tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/all-saints-day-45398/articlesAll Saints’ Day – The Conversation2022-10-27T13:43:44Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1923792022-10-27T13:43:44Z2022-10-27T13:43:44ZHow was Halloween invented? Once a Celtic pagan tradition, the holiday has evolved to let kids and adults try on new identities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490951/original/file-20221020-25-mv2tjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=82%2C0%2C5443%2C4200&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Kindergarten students in 1952 race out of school in Los Angeles, eager to celebrate Halloween.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/halloween-costumes-at-schools-31-october-1952-stephen-gough-news-photo/1048299626?phrase=halloween%20corbis&adppopup=true">Los Angeles Examiner/USC Libraries/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/curious-kids-us-74795">Curious Kids</a> is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">curiouskidsus@theconversation.com</a>.</em></p>
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<p><strong>How was Halloween invented? – Tillman, age 9, Asheville, North Carolina</strong> </p>
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<p>“It’s alive!” Dr. Frankenstein cried as his creation stirred to life. But the creature had a life of its own, eventually escaping its creator’s control. </p>
<p>Much like Frankenstein’s monster, traditions are also alive, which means they can change over time or get reinvented. Built from a hodgepodge of diverse parts, Halloween is one such tradition that has been continually reinvented since its ancient origins as <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/T/bo46408548.html">a Celtic pagan ceremony</a>. Yet beneath the superhero costumes and bags of candy still beats the heart of the original.</p>
<p>The Celts lived in what’s now Ireland as far back as 500 B.C. They celebrated New Year’s Day on Nov. 1, which they called <a href="https://www.loc.gov/folklife/halloween-santino.html">Samhain</a>. They believed that leading up to the transition to the new year, the door between the worlds of the living and the dead swung open. The souls of the recently dead, previously trapped on Earth, could now pass to the underworld. Since they thought spirits came out after dark, this supernatural activity reached its peak the night before, on Oct. 31.</p>
<p>The Celts invented rituals to protect themselves during this turbulent time. They put on costumes and disguises to fool the spirits. They lit bonfires and stuck candles inside carved turnips – the first jack-o’-lanterns – to scare away any spirits looking for mischief. If all else failed, they carried a pocketful of treats to pay off wayward spirits and send them back <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/halloween-9780195168969?cc=us&lang=en&">on their way to the underworld</a>.</p>
<p>Sound familiar?</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/halloweens-celebration-of-mingling-with-the-dead-has-roots-in-ancient-celtic-celebrations-of-samhain-191300">Although focused on the dead</a>, Samhain was ultimately <a href="https://utpress.org/title/halloween-other-festivals/">for the living</a>, who needed plenty of help of their own when transitioning to the new year. Winter was cold and dark. Food was scarce. Everyone came together for one last bash to break bread, share stories and stand tall against the dead, strengthening community ties at the time they were needed most.</p>
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<img alt="a collection of lit jack-o-lanterns" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490955/original/file-20221020-25-vqzi51.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490955/original/file-20221020-25-vqzi51.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490955/original/file-20221020-25-vqzi51.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490955/original/file-20221020-25-vqzi51.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490955/original/file-20221020-25-vqzi51.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490955/original/file-20221020-25-vqzi51.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490955/original/file-20221020-25-vqzi51.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Ghouls, goblins and glowing jack-o’-lanterns have been synonymous with Halloween for a long time.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/pumpkin-festival-news-photo/583647396?phrase=halloween%20corbis&adppopup=true">Erik Freeland/Corbis Historical via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>When Catholics arrived in Ireland around A.D. 300, they opened another door between worlds, unleashing considerable conflict. They sought to convert the Celts by changing their pagan rituals into Christian holidays. They rechristened Nov. 1 “All Saints Day,” which today remains a celebration of Catholic saints.</p>
<p>But the locals held on to their old beliefs. They believed the dead still wandered the Earth. So the living still dressed in costumes. This activity still took place the night before. It just had a new name to fit the Catholic calendar: “All Hallows Eve,” which is <a href="https://www.loc.gov/folklife/halloween-santino.html">where we got the name Halloween</a>.</p>
<p>Irish immigrants <a href="https://www.irishpost.com/heritage/how-irish-great-famine-brought-halloween-to-america-161376">brought Halloween to America in the 1800s</a> while escaping the Great Potato Famine. At first, Irish Halloween celebrations were an oddity, viewed suspiciously by other Americans. As such, Halloween wasn’t celebrated much in America at the time.</p>
<p>As the Irish integrated into American society, Halloween was reinvented again, this time as an all-American celebration. It became a holiday primarily for kids. Its religious overtones faded, with supernatural saints and sinners being replaced by generic ghosts and goblins. Carved turnips gave way to the <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/the-history-of-jack-o-lantern">pumpkins</a> now emblematic of the holiday. Though trick-or-treating resembles ancient traditions like guising, where costumed children went door to door for gifts, <a href="https://www.bakersfield.com/opinion/jack-santino-five-myths-about-halloween/article_6fe79e19-d106-52cc-a895-4a3a72d09c93.html">it’s actually an American invention</a>, created to entice kids away from rowdy holiday pranks toward more wholesome activities. </p>
<p>Halloween has become a tradition many new immigrants adopt along their journey toward American-ness and is increasingly <a href="https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-4438-0153-9">being exported around the world</a>, with locals reinventing it in new ways to adapt it to their own culture.</p>
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<img alt="postcard of a witch and black cat riding a broomstick" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490960/original/file-20221020-11-kabqww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490960/original/file-20221020-11-kabqww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490960/original/file-20221020-11-kabqww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490960/original/file-20221020-11-kabqww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490960/original/file-20221020-11-kabqww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490960/original/file-20221020-11-kabqww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490960/original/file-20221020-11-kabqww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A Halloween postcard circa 1910.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/postcard-from-circa-1910-news-photo/595267210?phrase=halloween%20corbis&adppopup=true">Trolley Dodger/Corbis Historical via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>What’s so special about Halloween is that it turns the world upside down. The dead walk the Earth. Rules are meant to be broken. And kids exercise a lot of power. They decide what costume to wear. They make demands on others by asking for candy. “Trick or treat” is their battle cry. They do things they’d never get away with any other time, but on Halloween, they get to act like adults, trying it on to see how it fits.</p>
<p>Because Halloween allows kids more independence, it’s possible to mark significant life stages through holiday firsts. First Halloween. First Halloween without a parent. First Halloween that’s no longer cool. First Halloween as a parent. </p>
<p>Growing up used to mean growing out of Halloween. But today, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2012/10/24/halloween-adults-costumes-elvira-mistress-of-the-dark/1593177/">young adults</a> seem even more committed to Halloween than kids. </p>
<p>What changed: adults or Halloween? Both. </p>
<p>Caught between childhood and adulthood, today’s young adults find Halloween a perfect match to their struggles to find themselves and make their way in the world. Their participation has reinvented Halloween again, now bigger, more elaborate and <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/halloween-prices-cost-more-expensive-pumpkin-candy-costumes-1754635">more expensive</a>. Yet in <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-has-halloween-become-so-popular-among-adults-104896">becoming an adult celebration</a>, it comes full circle to return to its roots as a holiday celebrated mainly by adults. </p>
