What's all about? Hallowe'en

Maria Kegel, Contributor, Jakarta

Grab your best ghoul-friend and head for the graveyard!

It's Hallowe'en on Oct. 31, a frightfully fun holiday when everyone celebrates what scares them most.

Ghosts, monsters, black cats, witches riding broomsticks, jack-o'-lanterns and all things considered evil are displayed everywhere for the scariest night of the year.

In North America, Hallowe'en is celebrated with trick-or- treating, playing practical jokes, watching scary movies and going to parties to play fun games.

People decorate their homes to look like haunted houses and sometimes play scary recordings of moaning and groaning ghosts and laughing witches to make the haunting seem real.

Children look forward to Hallowe'en almost as much as Christmas, mainly because of the trick-or-treating.

As soon as night falls on Oct. 31, kids of all ages excitedly put on the costume they and their parents have carefully prepared ahead of time and haunt the neighborhood in search of free handouts of candies, chewing gum, popcorn, apples and hopefully lots of chocolate bars.

A jack-o'-lantern is placed in the front window of a home offering free goodies for trick-or-treaters. This is a pumpkin that is hollowed out and then carved with a funny or scary face. When a candle is lit inside it, the face glows eerily.

In some parts of North America, fireworks round out the evening after trick-or-treaters arrive home with their booty and families gather in the front yard to light up the night sky.

Teenagers and young adults use the holiday as a good excuse for a costume party with partygoers also dressing up as every kind of popular character imaginable from classic vampires, Frankensteins, pirates, nuns and cowboys to famous people and cartoon characters. No doubt there will be many George Bushes and Osama bin Ladens running around this year.

Costume judging, pumpkin-carving contests and a famous game called "bobbing for apples" are all a part of Hallowe'en parties. Numerous apples float in a barrel of water and contestants, one by one, try grabbing an apple with their mouth. No hands allowed!

For moms and dads, Oct. 31 is simply an enjoyable time to curl up on the sofa with a scary book or watch a good horror movie together on the tube after their little ghosts and goblins have been tucked into bed.

Origin

Hallowe'en wasn't always this cheery.

Hundreds of years ago, many people believed it was a time when the dead and other demonic creatures would rise and walk the earth once more.

So, since the dead were allowed to wander about freely, people were scared that these spirits might try to possess their bodies.

People would darken their homes so they looked cold and unwelcome and then they would try and scare the spirits away by putting on frightening clothes and being noisy.

Bonfires were also lit to scare off the supernatural.

Black cats became associated with Hallowe'en because people thought that a soul could travel back into the world of the living in the body of an animal, usually a black cat.

The Irish started the trend of jack-o'-lanterns as a house decoration. They first used large white turnips, but when immigrants arrived in America, they found that pumpkins were easier to carve and pumpkins have been used ever since.

People from Ireland who moved to the U.S. in the 1800s are thought to have introduced the tradition of Hallowe'en.

Trick or treating started in Britain, when poor people would beg on Nov. 2, All Soul's Day. Later, children in the town became the beggars and would be given apples, buns and money. Housewives during the pioneer days of the American West would give children who shouted "trick or treat" candy so they wouldn't be tricked.

The name Hallowe'en means holy evening, with "hallow" as an old English term for holy and "e'en", Scottish for evening. The word "witch", meanwhile, comes from the Saxon word wica (wise one).

Parts of Hallowe'en started thousands of years ago and has influences from several cultures, such as Pomona Day, celebrated by the Romans, the festival of Samhain by the Celts and All Saint's Day and All Soul's Day by the early Christians.

One of the first Hallowe'en celebrations started with the Celts, a people who lived about two thousand years ago in Great Britain and Northern France.

On Nov. 1, they would celebrate the Celtic New Year, one of four ancient Celtic fire festivals, named Samhain, with many people parading in costumes made from the skins and heads of animals.

When Rome invaded Britain in the first century, they brought with them many festivals and customs and one of them, Pomona Day, celebrated the goddess of fruit and gardens around Nov. 1.

In 835 AD, Nov. 1 was made a holiday by the church to honor all the saints. Years later, Nov. 2 became a holiday to honor the dead and people celebrated it with big bonfires, parades and dressing up as angels, devils and saints.

Hallowe'en has evolved into the holiday we know today from a blend of these customs of old holidays and festivals.