What comes to your mind when you think of Halloween? I would guess pumpkins, costumes, monsters, autumn… but where do these thoughts come from?
The holiday stereotype definitely doesn’t come from Brazil: the country where the flowers are blooming in order that the leaves are falling and the view is full of orange and brown. If you ever played “trick or treat”, covered yourself in fake blood or stopped to watch a special spooky episode of your favorite series during this time of year, come check how this culture became so popular.
THE HOLIDAY’S ORIGIN
The popular name “Halloween” itself already tells part of its history. The holliday is celebrated on October 31st, the day before the Christian Festival “All Hallows Day”. “All Hallows Eve”, suddenly became “Allhalloween” and ended up as how we call it today.
But actually, before the Christian meaning, the celebration already existed. In Celtic religion, this day is called Samhain. It means the end of summer and the beginning of Celtic’s new year. Irish people believed that the barrier between the dead and alive people turned to be weak that time of year.
USA INFLUENCE: FROM ANCESTRY TO ‘TRICK OR TREAT’
During The Great Potato Famine, approximately 1 million Irish people emigrated to the United States. Consequently, cultures started to influence one another, resulting in the Samhain celebration in the new country. Also, an important Halloween character was born that time: Jack-o’- lantern.
Guising was a Scottish and Irish tradition where children used costumes to show a “talent”, from door to door, such as singing or reciting poems, in order to receive food on Halloween night. They believed the costumes were necessary to camouflage with the spirits, so they couldn’t identify the kids. “Trick or treat” it’s the new version of it.
In 1920, Minnesota did the first Halloween parade of history. The popularity of it started to grow in other cities of the country, such as New Orleans. Vudu and Witches‘ culture were so hard there because of the ancient African beliefs, which collaborated to the creation of famous halloween characters.
During the years, these turned to be the base of a bunch of elements that symbolizes the holiday nowadays.
HOW DID HALLOWEEN BECAME POPULAR IN BRAZIL?
Halloween had its “boom” in Brazil during the 90’s. There were a lot of factors that boosted the celebration in national territory.
Hollywood played a significant role in this dissemination. The production of horror movies and pop culture started to gain a lot of momentum at the time in the country. Added to this, English schools used to commemorate the holiday to result in an emerging cultural experience.
COUNTRY’S REACTION TO THE NEW CELEBRATION
Even though October 31 happens in the middle of spring for Brazilians, such as we see Christmas as a winter celebration, we see Halloween as an autumn one. It happens because of how advertising reacts to this.
Starbucks for example, brought back the famous drink “pumpkin spice”. Not only for Halloween celebration, but also because the flavour reminds of autumn. The brand has stores all around the world, and all of them work depending on USA tendencies, independent on which season or place it is located.
As a reaction to this imported culture, in 2003, a new law was created affirming that October 31 would be Saci’s official day. The celebration was made with the purpose of emphasising the meaning of national folklore.
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The article above was edited by Camilly Vieira.
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