<p>Halloween is a living tradition. You wear a costume every year, but you’d never wear the same one. You’ve changed since last year, and your costume reflects that. Halloween is no different. Each year, it’s the same celebration, but it’s also something totally new. In what ways are you already reinventing the Halloween of the future today?</p>
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<p><em>Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com</a>. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.</em></p>
<p><em>And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192379/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Linus Owens does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>From its origins as a Celtic pagan ceremony to its celebration of all things gruesome and ghoulish today, Halloween has been reinvented over the centuries.Linus Owens, Associate Professor of Sociology, MiddleburyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1183912019-10-30T18:53:26Z2019-10-30T18:53:26ZHell, no! Halloween is not ‘satanic’ – it’s an important way to think about death<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299120/original/file-20191029-183151-1fswi2p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=365%2C5%2C2856%2C1820&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wes Mountain/The Conversation</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>American televangelist Pat Robinson once claimed children who celebrate Halloween were unknowingly “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2015/10/31/pat-robertson-says-halloween-is-the-day-when-millions-of-children-celebrate-satan/">worshipping Satan</a>”.</p>
<p>Despite the absurdity that a child dressing up as a witch is devil worship, the idea that Halloween is linked to something satanic continues to have purchase among some conservative Christians. However, the traditions behind this increasingly popular holiday are far more complex. It has less to do with anything satanic and more to do with superstition and our relationship with death. </p>
<p>For approximately the past 1,200 years, Halloween has been defined, in part, by the Christian festival celebrated on November 1 each year known as All Saints’ Day or “All Hallows” in old English. “All Hallows Eve” became “Hallowe’en” – the eve of All Saints’ Day.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-hell-exactly-we-might-joke-its-other-people-but-the-bible-has-a-more-complicated-answer-113732">What is hell, exactly? We might joke it's other people, but the Bible has a more complicated answer</a>
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<p>All Saints’ Day is the day Christians remember and give thanks for those who have died, particularly those who have inspired faith. </p>
<p>In the Roman Catholic tradition, saints are a specific category: someone recognised for extraordinary faith and service, recognised through a formal canonisation process. However, in the Protestant tradition, “saints” refers more generally to all believers. So All Saints’ Day is time to remember all those who have died, often with a focus on those who have died in the previous year (Catholics, Orthodox Christians and some Anglicans celebrate this larger group on All Souls’ Day).</p>
<p>The point of these Christian festivals is to remember and honour the dead. On All Souls’ Day at the church I attend, we read aloud the names of dead loved ones submitted by attendees. The list can be long, but it can be a deeply moving experience. It is a rare time to name the dead, comfort one another in grief, and keep alive the memories of loved ones by giving thanks for their lives. And this is the connection to the much older traditions that lie behind Halloween.</p>
<p>Honouring the dead takes a range of forms around the world, as it has throughout history. Ancient Romans left gifts on the graves of their ancestors at Feralia to appease the spirits. Mexican customs associated with the Day of the Dead (<em>Dia de Los Muertos</em>) similarly include leaving gifts at graves.</p>
<p>In Australia, the more recent tradition of Anzac Day dawn services and the placement of wreaths on monuments echoes this desire to remember and honour a particular category of those who have died in service to their country.</p>
<p>The Celtic origins of Halloween, known as Samhain, also included gifts for the dead. Out of superstitious concern that the spirits or ghosts of the dead could enter the space of the living on Halloween night and perhaps even take the living with them, Celts wore costumes to disguise themselves from ghosts and burned bonfires to ward off bad spirits. Small bowls of food placed outside homes sought to appease the ghosts. This may well be the origins of the more recent trick-or-treat tradition. </p>
<p>A festival of the dead might seem a strange and ghoulish thing in a culture that is otherwise so death-denying. It stands as a sharp contrast to our modern obsession with anti-ageing, life-extending technology. Yet, despite an ambivalent history with Halloween, it is becoming <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/halloweens-rising-popularity-in-australia-is-scary-business-for-retail-chains-20161020-gs6mfk.html">more popular each year in Australia</a>. Spending on costumes, sweets and decorations has sky-rocketed in recent years.</p>
<p>While the environmental impact of these cheap plastic decorations and individually wrapped candy raises its own set of ethical issues, the relationship between the dead and the living raises a deeper set of questions. </p>
<p>How do we continue to remember the dead? How do we honour and keep alive memories of those who have gone before us? How do we talk about death with our children in a way that makes it less scary yet without denying or trivialising its seriousness? </p>
<p>Divorced from religious traditions of various kinds, we are in danger of being a culture that lacks the rituals that help us pause, remember, give thanks and take stock of both death and life. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/halloween-films-the-good-the-bad-and-the-truly-scary-67837">Halloween films: the good, the bad and the truly scary</a>
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<p>In our modern age, we are less likely to be worried about ghosts rising from graves on Halloween. Yet I can’t help but wonder whether the attraction of Halloween is that it taps into a part of our collective psyche that continues to be intrigued by questions about death, the afterlife and the spiritual realm, despite being <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-religion-and-jedi-knight-find-their-place-in-australian-identity-81392">less likely to practise formal religion</a>.</p>
<p>While very conservative Christians will view anything not explicitly Christian as anti-Christian (and therefore satanic, or “of the devil”), Halloween, like so many other cultural festivals, reflects a complex set of traditions and beliefs. Rather than doing harm, perhaps dressing up like a ghost, zombie, devil, angel or some other undead being is actually a way to celebrate life.</p>
<p>After all, remembering the dead (or dressing up like them) reminds us to be grateful for life.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118391/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robyn J. Whitaker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>While some conservative Christians view Halloween as “devil worship”, finding a way to honour the dead is an important tradition in our generally death-denying society.Robyn J. Whitaker, Senior Lecturer in New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of DivinityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/859592017-10-31T02:16:34Z2017-10-31T02:16:34ZWhat Chinese philosophers can teach us about dealing with our own grief<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192499/original/file-20171030-18704-iwed0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Confucius sculpture, Nanjing, China.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AConfucius_Sculpture%2C_Nanjing.jpg">Kevinsmithnyc, via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>November 2 is All Souls’ Day, when many Christians honor the dead. As much as we all know about the inevitability of death, we are often unable to deal with the loss of a loved one.</p>
<p>Our modern-day worldview could also make us believe that loss is something we should be <a href="https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/10/getting-grief-right/">able to quickly get over</a>, to move on with our lives. Many of us see grieving as a kind of impediment to our ability to work, live and thrive. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/understanding-asian-philosophy-9781780937700/">scholar of Chinese philosophy</a>, I spend much of my time reading, translating and interpreting early Chinese texts. It is clear that dealing with loss was a major concern for early Chinese philosophers. </p>
<p>So, what can we learn from them today?</p>
