The customs of Halloween
Halloween is an observance celebrated on the night of October 31, most notably by children dressing in costumes and going door-to-door collecting candy. It is celebrated in much of the Western world, though most common in the United States, Puerto Rico, Republic of Ireland, the United Kingdom, Canada, and with increasing popularity in Australia and New Zealand. Halloween originated in Ireland as the pagan Celtic harvest festival, Samhain. Irish, Scots and other immigrants brought older versions of the tradition to North America in the 19th century. Most other Western countries have embraced Halloween as a part of American pop culture in the late 20th century.
The term Halloween, and its older spelling Hallowe'en, is shortened from All-hallow-even, as it is the evening before "All Hallows Day"(also known as "All Saints' Day"). In Ireland, the name was All Hallows Eve and this name is still used by some older people. Halloween was also sometimes called All Saints' Eve. The holiday was a day of religious festivities in various northern European pagan traditions, until it was appropriated by Christian missionaries and given a Christian interpretation. In Mexico November 1st and 2nd are celebrated as the "Dia de Los Muertos" Day of the Dead. Halloween is also called Pooky Night in some parts of Ireland, presumably named after the púca, a mischievous spirit. In Australia it is sometimes referred to as "mischief night", by locals.
Halloween is sometimes associated with the occult. Many European cultural traditions hold that Halloween is one of the liminal times of the year when the spiritual world can make contact with the physical world and when magic is most potent (e.g. Catalan mythology about witches).
Halloween is an annual celebration, but just what is it actually a celebration of? And how did this peculiar custom originate? Is it, as some claim, a kind of demon worship? Or is it just a harmless vestige of some ancient pagan ritual?
The word itself, "Halloween," actually has its origins in the Catholic Church. It comes from a contracted corruption of All Hallows Eve. November 1, "All Hollows Day" (or "All Saints Day"), is a Catholic day of observance in honor of saints. But, in the 5th century BC, in Celtic Ireland, summer officially ended on October 31. The holiday was called Samhain (sow-en), the Celtic New year.
One story says that, on that day, the disembodied spirits of all those who had died throughout the preceding year would come back in search of living bodies to possess for the next year. It was believed to be their only hope for the afterlife. The Celts believed all laws of space and time were suspended during this time, allowing the spirit world to intermingle with the living.
Naturally, the still-living did not want to be possessed. So on the night of October 31, villagers would extinguish the fires in their homes, to make them cold and undesirable. They would then dress up in all manner of ghoulish costumes and noisily paraded around the neighborhood, being as destructive as possible in order to frighten away spirits looking for bodies to possess.
Probably a better explanation of why the Celts extinguished their fires was not to discourage spirit possession, but so that all the Celtic tribes could relight their fires from a common source, the Druidic fire that was kept burning in the Middle of Ireland, at Usinach.
Some accounts tell of how the Celts would burn someone at the stake who was thought to have already been possessed, as sort of a lesson to the spirits. Other accounts of Celtic history debunk these stories as myth. The Romans adopted the Celtic practices as their own. But in the first century AD, Samhain was assimilated into celebrations of some of the other Roman traditions that took place in October, such as their day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple, which might explain the origin of our modern tradition of bobbing for apples on Halloween.
The thrust of the practices also changed over time to become more ritualized. As belief in spirit possession waned, the practice of dressing up like hobgoblins, ghosts, and witches took on a more ceremonial role. The custom of Halloween was brought to America in the 1840's by Irish immigrants fleeing their country's potato famine. At that time, the favorite pranks in New England included tipping over outhouses and unhinging fence gates.
The custom of trick-or-treating is thought to have originated not with the Irish Celts, but with a ninth-century European custom called souling. On November 2, All Souls Day, early Christians would walk from village to village begging for "soul cakes," made out of square pieces of bread with currants. The more soul cakes the beggars would receive, the more prayers they would promise to say on behalf of the dead relatives of the donors. At the time, it was believed that the dead remained in limbo for a time after death, and that prayer, even by strangers, could expedite a soul's passage to heaven.
The Jack-o-lantern custom probably comes from Irish folklore. As the tale is told, a man named Jack, who was notorious as a drunkard and trickster, tricked Satan into climbing a tree. Jack then carved an image of a cross in the tree's trunk, trapping the devil up the tree. Jack made a deal with the devil that, if he would never tempt him again, he would promise to let him down the tree.
