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Is Halloween still relevant?
With pumpkins arriving by the shipload and Halloween fast approaching, some New Zealanders are questioning the relevance of the holiday to our southern hemisphere climate.
Halloween has links back to the Celtic fire festival of Samhain, which celebrated the end of the harvest year and honoured the dead. Traditionally held at the onset of autumn, in New Zealand Halloween falls instead in the middle of spring.
Auckland author Juliet Batten is advocating on her blog and in her book, Celebrating the Southern Seasons, for a National Green Day to replace Halloween. Batten began celebrating a “Kiwi Halloween” on the streets of Ponsonby in April – and now is looking to create a similar festival for spring.
“I want us to have a national green day – we plant a tree on this day and we celebrate the earth. I’d like to see everyone putting a sprig of green in their buttonhole.”
Batten points out that celebrating Halloween – a time to honour the dead and acknowledge the approach of winter – is at odds with what is happening seasonally.
“I think what it does is it reinforces a disconnection a lot of people have with nature.”
Traditionally, she says, this is the time Maori would be planting kumera and harvesting tarata leaves and fern root. It is also a time for the first swim of the season.
Other New Zealanders have already taken it upon themselves to get closer to the earth at this time, celebrating the Celtic festival of Beltane (also known as ‘May Day’).
One group is camping in Waipu Cave, Northland, to dance around the maypole and drum, chant, and roast marshmallows over the bonfire.
Dunedin magickian Azaka (the ‘k’ in magickian, he says, “refers to ceremonial magick, rather than stage tricks”) is preparing to celebrate Beltane in Invercargill on October 31.
“The eight seasonal festivals originate in the North as did many of us,” he says. “Our early settlers brought them with them and used the same dates in ignorance and to be in synch with those at home.
“Halloween has crept in to add to Easter and Christmas. I think this has come from the shops rather than a need to celebrate the times.
Batten agrees that Halloween is now about consumption rather than local custom:
“It’s driven by the commercial world, and that’s the whole problem with what’s going wrong with the earth.
“It’s a bit crazy, we’re a grown-up country and shouldn’t have to follow America.”
For Azaka, paying tribute to the change of seasons can coincide with paying homage to one’s past.
He says such ancient festivals as the Celtic sabbats – many of which became assimilated with Christian festivals – were used to “tie people into the energies of the land”.
He believes celebrating these festivals at inappropriate times can be potentially harmful for New Zealand and New Zealanders.
“For the past few years our supermarkets have got special pumpkin imports and stock in for October 31, when it was very plain to see the fresh cheap ones during the Autumn.
“I firmly believe that to observe [the seasons] six months out of synch is most likely very bad for the subconciousness.
“My mission for the past few years is to put on the festivals on the right dates to get some keen folk up to speed on this.”
Ashley Stinson, a fourth-year business student at the University of Otago, says the Irish brought Halloween to America during the Great Famine – and so for them celebrating the festival makes sense. For us, she says, it doesn’t.
“I think it’s just a way for people to get something for nothing. In America it’s a huge deal, it’s a good thing. But here it’s just kind of creepy.
“This hasn’t got anything to do with New Zealand. We should have our own thing based on our own traditions and heritage.”
Stinson says Halloween has become popular because kids want free lollies and others want an excuse to party:
“It’s just another reason to have a party. It’s the one time teenagers get to wear Playboy-bunny suits and get away with it.”
For those who enjoy Halloween for the dressups, candy, and partying, Batten has a more seasonally-relevant suggestion:
“It’s a very good time to have a party but have a green one, not a black one. Dress up in green, have green food.
“It should be a green time, not a time to get into dying or spooks.”
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Te Waha Nui is written and edited by student journalists on the Graduate Diploma in Journalism and Bachelor of Communication Studies courses at AUT University. Views expressed are those of the editorial team and contributors and not of the University
What this poster is missing is that the real function of Halloween is to exercise the unconscious mind of the demons and dreads that plague it. In previous eras many holidays, like Candlemas, Walpurgusnacht or Baltine, and Lughnasa, served this purpose. Today, all those holidays have been eradicated by Christianity, as they could not be satisfactorily consumed by it as were Winter Solstice, Easter, & Samhain. The very young are filled with interest in the unconscious as obviated by the popularity of magical Harry Potter, the current vampire fad and fascination with zombies, werewolves, sea monsters etc. Kids have always loved this stuff and will always be drawn to it. Few get past it until they’re in their 30s. There has to be a public outlet for this type of thought, because to repress it will encourage the living out of these dark fantasies as we’ve seen in the behavior of Richard Ramirez and many others like him, who become obsessed with this type of energy. The 8th house of the zodiac is a very important part of the human psyche. To refuse it or ignore it puts the society that does so in peril. It’s fine to celebrate a green Halloween if you want to, but don’t expect to undermine Samhain with a positive result. Black serves a purpose.