<h2>Eliminating grief</h2>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192500/original/file-20171030-18730-11h769f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192500/original/file-20171030-18730-11h769f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192500/original/file-20171030-18730-11h769f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192500/original/file-20171030-18730-11h769f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192500/original/file-20171030-18730-11h769f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192500/original/file-20171030-18730-11h769f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192500/original/file-20171030-18730-11h769f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Zhuangzi butterfly dream.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AZhuangzi-Butterfly-Dream.jpg">Ike no Taiga (Japan, 1723-1776), via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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<p>Two influential philosophers who reflected on these issues were Zhuang Zhou and Confucius. Zhuang Zhou lived in the fourth century B.C. and is traditionally credited with writing one of the most important texts of the Daoist philosophy, <a href="https://terebess.hu/english/chuangtzu.html">“Zhuangzi.”</a> Confucius, who lived more than a century before Zhuang Zhou, had his teachings compiled in a text written by later students, commonly known in the West as the <a href="http://www.indiana.edu/%7Ep374/Analects_of_Confucius_(Eno-2015).pdf">“Analects of Confucius.”</a> </p>
<p>On the face of it, these two philosophers offer very different responses to the “problem” of death. </p>
<p>Zhuang Zhou offers us a way to eliminate grief, seemingly consistent with the desire to quickly get beyond loss. In one <a href="http://ctext.org/zhuangzi/perfect-enjoyment#n2831">story</a>, Zhuang Zhou’s friend Hui Shi meets him just after Zhuang Zhou’s wife of many years has died. He finds Zhuang Zhou singing joyously and beating on a drum. Hui Shi upbraids him and says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“This person lived with you for many years, and grew old and died. To fail to shed tears is bad enough, but to also beat on drums and sing – is this not inappropriate?”</p>
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<p>Zhuang Zhou replies that when his wife first died, he was as upset as anyone would be following such a loss. But then he reflected on the circumstances of her origins – how she came to be through changes in the elements that make up the cosmos. He was able to shift his vision from seeing things from the narrowly human perspective to seeing them from the larger perspective of the world itself. He realized that her death was just another of the changes of the myriad things constantly taking place in the world. Just as the seasons progress, human life generates and decays. </p>
<p>In reflecting on life in this way, Zhuang Zhou’s grief disappeared. </p>
<h2>Why we need grief</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192501/original/file-20171030-18720-wgnffr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192501/original/file-20171030-18720-wgnffr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192501/original/file-20171030-18720-wgnffr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192501/original/file-20171030-18720-wgnffr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192501/original/file-20171030-18720-wgnffr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192501/original/file-20171030-18720-wgnffr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192501/original/file-20171030-18720-wgnffr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Analects.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ARongo_Analects_02.jpg">Confucius and his disciples, via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/168406/summary">For Confucius,</a> though, the pain of grief was a natural and necessary part of human life. It demonstrates commitment to those for whom we grieve.</p>
<p>Confucius suggests <a href="http://ctext.org/liji/tan-gong-i#n9599">a three-year</a> mourning period following the death of one’s parent. In a <a href="http://ctext.org/analects/yang-huo#n1557">passage from the Analects</a>, one of Confucius’s students, Zaiwo, asks him if it is possible to shorten this mourning period, which seems excessively long. </p>
<p>Confucius responds that a person who honestly cared about his parent would simply be unable to bring himself to mourn in any less serious way. For such a person, the usual joys of life just had no attraction for three years. If, like Zaiwo, someone considers shortening this period, it reveals for Confucius <a href="http://ctext.org/analects/yang-huo#n1557">a lack of sufficient concern</a>. Early Confucians, thus, followed this practice of a three-year mourning period.</p>
<h2>Remembering our ancestors</h2>
<p>There is more to the Confucian response to death than grief. Our encounter with others inevitably changes us. Those closest to us, <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/488827">according to the early Confucians</a>, particularly family members, play the greatest role in determining who we are. In that sense, we are representatives of particular communities than detached and autonomous individuals. </p>
<p>After all, many of our physical features and personalities originate from our ancestors. In addition, we learn many of our attitudes, preferences and characteristic ways of acting from our families, friends and neighbors – the creators of our culture. So, when we consider the question of what we are as individuals, the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/confucian-ethics/tradition-and-community-in-the-formation-of-character-and-self/CCF1EE2580B305B5C4E8D413786DA44C">answer necessarily encompasses</a> members of our closest community.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192502/original/file-20171030-18730-18v2z9s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192502/original/file-20171030-18730-18v2z9s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192502/original/file-20171030-18730-18v2z9s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192502/original/file-20171030-18730-18v2z9s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192502/original/file-20171030-18730-18v2z9s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192502/original/file-20171030-18730-18v2z9s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192502/original/file-20171030-18730-18v2z9s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Chinese funeral.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AShanghai._A_Chinese_funeral_(NYPL_Hades-2359270-4043626).jpg">Scan by NYPL, via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>According to the early Confucians, this acknowledgment suggested how to deal with the death of those close to us. To grieve was to honor your parent or another person who died and to commit to <a href="http://ctext.org/analects/li-ren#n1188">following their way of life </a>. </p>
<p>Even if their way of life involved flaws, Confucius notes that individuals were still duty-bound to follow their way while doing their best to <a href="http://ctext.org/analects/li-ren#n1186">eliminate the flaws</a>. In Analects 4.18, <a href="http://ctext.org/analects/li-ren#n1186">Confucius says</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“In serving your parents, you may lightly remonstrate [if your parents stray from the virtuous way]. But even if your parents are intent on not following your advice, you should still remain respectful and not turn away from them.” </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Developing an understanding of grief</h2>
<p>So how do the seemingly contrasting Daoist and Confucian approaches to grief apply to us today? </p>
<p>From my perspective, both views are helpful. Zhuangzi does not eliminate grief, but offers a way out of it. The Daoist response could help people find peace of mind by cultivating the ability to see the death of loved ones from a broader perspective.</p>
<p>The Confucian response could challenge assumptions that devalue grief. It offers us a way to find meaning in our grief. It reveals our communal influences, tests our commitments and focuses us on the ways in which we represent and carry on those who influenced us and came before us. </p>
<p>Ultimately, both philosophers help us understand that enduring grief is a necessary part of the process of becoming a fully thriving person. It is not something we should look to eliminate, but rather something we should appreciate or even be thankful for.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85959/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexus McLeod does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The pain of grief is part of human existence. Daoist and Confucian philosophy can help find meaning in grief.Alexus McLeod, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Asian/Asian American Studies, University of ConnecticutLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/858812017-10-30T01:53:11Z2017-10-30T01:53:11ZHow the dead danced with the living in medieval society<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192267/original/file-20171027-13327-i15iaw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Detail of figures from the Dance Macabre, Meslay-le-Grenet, from late 15th-century France. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ashby Kinch</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the <a href="https://theconversation.com/little-known-facts-about-how-halloween-came-to-be-85720">Halloween season</a>, American culture briefly participates in an ancient tradition of making the world of the dead visible to the living: Children dress as skeletons, teens go to horror movies and adults play the part of ghosts in haunted houses. </p>
