Happy Halloween! or, Samhain! or, El Dia de los Muertos!

One of the books we bought recently at Piragis Northwoods Company is Creating Minnesota by Anette Atkins. (We love the fact that Piragis' entire second floor is a book store.) Officially it's being read by the Better Half. Unofficially, we snuck a long peek at the book today. Serendipity strikes again. The new prologue makes a point about how much Minnesota is changing, including our ethnic composition. That sort of aligns with an interest we develop about this time each year, the similarities, if any, between Native Americans and the Celts in end of harvest time traditions.

ghosts? goblins? haunts?

Photo by J. Harrington

Halloween has sort of antecedents in Samhain in Ireland and El Dia de los Muertos, but, as written in Indian Country Today:

"Halloween was born of fear, and the customs around it involved placating the spirits of the dead for the safety of the living.

The indigenous American tradition was born of celebration, a reunion with those who have walked on, and recognition of death as part of a natural cycle, nothing to be feared.  The tradition is much older than the Aztec Empire, which is where the Spanish found it.

Day of the Dead celebrations are moving up from the Mexican border, like tacos, conjunto music, tequila. Culture seldom observes lines on a map, but meanings are often diluted."

Given a choice, we prefer celebration to placation. We also strongly support recognition of death as part of a natural cycle, although we confess to an abysmal amount of ignorance about what comes next. In our youth, we went to more than a few Irish wakes and remember well phrases such as "He's better off this way!" or "She was too good for this world." We think our favorite, as we got a little older, was, and still may be, “May you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you’re dead.”

fear whitetailed gray ghosts with strong teeth

Photo by J. Harrington

In all the 20+ years we've lived on our rural, gravel road, we don't recall getting visited by trick-or-treaters once,not county the times local whitetail ghosts have come and eaten our Jack-O-Lanterns. Perhaps this year will be different. Perhaps not. The pumpkins remain uncarved this year, but still vulnerable to being nibbled on. If we get visitors, we'll share some of our iced buttercookies decorated as ghosts and pumpkins. We're guessing we won't have to share.

                     All Hallows

By Louise Glück

Even now this landscape is assembling.

The hills darken. The oxen

sleep in their blue yoke,

the fields having been

picked clean, the sheaves

bound evenly and piled at the roadside

among cinquefoil, as the toothed moon rises:

This is the barrenness

of harvest or pestilence.

And the wife leaning out the window

with her hand extended, as in payment,

and the seeds

distinct, gold, calling

Come here

Come here, little one

And the soul creeps out of the tree.

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