This
time Matt talked to us about Halloween. He said it's a mixture of
Celtic practices, Catholic and Roman religious rituals and European
folk traditions. The Halloween festival American people celebrate
nowadays is influenced by a Celtic festival called Samhian (saw-en)
where they honor those who have passed away. Celtic peole believed
that on October 31st
the dead would come back to life and so they lighted bonfires to
scare evil ghosts.
Another
important influence is an ancient medieval religious practice called
“All Souls Day” celebrated on November 2nd, where they
begged for food in exchange for praying for lost souls. Now it's
called Memorial Day and it's a different celebration from Halloween.
In
Ohio, Lowa and Massachusetts it's called “beggars night” but even
so, there are a few traditions and games that are common to all
Americans:
Pumpkin
carrying: They make jack-o-larnterns. That is, to carve pumpkins into
scary faces or shapes. This practice comes from and old tradition
called souling, where they carved a lamp put of a turnip as means of
remembering the lost souls in purgatory.
Trick-or-treating:
This one goes about children from 5 to 16 wearing funny or scary
disguises that go from house to house begging for sweets asking
“trick or treat”. It comes from the Celtic traditiond of Guiing
where people wearing costumes went door-to-door asking for food or
money.
They
also play a game called “Bobbing for apples”, which can be played
in water (where a man, with his hands tied up behind him, has to bite
an apple floating in water) or directly hanging the apple with a
string and the person trying to bite it without using his hands.
Adults
go to Halloween Costume Carnivals (or parties) because they want to
disguise too. They also go to Halloween Mazes, where people with
chainsaws jump out at you (and you can smell gasoline and hear the
sound like it's real). In the town of Lond Beach there's a ship
called Queen Mary that people think there are ghosts on so in
Halloween it's turned into a Halloween Maze.
Matt
usually goes to the Universal Studios Horror Night Attraction Park
and watches terror movies and special Halloween episodes on TV. He
really loves sweets too, like candy, chocolate, dirty worms, candy
apples or pumpkin pie.
Sara
Álvarez López
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