<p>But what if the dead played a more active, more participatory role in our daily lives? </p>
<p>It might appear to be a strange question, but as a <a href="http://www.brill.com/imago-mortis">scholar of late medieval literature and art</a>, I have found compelling evidence from our past that shows how the dead were well-integrated into people’s sense of community. </p>
<h2>Ancient practices</h2>
<p>In the medieval period, the dead were considered simply <a href="http://www.brill.com/product/out-of-print/pursuit-holiness-late-medieval-and-renaissance-religion">another age group</a>. The blessed dead who were consecrated as saints <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100748630">became part of daily ritual life</a> and were expected to intervene to support the community. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192261/original/file-20171027-13311-ucakac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192261/original/file-20171027-13311-ucakac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192261/original/file-20171027-13311-ucakac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192261/original/file-20171027-13311-ucakac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192261/original/file-20171027-13311-ucakac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1036&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192261/original/file-20171027-13311-ucakac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1036&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192261/original/file-20171027-13311-ucakac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1036&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A funeral mass, with mourners, from a Book of Hours.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=58982">The British Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Families offered commemorative prayers to their ancestors, whose names were written in <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Time_Sanctified.html?id=iK4TAQAAIAAJ">“Books of Hours,”</a> prayer books that guided daily devotion at home. These books included a prayer cycle known as the “Office of the Dead,” which family members could perform to limit the suffering of loved ones after death. </p>
<p>Medieval culture also had its <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/G/bo3619514.html">ghosts</a>, which were closely linked with the theological debate concerning purgatory, the space between heaven and hell, where the dead suffered but could be relieved by the prayers of the living. Folk traditions of the dead visiting the living as ghosts were thus explained as <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Birth_of_Purgatory.html?id=4dzynjFfX7kC">souls pleading</a> for the prayerful devotion of the living. </p>
<h2>When, how practices changed</h2>
<p>The Reformation in Europe <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300108286/stripping-altars">radically changed</a> this cultural interface with the dead. In particular, the idea of a purgatory was rejected by Protestant theologians. </p>
<p>While ghosts persisted in folk stories and literature, the dead were pushed from the center of religious life. In England, these changes were intensified in the period after <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=eamon+duffy+stripping+of+the+altars&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8">Henry VIII broke with the Catholic Church</a> in the 1530s. Thereafter, the veneration of saints and commemorative prayers associated with purgatory were banned. </p>
<p>The dead were also removed from view in more literal ways: Reformation iconoclasts, who wished to purge churches of any association with Catholic practices, “whitewashed” hundreds of church interiors to cover the bold, colorful murals that decorated the medieval parish churches. </p>
<p>One of the more popular mural subjects that I have studied for many years was the <a href="http://www.brepols.net/Pages/ShowProduct.aspx?prod_id=IS-9782503530635-1">Dance of Death</a>: over 100 mural paintings of the theme, as well as dozens of manuscript illuminations, have been identified in England, Estonia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192291/original/file-20171027-13378-u5naw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192291/original/file-20171027-13378-u5naw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=138&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192291/original/file-20171027-13378-u5naw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=138&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192291/original/file-20171027-13378-u5naw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=138&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192291/original/file-20171027-13378-u5naw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=174&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192291/original/file-20171027-13378-u5naw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=174&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192291/original/file-20171027-13378-u5naw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=174&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bernt Notke, Danse Macabre, Tallinn, Estonia (late 15th century).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ABernt_Notke_Danse_Macabre.jpg">Bernt Notke, via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A powerful metaphor</h2>
<p>Dance of Death murals typically depicted decaying corpses dancing amid representative figures of late medieval society, ranked highest to lowest: a pope, an emperor, a bishop, a king, a cardinal, a knight and down to a beggar, all ambling diffidently toward their mortal end while the corpses frolic with lithe movements and gestures. </p>
<p>The visual alternation between dead and living created a rhythm of animation and stillness, of white and color, of life and death, evocative of fundamental human culture, <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/D/bo3617929.html">founded on this interplay between the living and the dead</a>. </p>
<p>When modern viewers see images like the Dance of Death, they <a href="http://www.dodedans.com/Epest.htm">might associate them</a> with certain well-known but frequently misunderstood cataclysms of the European Middle Ages, like the terrible plague that swept through England and came to be known as <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/middle_ages/black_01.shtml">Black Death</a>. </p>
<p>My research on these images, however, reveals a more subtle and nuanced attitude toward death, beginning with the evident beauty of the murals themselves, which <a href="http://www.brill.com/imago-mortis">endow the theme with color and vitality</a>. </p>
<p>The image of group dance powerfully evokes the grace and fluidity of a community’s cohesion, symbolized by the linking of hands and bodies in a chain that crosses the barrier between life and death. Dance was a powerful metaphor in medieval culture. The Dance of Death may be responding to medieval folk practices, when people came at night to <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=_fV8xR5n4K8C&q=55#v=snippet&q=55&f=false">dance in churchyards</a>, and perhaps to the “dancing mania” recorded in the <a href="http://history-world.org/Dancing%20In%20The%20Middle%20Ages.htm">late 14th century</a>, when people danced furiously until they fell to the ground. But images of dance also provoked a viewer to participate in a <a href="https://www.academia.edu/2105555/The_danse_macabre_and_the_medieval_community_of_death">“virtual” experience</a> of a community. It <a href="https://www.academia.edu/9523393/_Danse_macabre_and_the_Virtual_Churchyard">depicted</a> a society collectively facing up to human mortality. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192290/original/file-20171027-13311-zczjjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192290/original/file-20171027-13311-zczjjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192290/original/file-20171027-13311-zczjjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192290/original/file-20171027-13311-zczjjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192290/original/file-20171027-13311-zczjjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192290/original/file-20171027-13311-zczjjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192290/original/file-20171027-13311-zczjjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mural of the Danse Macabre from the parish church of Kermaria-en-Isquit, France (late 15th century).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/KERMARIA-AN-ISQUIT_danse_macabre_5.jpg">Fil22plm, via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A healthy community</h2>
<p>In analyzing the murals in their broader social context, I found that for medieval cultures, dying was a “transition,” not a rupture, that moved people from the community of the living to the dead in stages. </p>
<p>It was part of a larger spiritual drama that <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/4744/the-hour-of-our-death-by-philipe-aries-translated-from-the-french-by-helen-weaver/9780394751566/">encompassed the family and the broader community</a>.
