How Different Cultures Celebrate Halloween

10/27/21

By:  Cora Jones

Have you ever wondered how different cultures celebrate Halloween? How they celebrate their traditions, and the origin of wear it came from?

   America celebrates Halloween by dressing up in costumes, carving pumpkins to make jack-o’-lanterns, and children go house to house, getting candy by saying “Trick or Treat”.

In Mexico, Spain, Latin America, Portugal, Itay, Ireland, and most of the Latin Catholics and other religons “All Souls’ Day”and “All Saints Day”. All Saints Day takes place on November 1st right before All Souls Day, and is celebrated to honor all saints of the church deemed to have attained heaven. All Souls Day takes place on November 2, and is celebrated for 3 days and begins on October 31. It is a day of remembrance for the souls of those who have died and honor them. It is also believed that the souls return to their earthly homes on Halloween. 

Even though they celebrate these holidays, Mexican, Spanish, and Latin American children will still modernly celebrate Halloween by going trick-or-treating or having costume parties. 

While in Portugal  trick-or-treating usually isn’t a tradition for the children, kids in Portugal take part in a tradition called “Pão-por-Deus,” or “bread of God” on All Saints Day. So on November 1st Kids will go door to door without costumes and when their neighbors answer the children will say “Pão-por-Deus,“ to get bread, trinkets, or candy. 

In Italy Halloween also isn't a recognized holiday. It is increasing in popularity every year by young children in Ireland. Modernly they will also wear costumes, have costume parties, trick-or-treat, carve pumpkins, and party, much like America however.

In Ireland, (where Halloween originated), on All Souls Day the Irish would go to bed early, but before they did they would visit the graves of their loved ones and would clean their grave and say their prayers for All Saints day that was the day after.  

Though they do celebrate Halloween, children get dressed up in costumes and go trick-or-treating in their neighborhoods. After trick-or-treating most people go out to parties and spend time with neighbors. At parties they play many games such as “snap-apple”, a game in which an apple on a string is tied to a doorframe or tree in which players attempt to bite the hanging apple. They also play many other games besides snap-apple and sometimes arrange treasure hunts for children.

Although this is how they celebrate their different traditions modernly, the origins of most of them originated from the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. The Celts who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France celebrated their new year on November 1st and celebrated the Celtic spiritual tradition when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth causing trouble and damaging crops. This belief caused the tradition of lighting bonfires and wearing costumes to ward off the ghosts. 

In the 8th century, Pope Gregory III designated November 1st as a time to honor the saints. Soon, All Saints Day incorporated some of the traditions of Samhain. Halloween came to America in the 1840s when Irish people would immigrate here, but they would also bring their  traditions.  Over time their traditions evolved into the American celebration of Halloween, which then evolved into the modern time celebration of Halloween, which is just day activities like, trick-or-treating,  parties, watching scary movies, and other activities.