Halloween- The play With Death
Your little girl can always raise a complicated question that how she will protect herself from the ghosts around her. Ghosts are nothing but concrete manifestations of the abstract idea that dead men never really die out completely. This is the perfect scary moment when we can have fun with ghosts and adults will open their doors with candies and try hard to guess who is under the masks. But that little girl could not sleep peacefully at night as Halloween is after all the play with death.
Ghost stories are culture specific and each one takes its birth from odd imagination. Children love to listen to those and the funny part is that these ignite their fancy and fear. It's known to all that kids often try to hide themselves from the ghosts when they listen to the most popular Japanese ghost story Yotsuya- Kaidan. Though it has its origin in the Edo period yet the story is gruesome enough to bring a shiver in your spine even today. Popular stories have been used as the basic theme for many well known theaters and even films. The strange factor is, we have a fascination for ghost stories but at the same time we are not comfortable with them. The fear induces the faith in bad omens and evil consequences. It is believed that dead men try to pull the livings in their domain and so we hear about ominous deaths, accidents or suicides. Halloween is perhaps the only phase when we dare to play with death.
Someone new in U.S. will get lots of surprises on Halloween. If the person does not know what Halloween is all about then he will keep staring at the scaring clothes of the children and will fail to understand what the pumpkins are doing at the door steps. The play with death is celebrated in a very unique fashion in Mexico on Halloween. Spanish people call it Los Dias de los Muertos. It is the day of death for them. They buy smiling candy skulls and write down the names of their friends and family members on the forehead of the same. Children even eat up the skulls made out of sugar. The play with death continues with jokes, parties, dancing, music and lot of delightful food. The town people dress up as ghouls, ghosts, skeletons and mummies and join the colorful parade. The play with death on Halloween can be best realized in this parade in which they carry an open coffin. The ritual includes the offering of food and drink to the dead people. Telling funny stories about death is the major attraction of the play with death aspect of Halloween.
People of Columbia love to get disguised on Halloween. Children get their faces painted with bright colors and adults take the experts' help to color their hair with blue, green or orange. Adults have fun in the Halloween parties. Play with death can be best observed in Santiago Sacatepequez on 2nd November. Giant kites with unique designs carry good messages for the dead people to Heaven. The kites raise the souls of dead men to Heaven and the objective is to turn down the evil spirits. The whole action takes place in the cemetery.
Halloween seems to be an event when life meets death as far as the play with death is concerned. This can be an interesting study for the psychologists to find out why people celebrate grotesque and play with death when they are afraid of bad omens and ghosts. The search is still going on and we do not have a concrete explanation for this peculiar attitude of human minds.
Sean Carter writes on holidays, Halloween and world events. He also writes on family, relationships, Christmas, religion, love and friendship. He is a writer with special interest in ecard industry and writes for 123greetings.com. He is also an active blogger at Halloween Blog
About the Author
Rating: Not yet rated