Dear Editor,
I am surprised that numerous people have written negative things about us celebrating Halloween without looking it up on the internet. Some Guyanese believe that this is only a US phenomenon and whilst it is true that the Americans have built on the traditions of Halloween and it is now their biggest celebration after Christmas, they did not start it.
It was started nearly 2000 years ago by the ancient Celts with their festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in). Two thousand years ago the Celts lived in the area that is now Ireland, Britain and northern France; they 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. Celts believed that on the night before the New Year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31, 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 other-worldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.
So the origins of this practice on November 1, which is now called Halloween, has nothing to do with Witches, Christianity and Salem USA; it is much, much older and is fundamentally not based on Christian religious beliefs or doctrine.
It is certain that since we do not have winter here in Guyana, it is somewhat misplaced as a preparation for the long hard winter, but we have long hard other things to compensate for that, blackouts for example. However, the children and even the adults enjoy it and it creates some action for the hard-pressed business community, so where is the harm in it?
Yours faithfully,
Tony Vieira