During the dying process, people gathered in groups to aid in a successful transition by offering supportive prayer. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192270/original/file-20171027-13298-eac5o1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192270/original/file-20171027-13298-eac5o1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192270/original/file-20171027-13298-eac5o1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192270/original/file-20171027-13298-eac5o1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192270/original/file-20171027-13298-eac5o1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192270/original/file-20171027-13298-eac5o1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192270/original/file-20171027-13298-eac5o1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Scenes of dying, a funeral mass, sewing the shroud, burial and comfort of the widow. In the lower margin, a group of nobles confronts a symbolic figure of death, riding a unicorn.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=10968">The British Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After death, groups prepared the corpse, sewed its shroud and transported the body to a church and then to a cemetery, where the broader community would participate in the rituals. These activities required a high degree of social cohesion to function properly. They were the metaphorical equivalent of dancing with the dead. </p>
<p>The Dance of Death murals thus depicted not a morbid or sick culture but a healthy community collectively facing their common destiny, even as they faced the challenge to renew by replacing the dead with the living. </p>
<p>Many of the murals are irretrievably lost. However, modern restoration work has <a href="https://boydellandbrewer.com/medieval-wall-paintings-in-english-and-welsh-churches.html">managed to recover some of them</a>. Perhaps this conservation work can serve as inspiration to recover an older model of death, dying and grief. </p>
<h2>Acknowledging the work of the dead</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192273/original/file-20171027-13378-bwn8hm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192273/original/file-20171027-13378-bwn8hm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192273/original/file-20171027-13378-bwn8hm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192273/original/file-20171027-13378-bwn8hm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192273/original/file-20171027-13378-bwn8hm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1193&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192273/original/file-20171027-13378-bwn8hm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1193&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192273/original/file-20171027-13378-bwn8hm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1193&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Constable, bishop, squire and clerk from the Danse Macabre of the Abbey Church of La Chaise-Dieu, France.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ashby Kinch</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the modern era entire industries have emerged to whisk the dead from view and alter them to look more like the living. Once buried or cremated, the dead play a <a href="http://scalar.usc.edu/works/the-nature-of-death-in-the-united-states/contemporary-mainstream-american-deathways">much smaller role</a> in our social lives. </p>
<p>Could bringing the dead back into a central role in the community offer a healthier perspective on death for contemporary Western cultures? </p>
<p>That process might begin with acknowledging the dead as an ongoing part of our image of community, which is built on the work of the dead who have come before us.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85881/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ashby Kinch does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>For medieval cultures, the dying process and death itself was a ‘transition,’ not a rupture.Ashby Kinch, Professor of English, University of MontanaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/856572017-10-27T10:21:14Z2017-10-27T10:21:14ZLife after death: Americans are embracing new ways to leave their remains<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192140/original/file-20171026-13298-1evqmha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'Green burials' that use biodegradable coffins or lessen the environmental impact in other ways are on the rise. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Michael Hill</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>What do you want to happen to your remains after you die? </p>
<p>For the past century, most Americans have accepted a limited set of options without question. And discussions of death and funeral plans <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/05/what-good-is-thinking-about-death/394151/">have been taboo</a>.</p>
<p>That is changing. As a scholar of funeral and cemetery law, I’ve discovered that Americans are becoming more willing to have a conversation about their own mortality and what comes next and embrace new funeral and burial practices. </p>
<p>Baby boomers are insisting upon more control over their funeral and disposition so that their choices after death match their values in life. And businesses are following suit, offering new ways to memorialize and dispose of the dead.</p>
<p>While some options such as <a href="http://www.talkdeath.com/but-why-cant-i-have-a-tibetan-sky-burial/">Tibetan sky burial</a> – leaving human remains to be picked clean by vultures – and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQJOs8rm6xM">“Viking” burial via flaming boat</a> – familiar to “Game of Thrones” fans – remain off limits in the U.S., laws are changing to allow a growing variety of practices.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/reSR6jTZCc8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The funeral pyre hasn’t yet received approval for use in the U.S.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘The American Way of Death’</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192138/original/file-20171026-13311-dk00tz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192138/original/file-20171026-13311-dk00tz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192138/original/file-20171026-13311-dk00tz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192138/original/file-20171026-13311-dk00tz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192138/original/file-20171026-13311-dk00tz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192138/original/file-20171026-13311-dk00tz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=670&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192138/original/file-20171026-13311-dk00tz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=670&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192138/original/file-20171026-13311-dk00tz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=670&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Author, journalist and civil rights activist Jessica Mitford is shown during an interview at the Boston Public Garden in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1979.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Liss</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1963, English journalist and activist <a href="http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160721-how-jessica-mitford-changed-our-ideas-about-death">Jessica Mitford</a> published “<a href="https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/death/fond-farewells">The American Way of Death</a>,” in which she described the leading method of disposing of human remains in the United States, still in use today. </p>
<p>She wrote that human remains are temporarily preserved by replacing blood with a formaldehyde-based embalming fluid shortly after death, placed in a decorative wood or metal casket, displayed to family and friends at the funeral home and buried within a concrete or steel vault in a grave, perpetually dedicated and marked with a tombstone. </p>