According to the folk tale, after Jack died, he was denied entrance to Heaven because of his evil ways, but he was also denied access to Hell because he had tricked the devil. Instead, the devil gave him a single ember to light his way through the frigid darkness. The ember was placed inside a hollowed-out turnip to keep it glowing longer. The Irish used turnips as their "Jack's lanterns" originally. But when the immigrants came to America, they found that pumpkins were far more plentiful than turnips. So the Jack-O-Lantern in America was a hollowed-out pumpkin, lit with an ember.
So, although some cults may have adopted Halloween as their favorite "holiday," the day itself did not grow out of evil practices. It grew out of the rituals of Celts celebrating a new year, and out of Medieval prayer rituals of Europeans. And today, even many churches have Halloween parties or pumpkin carving events for the kids. After all, the day itself is only as evil as one cares to make it.
譯文：
萬(wàn)圣節(jié)是紀(jì)念慶祝10月31日晚，尤其是在服飾打扮兒童和挨家挨戶上門(mén)收集糖果。這是在慶祝西方世界很多，不過(guò)大多數(shù)在美國(guó)，波多黎各，愛(ài)爾蘭共和國(guó)的共同，英國(guó)，加拿大，以及增加在澳大利亞和新西蘭的知名度。萬(wàn)圣節(jié)起源于愛(ài)爾蘭作為異教徒的凱爾特人豐年祭，Samhain。愛(ài)爾蘭，蘇格蘭和其他移民帶來(lái)的傳統(tǒng)舊版本北美在19世紀(jì)。大多數(shù)其他西方國(guó)家接受，作為美國(guó)流行文化在20世紀(jì)后期的一部分萬(wàn)圣節(jié)。
萬(wàn)圣節(jié)一詞，其舊拼寫(xiě)萬(wàn)圣節(jié)，是由原來(lái)的全空洞的，甚至，因?yàn)檫@是前天晚上“萬(wàn)圣節(jié)日”(也稱為“萬(wàn)圣節(jié)”)。在愛(ài)爾蘭，這個(gè)名字是萬(wàn)圣節(jié)前夕，這個(gè)名字仍然是一些老年人使用。萬(wàn)圣節(jié)，有時(shí)也被稱為萬(wàn)圣節(jié)前夜。這個(gè)節(jié)日是一個(gè)宗教節(jié)日當(dāng)天在各個(gè)北歐異教傳統(tǒng)，直到它撥基督教傳教士和基督教給予解釋。在墨西哥11月1日和2日是著名的“直徑德洛杉磯穆�！彼劳鲋�。萬(wàn)圣節(jié)之夜也稱為Pooky大概在命名后，普愛(ài)爾蘭，一個(gè)頑皮的精神部分。在澳大利亞，有時(shí)稱為“惡作劇之夜”，由當(dāng)?shù)厝恕?/p>
萬(wàn)圣節(jié)，有時(shí)候是因?yàn)樯衩亍ＴS多歐洲的文化傳統(tǒng)認(rèn)為，萬(wàn)圣節(jié)是一年中閾限的時(shí)代精神時(shí)，其中一個(gè)世界上可以與現(xiàn)實(shí)世界接觸，當(dāng)是最強(qiáng)大的魔法(例如關(guān)于女巫加泰羅尼亞神話)。
萬(wàn)圣節(jié)是一個(gè)一年一度的慶祝活動(dòng)，但到底什么才是真正的慶�；顒�(dòng)?又是如何這一特殊習(xí)俗起源的?難道，像一些人所說(shuō)，是惡魔崇拜呢?或者它僅僅是一些古老的異教儀式無(wú)害的痕跡?
