In the explanation below from Wikipedia no connection is made to the celebration in Mexico, and other parts of the world, of the Day of the Dead. By reading the research in Wikipedia and the connection of Samhain to a celebration of last harvest before frost and the ancestors I'm not sure why that connection isn't made. Based on traditional peoples celebrating seasonal changes in a realistic way it would be logical this time seasonally would be celebrated globally during times before organized religions re-invented our world to support their forcefully removing the power from the people and taking it into the hands of the church and/or the state by worshipping a God(s), King or Queen. When each of us realize our connective energetic power center with spirit or universal consciousness power we will be free. Today my/our/your power is being taken again. This time in the form of and by banks and corporations. It can only be taken if each of us together gives it away.
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samhain
Gaelic folklore (Scotland and Ireland)
The Samhain celebrations have survived in several guises as a festival dedicated to the harvest and the dead. In Ireland and Scotland, theFéile na Marbh "festival of the dead" is the name of All Souls', a church festival introduced on the eve of All Saints in the 11th century.
The night of Samhain, in Irish, Oíche Samhna and Scots Gaelic, Oidhche Samhna, is one of the principal festivals of the Celtic calendar, and falls on the October 31. It represents the final harvest. In modern Ireland and Scotland, the name by which Halloween is known in theGaelic language is still Oíche/Oidhche Samhna. It is still the custom in some areas to set a place for the dead at the Samhain feast, and to tell tales of the ancestors on that night.[4][15]
Traditionally, Samhain was time to take stock of the herds and grain supplies, and decide which animals would need to be slaughtered in order for the people and livestock to survive the winter. This custom is still observed by many who farm and raise livestock [4][15] because it is when meat will keep since the freeze has come and also since summer grass is gone and free foraging is no longer possible.
Bonfires played a large part in the festivities celebrated down through the last several centuries, and up through the present day in some rural areas of the Celtic nations and the diaspora. Villagers were said to have cast the bones of the slaughtered cattle upon the flames. In the pre-Christian Gaelic world, cattle were the primary unit of currency and the center of agricultural and pastoral life. Samhain was the traditional time for slaughter, for preparing stores of meat and grain to last through the coming winter.
With the bonfire ablaze, the villagers extinguished all other fires. Each family then solemnly lit its hearth from the common flame, thus bonding the families of the village together. Often two bonfires would be built side by side, and the people would walk between the fires as a ritual of purification. Sometimes the cattle and other livestock would be driven between the fires, as well.[4][15]
The Gaelic custom of wearing costumes and masks was an attempt to copy the evil spirits or ward them off. In Scotland the dead were impersonated by young men with masked, veiled or blackened faces, dressed in white.[16][17] Candle lanterns (Gaelic: samhnag), carved from turnips, were part of the traditional festival. Large turnips were hollowed out, carved with faces, placed in windows to ward off evil spirits.[17]
Guisers — men in disguise — were prevalent in the 16th century in the Scottish countryside. Children going door to door "guising" (or "Galoshin" on the south bank of the lower Clyde) in costumes and masks, carrying turnip lanterns, offering entertainment of various sorts in return for food or coins, was traditional in the 19th century and continued well into the 20th century.[18] At the time of mass transatlantic Irish and Scottish immigration, which popularized Halloween in North America, Halloween in Ireland and Scotland had a strong tradition of guising and pranks.[19]
Divination is a common folkloric practice that has also survived in rural areas.[20] The most common uses were to determine the identity of one's future spouse, the location of one's future home, and how many children a person might have. Seasonal foods such as apples and nuts were often employed in these rituals. Apples were peeled, the peel tossed over the shoulder, and its shape examined to see if it formed the first letter of the future spouse's name.[21] Nuts were roasted on the hearth and their movements interpreted - if the nuts stayed together, so would the couple. Egg whites were dropped in a glass of water, and the shapes foretold the number of future children. Children would also chase crows and divine some of these things from how many birds appeared or the direction the birds flew.[4][15][16]
[edit]Celtic revival
A connection of the medieval feis of Samhain with pre-Christian traditions was drawn by the "notoriously unreliable" Geoffrey Keating (d. 1644), who claimed that the druids of Ireland would assemble on the night of Samhain to kindle a sacred fire. Ronald Hutton notes that while medieval Irish authors do attribute a historical pagan significance to the Beltane festival, they are silent in this respect in regard to Samhain, apparently because no tradition of pagan ritual had survived into the Christian period. Hutton supposes that Keating's account may be due to a confusion of a tradition pertaining to Beltane.[10]
Its description as "Celtic New Year" was popularised in 18th century literature.[dubious ][22] From this usage in the Romanticist Celtic Revival, Samhain is still popularly regarded as the "Celtic New Year" in the contemporary Celtic cultures, both in the Six Celtic Nations and the diaspora. For instance, the contemporary calendars produced by the Celtic League begin and end at Samhain.[23]
[edit]Related festivals
Further information: All Saints and Halloween
In parts of western Brittany, Samhain is still heralded by the baking of kornigou, cakes baked in the shape of antlers to commemorate thegod of winter[citation needed] shedding his 'cuckold' horns as he returns to his kingdom in the Otherworld. The Romans identified Samhain with their own feast of the dead, the Lemuria, which was observed in the days leading up to May 13. With Christianization, the festival in November (not the Roman festival in May) became All Hallows' Day on November 1 followed by All Souls' Day, on November 2. Over time, the night of October 31 came to be called All Hallow's Eve, and the remnants festival dedicated to the dead eventually morphed into thesecular holiday known as Halloween.
The Welsh equivalent of this holiday is called Nos Galan Gaeaf (see Calan Gaeaf). As with Samhain, this marks the beginning of the dark half of the year and it officially begins at sunset on October 31.
The Manx celebrate Hop-tu-Naa, which is a celebration of the original New Year's Eve. The term is Manx Gaelic in origin, deriving fromShogh ta’n Oie, meaning "this is the night". Traditionally, children dress as scary beings, carry turnips rather than pumpkins and sing an Anglicised version of Jinnie the Witch and may go from house to house asking for sweets or money.
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