<p>Mitford called this “absolutely weird” and argued that it had been invented by the American funeral industry, which emerged at the turn of the 20th century. As she <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1963/06/the-undertakers-racket/305318/">wrote in The Atlantic</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Foreigners are astonished to learn that almost all Americans are embalmed and publicly displayed after death. The practice is unheard of outside the United States and Canada.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Nearly all Americans who died from the 1930s, when embalming became well-established, through the 1990s were disposed of in this manner. </p>
<p>And it’s neither cheap or good for the environment. The <a href="http://www.nfda.org/news/media-center/nfda-news-releases/id/840/nfda-releases-results-of-2015-member-general-price-list-survey">median cost of a funeral and burial</a>, including a vault to enclose the casket, was US$8,508 in 2014. Including the cost of the burial plot, the fee for opening and closing the grave and the tombstone easily brings the total cost to $11,000 or more. </p>
<p>This method also consumes a great deal of natural resources. Each year, <a href="http://www.talkdeath.com/environmental-impact-funerals-infographic/">we bury</a> 800,000 gallons of formaldehyde-based embalming fluid, 115 million tons of steel, 2.3 billion tons of concrete and enough wood to build 4.6 million single-family homes.</p>
<p>Mitford’s book <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1996/07/24/arts/jessica-mitford-incisive-critic-american-ways-britishupbringing-dies-78.html">influenced generations of Americans</a>, beginning with the baby boomers, to question this type of funeral and burial. As a result, demand for alternatives such as home funerals and green burials have increased significantly. The most common reasons cited are a desire to connect with and honor their loved ones in a more meaningful way, and interest in lower-cost, less environmentally damaging choices.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192137/original/file-20171026-13331-1oyles2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192137/original/file-20171026-13331-1oyles2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192137/original/file-20171026-13331-1oyles2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192137/original/file-20171026-13331-1oyles2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192137/original/file-20171026-13331-1oyles2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192137/original/file-20171026-13331-1oyles2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192137/original/file-20171026-13331-1oyles2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Traditional funerals are becoming less common as more Americans look for cheaper, greener options.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alzbeta/Shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The rise of cremation</h2>
<p>The most radical change to how Americans handle their remains has been the rising popularity of cremation by fire. Cremation is less expensive than burial and, although it consumes fossil fuels, is widely perceived to be better for the environment than burial in a casket and vault. </p>
<p>Although cremation became legal in a handful of states in the 1870s and 1880s, its usage in the U.S. remained in single digits for another century. After steadily rising since the 1980s, cremation was the disposition method of choice for <a href="https://www.deathcarestudies.com/2017/09/cremation-rate-update/">nearly half</a> of all deaths in the U.S. in 2015. Cremation is most popular in urban areas, where the cost of burial can be quite high, in states with a lot of people born in other ones and among those who do not identify with a particular religious faith. </p>
<p>Residents of western states like Nevada, Washington and Oregon opt for cremation the most, with rates as high as 76 percent. Mississippi, Alabama and Kentucky have the lowest rates, at less than a quarter of all burials. The National Funeral Directors Association <a href="https://www.deathcarestudies.com/2017/09/cremation-rate-update/">projects</a> that by 2030 the nationwide cremation rate will reach 71 percent. </p>
<p>Cremation’s dramatic rise is part of a huge shift in American funerary practices away from burial and the ritual of embalming the dead, which is not required by law in any state but which most funeral homes require in order to have a visitation. In 2017, a survey of the personal preferences of Americans aged 40 and over <a href="http://www.nfda.org/news/media-center/nfda-news-releases/id/2419/nfda-consumer-survey-funeral-planning-not-a-priority-for-americans">found</a> that more than half preferred cremation. <a href="https://www.deathcarestudies.com/2017/10/gleaned-from-the-2017-nfda-consumer-awareness-and-preferences-survey-part-1-funeral-consumers-need-education/">Only 14 percent</a> of those respondents said they would like to have a full funeral service with viewing and visitation prior to cremation, down from 27 percent as recently as 2015. </p>
<p>Part of the reason for that shift is cost. In 2014, the <a href="http://www.nfda.org/news/media-center/nfda-news-releases/id/840/nfda-releases-results-of-2015-member-general-price-list-survey">median cost of a funeral with viewing and cremation</a> was $6,078. In contrast, a “direct cremation,” which does not include embalming or a viewing, <a href="https://funerals.org/?consumers=cremation-explained-answers-frequently-asked-questions">can typically be purchased for $700 to $1,200</a>. </p>
<p>Cremated remains can be buried in a cemetery or stored in an urn on the mantle, but businesses also offer a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/13-ways-to-use-your-ashes-to-become-something-awesome-2016-6?r=UK&IR=T/#-3">bewildering range of options</a> for incorporating ashes into objects like glass paperweights, jewelry and even vinyl records.</p>
<p>And while <a href="https://www.deathcarestudies.com/2017/10/gleaned-from-the-2017-nfda-consumer-awareness-and-preferences-survey-part-1-funeral-consumers-need-education/">40 percent of respondents</a> to the 2017 survey associate a cremation with a memorial service, Americans are increasingly holding those services at religious institutions and nontraditional locations like parks, museums and even at home. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192136/original/file-20171026-13378-6p9ybu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192136/original/file-20171026-13378-6p9ybu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192136/original/file-20171026-13378-6p9ybu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192136/original/file-20171026-13378-6p9ybu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192136/original/file-20171026-13378-6p9ybu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192136/original/file-20171026-13378-6p9ybu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192136/original/file-20171026-13378-6p9ybu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">As the number of cremations has soared, so too has the variety of urns. This one sold at a mall in Glendale, California, features a Dodgers baseball theme.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Going green</h2>
<p>Another trend is finding greener alternatives to both the traditional burial and cremation. </p>
<p>The 2017 survey found that 54 percent of respondents were interested in green options. Compare this with a <a href="https://www.aarp.org/money/estate-planning/info-2007/funeral_survey.html">2007 survey of those aged 50 or higher</a> by AARP which found that only 21 percent were interested in a more environmentally friendly burial. </p>
<p>One example of this is a new method of disposing of human remains called <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/19/business/flameless-cremation.html">alkaline hydrolysis</a>, which involves using water and a salt-based solution to dissolve human remains. Often referred as “water cremation,” it’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbQTACCNgcg">preferred by many as a greener alternative</a> to cremation by fire, which consumes fossil fuels. Most funeral homes that offer both methods of cremation charge the same price.</p>
