Halloween celebrations take place in Europe, U.S.

By Ahmet Gurhan Kartal

LONDON

As autumn tightens its chilly grip on the northern hemisphere, millions of children and adults in Europe and the U.S. will celebrate Halloween on Monday night, donning scary costumes and playing traditional tricks on each other.

Despite the commercial side of this celebration -- with Hollywood timing many horror-movie releases for this weekend, for example -- the roots of this Western festival are deep, with historians and academics tracing links to ancient, pre-Christian European cultures.

The last day of October has been celebrated as Halloween, or All Hallows’ Eve for the past 12 centuries in Britain and Ireland particularly. It marks the end of the summer and the start of winter.

People dress up in special costumes ranging from traditional witches and skeletons to more modern fare, like movie characters or politicians. It is particularly a fun time for children: the U.S. custom of trick-or-treating has migrated across the Atlantic in recent years. Now, British and Irish households have to be well-stocked with sweets when gangs of small children come knocking.

It is up to the person who answers the door then either treat the children with chocolate or sweets, or get ready to receive a trick -- generally eggs or flour thrown at the door.

Ancient tradition

But what seems like a celebration originating from Christian customs -- for example, November is traditionally the month to pray for the dead in many church calendars -- was an earlier, pagan celebration in this part of the world.

This pre-Christian Celtic occasion called Samhain, or Samain, marked the end of summer for pre-industrial communities. Druids -- holy men of the dominant polytheistic religions before Christianity -- organized and led ceremonies to keep at bay evil spirits which were believed to be released to roam the earth that night.

A former academic at Turkey’s Hacettepe University, Can Abanazir, researched this tradition and wrote in 2010 that despite the “comical manner today” in which Halloween was celebrated, some ancient practices saw “human sacrifices offered to the gods”.

Abanazir argued the day was sacred for pagan locals when Christianity was brought by the Roman invasion and early Christians celebrated All Hallows’ Eve to honor their dead on Nov. 9. However, this day was moved to Nov. 1 to be combined with Samhain.

“In druidic Ireland these dates were holy so the Christians who could not destroy these beliefs re-shaped them and accepted them as Christian beliefs,” he continued.

Global occasion

Halloween itself is, of course, not part of the Christian religious calendar. Easter and Christmas sees millions spent on decorations, food and presents. But Halloween, with its scary fun factor, has been globalized over the past century.

The motto “the scarier, the better”, prompted people to spend more and more money on costumes and decorations to look like a witch or a zombie, some even paying for professional make-up.

The American National Retail Federation’s annual survey predicted that the U.S. public would spend $8.4 billion on candy and costumes this Halloween.

Halloween expenditure in the U.K. was predicted to reach about 316 million pounds [$384 million] according to retail data from Morph Suits – a British costume maker.

But every celebration has its dark side, and the run-up to Halloween this year has been marred by a craze for so-called “killer clowns” in the U.S. and Europe.

Footage has emerged of people dressing like threatening circus clowns in public -- sometime carrying weapons -- and often terrifying younger children.

The phenomenon has also led to some U.K. schools closing temporarily and costume retailers in Germany refusing to stock clown outfits.