這個(gè)詞本身，“萬(wàn)圣節(jié)”，實(shí)際上是在天主教會(huì)的起源。它來(lái)自一個(gè)萬(wàn)圣節(jié)前夕承包腐敗。 11月1日，“所有空心日”(或“萬(wàn)圣節(jié)”)，是一種榮譽(yù)的紀(jì)念天主教圣徒一天。但是，在公元前5世紀(jì)，愛(ài)爾蘭的凱爾特人，10月31日正式結(jié)束夏季。這個(gè)節(jié)日被稱為Samhain(播種恩)，凱爾特新年。
一個(gè)故事說(shuō)，在這一天，所有那些誰(shuí)在整個(gè)前一年去世會(huì)來(lái)的活體搜索返回的游魂擁有下一年度。這被認(rèn)為是他們對(duì)來(lái)世的唯一希望。凱爾特人相信所有空間和時(shí)間的法律在此期間暫停，讓世界的精神與生活混為一談。 當(dāng)然，仍然生活不想被占有。所以在10月31日晚，村民們撲滅大火家園，使他們感冒，并不可取。然后，他們將打扮成各種殘忍的方式，大肆服裝居民區(qū)周圍的游行，被視為破壞盡可能以嚇跑尋找精神的機(jī)構(gòu)擁有。
可能是更好的解釋為什么凱爾特人熄滅的大火并沒(méi)有阻止神附體，但至今所有的凱爾特部落可能重新點(diǎn)燃一個(gè)共同的源頭，從他們的火災(zāi)，火災(zāi)的Druidic被關(guān)在愛(ài)爾蘭中燃燒，在Usinach。
一些帳戶告訴凱爾特人如何將燃燒在誰(shuí)被認(rèn)為已經(jīng)擁有的股份的人，作為一個(gè)教訓(xùn)排序的精神。凱爾特人歷史上的其他帳戶揭穿這些故事的神話。
羅馬人通過(guò)作為自己的凱爾特做法。但在公元一世紀(jì)，Samhain是到其他古羅馬的傳統(tǒng)，采取了一些他們?cè)?0日舉行，兌現(xiàn)波莫納一些慶祝吸收，水果和樹(shù)木羅馬女神。在波莫那象征是蘋(píng)果，這可能解釋我們對(duì)萬(wàn)圣節(jié)的蘋(píng)果漂泊的現(xiàn)代傳統(tǒng)的起源。
在還隨時(shí)間變化的做法，重點(diǎn)更加儀式。正如精神信仰藏減弱，衣像妖怪，鬼魂的實(shí)踐，和女巫儀式上的作用更加了。
萬(wàn)圣節(jié)的習(xí)俗被帶到美國(guó)在1840年的逃離自己國(guó)家的愛(ài)爾蘭馬鈴薯饑荒的移民。當(dāng)時(shí)，在新英格蘭最喜歡的惡作劇包括在外屋小費(fèi)和unhinging柵欄門(mén)。
定制的伎倆或善待被認(rèn)為具有起源與愛(ài)爾蘭凱爾特人，而是與第九世紀(jì)歐洲習(xí)慣稱為souling。 11月2日，追思節(jié)，早期基督徒，走著，村與村的“靈魂蛋糕，”乞討由與葡萄干面包片方出。月餅越靈魂會(huì)得到的乞丐，更祈禱他們承諾說(shuō)對(duì)捐助者對(duì)死者的親屬代表。當(dāng)時(shí)，有人認(rèn)為，死者留在冰封了死后的時(shí)間，而祈禱甚至陌生人，可加速靈魂的通道天堂。
該南瓜燈籠習(xí)俗可能是由來(lái)自愛(ài)爾蘭的民間傳說(shuō)。由于故事被告知，名叫Jack，誰(shuí)被認(rèn)為是酒鬼和騙子臭名昭著的一個(gè)男人，欺騙，爬樹(shù)撒旦。杰克則刻一個(gè)在樹(shù)的樹(shù)干交叉形象，捕獲魔鬼了樹(shù)。杰克在與魔鬼，如果他決不會(huì)再誘使他達(dá)成協(xié)議，他會(huì)答應(yīng)讓他失望的樹(shù)。
根據(jù)民間故事，杰克去世后，他被拒絕進(jìn)入天堂，因?yàn)樗淖飷盒袕�，但他也拒絕進(jìn)入地獄，因?yàn)樗_了魔鬼。相反，魔鬼給了他一個(gè)單一的余燼點(diǎn)燃通過(guò)寒冷黑暗的路上。在余燼放在里面一鏤空的蘿卜，以保持發(fā)光時(shí)間。 用蘿卜愛(ài)爾蘭作為他們的“杰克的燈籠”原本。但是，當(dāng)移民來(lái)到美國(guó)時(shí)，他們發(fā)現(xiàn)南瓜是遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)超過(guò)蘿卜豐富。因此，南瓜燈籠是在美國(guó)一鏤空的南瓜，用余燼點(diǎn)燃。
因此，盡管有些邪教可能采用為他們最喜愛(ài)的“節(jié)日萬(wàn)圣節(jié)，”這一天本身卻沒(méi)有增加邪惡的作法。它的前身是在慶祝新年凱爾特人儀式，并指出歐洲中世紀(jì)的祈禱儀式。今天，甚至很多教會(huì)萬(wàn)圣節(jié)南瓜雕刻政黨或?yàn)楹⒆觽兊幕顒?dòng)。畢竟，這一天本身是邪惡的，只是作為一個(gè)關(guān)心使。