Lynsey Byrd
Dr. Yousof
LVE400
2 December 2018
Common Signature and Intercultural Competency Reflection
The Common Signature assignment was made to increase students’ intercultural competence in order to help lead to a better intercultural interaction. My partner and I chose to analyze Halloween in Spain because most people in the United States have lost the cultural connection to Halloween and we wanted to find out whether or not it was the same in Spain.
Halloween in Spain is much different from the US. Halloween in Spain is known as El Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead or All Souls Day), which is a three day celebration. Starting on October 31st and ending on November 2nd. Throughout these three days they are celebrating their ancestors. For example, on October 31st they celebrate Dia de las Brujas ( Day of the Witches), which is honoring the 23 women who were sentenced to death during the Inquisition after being accused of witchcraft. In the United States Halloween is celebrated on one day, October 31st, with original history dating back to the Celtic times. It has moved from Christianity to being secular. It has moved from celebrating the dead to just dressing up as cartoon characters and getting candy.
I have celebrated 21 years of Halloween and until I did this research I was unaware of the history of Halloween and why it used to be an important day. Today we do not communicate or celebrate of ancestors, but instead we communicate with our neighbors and peers by “Trick or Treating.” And instead of dressing as ghosts and witches we now dress as super heroes, cartoons, and strong governmental people. We have lost all connection to the history and origins of Halloween.
The history of Halloween in both cultures are the same, except Spain borrowed the US customs. Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. On the night of October 31st, they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. These prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the cold and dark winter. The Celtic priests built large bond-fires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities. During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other’s fortunes. All Souls Day was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels and devils. The All Saints Day celebration was also called All-hallows and the night before it, the traditional night of Samhain in the Celtic religion, began to be called All-Hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween.
As the beliefs and customs of different European ethnic groups as well as the American Indians meshed, a distinctly American version of Halloween began to emerge. The first celebrations included “play parties,” public events held to celebrate the harvest, where neighbors would share stories of the dead, tell each other’s fortunes, dance and sing.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, America was flooded with new Irish immigrants. They helped to popularize the celebration of Halloween nationally. Borrowing from Irish and English traditions, Americans began to dress up in costumes and go house to house asking for food or money, a practice that eventually became today’s “trick-or-treat” tradition. Due to the increase in vandalism, the government moved to make Halloween a holiday focused on community and get-togethers, rather than ghosts and with-craft, therefore Halloween lost most of its superstitious or religious ties in the twentieth century.
The critical thinking assignment was made to help students to do research and discuss a conclusion that they formulated based on the topic that they chose.