The dead are honoured and feasted, not as the dead, but as the living spirits of loved ones and of guardians who hold the root-wisdom of the tribe. With the coming of Christianity, this festival was turned into Hallowe’en (31 October), All Hallows [All Saints Day] (1 November), and All Souls Day (2 November).
“ TRICK OR TREAT ”
Familiar sight in Dublin city on and about October 31 is that
of small groups of children, arrayed in grotesque garments and with faces masked
or painted, accosting the passers-by or knocking on house doors with the
request: “Help the Hallow E’en party! Any apples or nuts?” in the expectation of
being given small presents; this, incidentally, is all the more remarkable as it
is the only folk custom of the kind which has survived in the
metropolis.
Before and after the arrival of Christianity, early November was when people in Western and Northern Europe finished the last of their harvesting, butchered their excess stock (so the surviving animals would have enough food to make it through the winter), and held great feasts. They invited their ancestors to join them, decorated family graves, and told ghost stories — all of which may strike some monotheists today as spiritually erroneous, but which hardly seems “evil” — and many modern polytheists do much the same (though few of us have herds to thin). So where does “trick or treating” come in?.
Halloween is a time that reconfirms the social bond of a neighborhood (particularly the bond between strangers of different generations) by a ritual act of trade. Children go to lengths to dress up and overcome their fear of strangers in exchange for candy. And adults buy the candy and overcome their distrust of strange children in exchange for the pleasure of seeing their wild outfits and vicariously reliving their own adventures as children.
In other words, the true value and importance of Halloween comes
not from parading in costumes in front of close friends and family, but from
this interchange with strangers,