The symbolism of Hallowe'en, whether Christian (All Souls' Eve) or pagan (Samhain and other such festivals of the dead, which is likely where the Christian church took All souls' Eve from anyway) is not the same as the Harvest Home symbolism.
The purist in me dislikes the wholesale sanitizing and renaming/reconstructing of historical traditions, even if they are deemed to be improper for some reason in modern times.
It's one thing to wear costumes that are not insulting to other people of different backgrounds, or problematic in terms of how we have reconstructed images of childhood, and another to wave your wand and say "that old tradition of dressing up like other people so vengeful spirits couldn't figure out who you are and do you some harm on the night when they find it easiest to cross over, and/or pretending to be those spirits - all gone. We're dressing up because there's enough corn and wheat in the barn to last the winter, even though in our culture most of us eat food flown in from other continents on a year round basis and only people living in farming communities have any idea of what a harvest home means anymore, anyway."
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branchandroot
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Date: 2007-11-27 07:55 pm (UTC)The purist in me dislikes the wholesale sanitizing and renaming/reconstructing of historical traditions, even if they are deemed to be improper for some reason in modern times.
It's one thing to wear costumes that are not insulting to other people of different backgrounds, or problematic in terms of how we have reconstructed images of childhood, and another to wave your wand and say "that old tradition of dressing up like other people so vengeful spirits couldn't figure out who you are and do you some harm on the night when they find it easiest to cross over, and/or pretending to be those spirits - all gone. We're dressing up because there's enough corn and wheat in the barn to last the winter, even though in our culture most of us eat food flown in from other continents on a year round basis and only people living in farming communities have any idea of what a harvest home means anymore, anyway."