<p>The alkaline hydrolysis process results in a sterile liquid and bone fragments that are reduced to “ash” and returned to the family. Although most Americans are unfamiliar with the process, funeral directors that have adopted it generally report that families prefer it to cremation by fire. <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/eco-friendly-californians-can-have-dead-bodies-liquefied-burial-method-689055">California recently became the 15th state</a> to legalize it.</p>
<h2>Going home</h2>
<p>A rising number of families are also interested in so-called “<a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-surprising-satisfactions-of-a-home-funeral-53172008/">home funerals</a>,” in which the remains are cleaned and prepared for disposition at home by the family, religious community or friends. Home funerals are followed by cremation, or burial in a family cemetery, a traditional cemetery or a green cemetery.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192134/original/file-20171026-13309-ctqjdk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192134/original/file-20171026-13309-ctqjdk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192134/original/file-20171026-13309-ctqjdk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192134/original/file-20171026-13309-ctqjdk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192134/original/file-20171026-13309-ctqjdk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192134/original/file-20171026-13309-ctqjdk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192134/original/file-20171026-13309-ctqjdk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192134/original/file-20171026-13309-ctqjdk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">More Americans are being buried in natural burial grounds, such as this one in Rhinebeck, New York.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Michael Hill</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Assisted by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/13/fashion/baby-boomers-are-drawn-to-green-and-eco-friendly-funerals.html?_r=0">funeral directors</a> or educated by <a href="http://homefuneralalliance.org/">home funeral guides</a>, families that choose home funerals are returning to a set of practices that <a href="https://funerals.org/product/final-rights-reclaiming-the-american-way-of-death/">predate the modern funeral industry.</a> </p>
<p>Proponents say that caring for remains at home is a better way of honoring the relationship between the living and the dead. Home funerals are also seen as more environmentally friendly since remains are temporarily preserved through the use of dry ice rather than formaldehyde-based embalming fluid. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://greenburialcouncil.org/">Green Burial Council</a> says rejecting embalming is one way to go green. Another is to choose to have remains interred or cremated in a fabric shroud or biodegradable casket rather than a casket made from nonsustainable hardwoods or metal. The council promotes standards for green funeral products and certifies green funeral homes and burial grounds. More than 300 providers are currently certified in 41 states and six Canadian provinces. </p>
<p>For example, <a href="http://sleepyhollowcemetery.org/burial-options/natural-burial-grounds/">Sleepy Hollow Cemetery,</a> the historic New York cemetery made famous by Washington Irving, is a certified “hybrid” cemetery because it has reserved a portion of its grounds for green burials: no embalming, no vaults and no caskets unless they are biodegradable – the body often goes straight into the ground with just a simple wrapping.</p>
<p>Clearly Americans are pushing the “traditional” boundaries of how to memorialize their loved ones and dispose of their remains. While I wouldn’t hold out hope that Americans will be able to choose Viking- or Tibetan-style burials anytime soon, you never know.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85657/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tanya D. Marsh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Although ‘Game of Thrones’ -style funeral pyres are still out of bounds, Americans are increasingly turning to cheaper, greener and more meaningful ways to dispose of their loved ones’ bodies.Tanya D. Marsh, Professor of Law, Wake Forest UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/857202017-10-25T23:38:15Z2017-10-25T23:38:15ZTricking and treating has a history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191876/original/file-20171025-25497-1j08u4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Halloween parade in New York.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Andres Kudacki</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Over the past few decades, Halloween celebrations have <a href="http://fortune.com/2016/10/31/americans-spending-halloween-2016/">gained in popularity</a>, not only with children and families, but with all those fascinated with the spooky and scary. </p>
<p>As a scholar of <a href="http://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9781137412553">myth and</a> <a href="http://www.mcfarlandbooks.com/book-2.php?id=978-0-7864-6474-6">religion</a> in popular culture, I look at Halloween with particular interest – especially the ways in which today’s Halloween tradition came to evolve. </p>
<h2>A pre-Christian tradition</h2>
<p>Many practices associated with Halloween have origins in the pre-Christian, or pagan, religion of the <a href="https://www.quercusbooks.co.uk/books/detail.page?isbn=9781784293352">Celts</a>, the original inhabitants of the British Isles, as well as parts of France and Spain. </p>
<p>The Celts held a <a href="http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/54311450/celtic-origins-halloween-transcend-fear">feast called Samhain</a> – a celebration of the harvest, the end of summer and the turn of the year. Samhain was separated by six months from <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/halloween-9780195168969?q=halloween&lang=en&cc=us">Beltane</a>, an observance of the beginning of summer, which took place on May 1 and is now known as May Day. Because Samhain led into the cold, fruitless and dark days of winter, the feast was also an opportunity to contemplate death and to remember those who had gone before.</p>
<p>The Celts believed that the <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/halloween-9780195168969?q=halloween&lang=en&cc=us">veil between the living and the dead</a> was thinner during this time, and that spirits of the dead could walk on Earth. Bonfires were lit to ward off the coming winter darkness, but also to sacrifice livestock and crops as offerings to the gods and spirits. </p>
<p>Some scholars – because of the long historical association of the Celts with the Romans – have also linked the modern observance of Halloween to the <a href="http://www.newhistorian.com/history-halloween-samhain-trick-treat/7472/">Roman festival honoring Pomona</a>, the goddess of fruit trees. During that festival people practiced divination, which uses occult for gaining knowledge of the future.</p>
<p>One of the practices was similar to the modern-day Halloween tradition of bobbing for apples – a party game in which people attempt to use only their teeth to pick up apples floating in a tub or a bowl of water. Originally, it was believed that whoever could bite the apple first would get married the soonest. </p>
<h2>Later influences</h2>
<p>Many of the modern-day practices of Halloween and even its name were influenced by Christianity. </p>
<p>Halloween coincides with Christian celebrations honoring the dead. In the autumn, Christians celebrate <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/holydays/allsaints_1.shtml">All Saints’ Day</a> – a day to honor martyrs who died for their faith and saints. They also celebrate All Souls’ Day – a day to remember the dead and to pray for souls more generally.<br>
The history of how these dates came to coincide is worth noting: It suggests ways in which the pagan holiday may have been absorbed into Christian observance. Starting around the seventh century A.D., <a href="http://www.catholic.org/saints/allsaints/">Christians celebrated</a> All Saints Day on May 13. In the mid-eighth century, however, Pope Gregory III moved All Saint’s Day from May 13 to Nov. 1, so that it coincided with the date of Samhain.</p>
