european origin, adorned with bone looking decorations and usually eaten along with the dead one's favorite foods. May have originated from the English custom of exchanging “soul cakes” for prayers for their loved ones in purgatory.
- Making mazapán, small sweet dough treats flavored with peanut or almond, often in the shape of fruits and vegetables, to be left at the altars and graves and/or enjoyed by family members in honor of the deceased.
- In Southern Mexico, in Campeche, and the area of the Yucatán Peninsula, traditionally every family eats a meal of pibipollo on the Day of the Dead. Pibipollo is a type of giant tamale in which whole pieces of chicken are cooked in a red achiote sauce inside a dough of ground corn and beans, wrapped in banana leaves and steam-cooked in a pot. This meal finds it's origins in a Mayan ritual that took place near the end of October each year in honor of the fertility gods and the gods of nature and symbolizing the triumph of man over death. During the colonization of Mexico, the Catholic priests allowed the Mayan converts to keep their tradition, but assigned it to the All Souls Day (November 2) and “re-vamped” it somewhat to represent the resurrection of the souls after death, including the idea that between October 31 and November 2 the souls of the saints may return to earth to visit their families. (source)
- Setting a place at the table for the deceased to attend the family meal. (I have heard some go so far as to unearth the skeletons of dead loved one and bring them home to “sit” at the table with the family for a meal, though I have never witnessed this personally.)
- Placing of flowers, food, favorite items at the grave of the deceased. Hiring musicians to play the favorite music of the deceased at their graves. Remembering, talking about the good things the deceased did/said during their life.
- Making a small altar in the home in honor of the deceased. Leaving water and/or food, candy, beer, etc. and a light on at night, so the wandering soul can see to return to the home to eat and drink.
Culture and Tradition vs. Truth
History then is clear that Halloween and the Day of the Dead have been related events since medieval times. And given their pagan mixed with Catholic ritualistic traditions that teach anything but the truth of Scripture, we as redeemed children of God and imitators of Christ cannot condone or participate in the practices of Halloween or the Day of the Dead, regardless of what country we live in.
But neither can we ignore it. Our children need to know the Truth:
- That God is light and in him is no darkness at all (1 John 1:4-6)
- That God does not condone any kind of witchcraft or spirit worship (Galatians 5:19-21)
- That it is appointed unto man once to die and after that the judgement (Hebrews 9:26-28)
- That death is for eternity (Luke 16:19-31)
- That Jesus Christ paid for the their sins with his life so that anyone who believes, regardless of heritage, nationality or language, may be eternally saved (John 3:14-19)
- And they need to learn a compassion that compels them to take the Truth to those in darkness.
What will you be teaching your children this Halloween?
Sarah Case says
I see Halloween time as a celebration of fear, and all things that people secretly find terrifying. While there is a strange, loathing fascination with death, morbid thoughts and violent gore, at the same time, it’s somewhat freeing to focus in and experience that fear on purpose. Like a release of tension. It’s no surprise to me that while people feel helpless, and feel like they are loosing control of their economics, loosing control of things they hold dear, that there would be a heightened popularity of “death entertainment”. (Walking Dead) What I tell my kids is that God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and of a sound mind. He gave us life, power, and His Holy Spirit’s presence, so we don’t need to fear. We are liberated completely from this bondage. Instead, we should fear Him, and the fear of the Lord is clean. So when we see people playing with fear, we should always remind ourselves of our freedom and give thanks for it.
Also, in regard to the Day of the Dead, people are trying to communicate with dead relatives all day, which the Bible teaches is really trying to talk to demons, who have this time to deceive generation after generation of families. When people ask us why we don’t celebrate this time, we say that we have the gift of God, which is eternal life, so we celebrate life, not death, and that we don’t try to communicate with spirits.
Katie Hornor says
You make some very good points Sarah. Thanks for sharing.