<p>Although there is <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/T/bo14450607.html">disagreement</a> about whether the move was made purposely so as to absorb the pagan practice, the fact is that from then on Christian and pagan traditions did begin to merge. In England, for example, All Saints Day came to be known as <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/holydays/halloween_1.shtml">All Hallows Day</a>. The night before became All Hallows Eve, Hallowe’en, or Halloween, as it is now known.</p>
<p><a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/T/bo14450607.html">Around A.D. 1000</a>, Nov. 2 was established as All Souls Day. Throughout the Middle Ages, this three-day period was celebrated with Masses. But the Pagan tradition of appeasing the spirits of the dead remained, including the Christian – now Catholic – practice of lighting candles for the souls in Purgatory. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191886/original/file-20171025-25497-teu7ai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191886/original/file-20171025-25497-teu7ai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191886/original/file-20171025-25497-teu7ai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191886/original/file-20171025-25497-teu7ai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191886/original/file-20171025-25497-teu7ai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191886/original/file-20171025-25497-teu7ai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191886/original/file-20171025-25497-teu7ai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Guy Fawkes Day celebrations in East Sussex, England.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1570205">Peter Trimming</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>People still light bonfires on Oct. 31, especially those in regions where the Celts originally settled. In Ireland, <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/bonfire-battles-on-dublin-s-streets-1.2411658">bonfires are lit on Halloween</a>. In England, the bonfire tradition has been transferred to Nov. 5. This is known as Guy Fawkes Day and <a href="http://www.history.com/news/guy-fawkes-day-a-brief-history">commemorates the Gunpowder Plot</a>, a thwarted attempt by Catholics, led by Guy Fawkes, to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605.</p>
<p>There are other practices that continue today. In England, for example, one of the practices on All Hallows Eve was to go door to door begging for small currant biscuits called <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15536354">soul cakes</a>, which were offered in exchange for prayers. <a href="http://www.newhistorian.com/history-halloween-samhain-trick-treat/7472/">While not all scholars agree</a>, it is part of <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/what-is-halloween-and-why-do-children-trick-or-treat/">popular belief</a> that this practice is echoed in the modern tradition of trick-or-treating. </p>
<p>In Ireland, people would walk the streets carrying candles in a hollowed-out turnip, the precursor of today’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/oct/26/go-back-to-halloweens-roots-and-carve-a-turnip-charity-suggests">jack o’lantern</a>, or the carved pumpkin.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191859/original/file-20171025-25497-f17hum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191859/original/file-20171025-25497-f17hum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191859/original/file-20171025-25497-f17hum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191859/original/file-20171025-25497-f17hum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191859/original/file-20171025-25497-f17hum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191859/original/file-20171025-25497-f17hum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191859/original/file-20171025-25497-f17hum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The carved pumpkins.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/sackerman519/5132209479">Sarah Ackerman</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>When the tradition came to the US</h2>
<p>Halloween, however, did not make its way to the United States until the 1840s, when waves of immigrants from the Celtic countries of Ireland and Scotland arrived. These immigrants brought with them their tradition of Halloween, including dancing, masquerading, fortune-telling games and – in some places – the practice of parading the neighborhood <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-no-more-trick-treat-ent-1031-20161028-column.html">asking for treats</a>, such as nuts and fruits and coins. </p>
<p>By the late 19th century, some stores began offering <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/halloween-9780195168969?q=halloween&lang=en&cc=us">commercially made candy</a> for Halloween. </p>
<p>The North American observance of Halloween also <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/theprotojournalist/2014/10/29/359547119/halloween-for-adults-a-scary-history">included</a> everything from minor pranks to some major vandalism, as well as a lot of drinking. By the early 20th century, however, many municipalities and churches attempted to curb this behavior by turning Halloween into a family celebration with children’s parties and, eventually, trick-or-treating as we know it today.</p>
<h2>Halloween today</h2>
<p>Today, Halloween has become a <a href="http://fortune.com/2016/10/31/americans-spending-halloween-2016/">multi-million-dollar industry</a>. </p>
<p>Candy sales, costumes, decorations, seasonal theme parks, annual television specials and October horror movie premieres are some of the many ways North Americans spend their money on the holiday.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191878/original/file-20171025-25510-51krx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191878/original/file-20171025-25510-51krx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191878/original/file-20171025-25510-51krx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191878/original/file-20171025-25510-51krx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191878/original/file-20171025-25510-51krx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191878/original/file-20171025-25510-51krx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191878/original/file-20171025-25510-51krx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Trick-or-treaters in costume.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Ted S. Warren</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But Halloween has come to mean many things to many people. Roman Catholics and many <a href="https://www.episcopalchurch.org/files/bi102812half_0.pdf">mainline Protestants</a>, for example, <a href="https://www.franciscanmedia.org/solemnity-of-all-saints/">continue to observe</a> All Saints’ Day for its spiritual significance. In the Catholic Church it is considered a holy day of obligation, <a href="https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/overviews/months/11_1.cfm">when people are required to go to Mass</a>. All Souls’ Day is celebrated soon after. In fact, the entire month of November is set aside as a time to pray for the dead. </p>
<p>On the other hand, some people <a href="http://news.gallup.com/poll/25282/roughly-americans-religious-objections-halloween.aspx">reject Halloween</a> <a href="https://www.deseretnews.com/article/865691634/This-is-how-faith-keeps-some-families-from-embracing-Halloween.html">because of its pagan origins</a> and its perceived association with witchcraft and the devil. Others see it as <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/columnists/article-486258/Halloween-thoroughly-commercial-festival.html">too commercial</a> or <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/larissafaw/2012/10/26/how-adults-have-hijacked-halloween-from-kids/">primarily for children</a>. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, whether people see it as a children’s holiday, a sacred ritual, a harvest festival, a night of mischief, a sophisticated adult celebration or a way to make money, Halloween has become an integral part of North American culture.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85720/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Regina Hansen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Everything you need to know about the history of Halloween.Regina Hansen, Senior Lecturer, Rhetoric, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.