HALLOWEEN
2019
Murphy
Browne © October 31-2019
Halloween
is celebrated in Canada on October 31 as part of an ancient pagan Celtic
tradition. The Celts, of the British Isles, before they were Christianized,
believed that spirits and ghosts visited the world of the living on the night
of October 31. They believed that the spirits could harm the living or take
them to the “spirit world.” On October 31, if the Celts left their homes, they
would dress as they imagined ghosts and spirits looked. They hoped that their disguises
would confuse the ghosts and spirits. In the 21st century, many people
celebrating Halloween, decorate their homes and surroundings with various
“ghostly” themes on October 31. Halloween parties are held in homes, nightclubs,
restaurants, and bars, while children and some adults, go trick-or-treating in
their neighbourhood, dressed in various costumes. Every year without fail there
is always the dreaded and dreadful “Blackface,” where people who are not
“Black” or African, paint their faces black as part of their costume. Mocking
and ridiculing racialized people is nothing new for White Canadians. Even the
Prime Minister has been guilty of this egregious offense, as a student and as a
teacher. Speaking about the “Blackface scandal” African Canadian art history
professor at McGill University, Charmaine Nelson, said: “I'm disappointed, but
not surprised. One thing that happens every Halloween is that we have an
incident of blackface on a university campus or college campus in Canada.”
The celebration of Halloween in North America (Canada and the USA) has become big business. According to an article published in the “Financial Post” on October 25-2014, “Canadians have become so wild about Halloween we now spend more per capita on costumes, candy and décor than our U.S. counterparts do, with holiday-related spending that is second only to Christmas.” In an article published on “CTV News” website (October 26, 2018) Diane Brisebois, President and CEO of the Retail Council of Canada is quoted: “We estimate that the Halloween market is between 900 million to a billion dollars.”
Online
shopping for Halloween has grown in Canada, because of aggressive and shrewd
marketing. Jeffrey Schwartz, Executive Director of Consolidated Credit Counseling
Services of Canada, said: “Halloween has quickly become one of the largest
shopping seasons of the year, with individuals spending upwards of $60 just on
their costumes.” According to a 2018 Value Village survey, 44% of Canadians say
Halloween is their favourite holiday. The Retail Council of Canada, estimates
that Canada’s Halloween economy is worth $1-billion – double the size it was
less than a decade ago.
The
celebration of Halloween has spread its tentacles as far south as Guyana, on
the South American continent. As a child, growing up in Guyana, I had merely
read about Halloween. My first experience with the celebration of Halloween was
as a 13-year-old, living in Lethem, Rupununi in Guyana’s interior, when a group
of White Christian American missionaries were celebrating Halloween. The group,
led by the resident preacher James Rader Hawkins and his wife Ann, were members
of the Unevangelized Fields Mission and had been in the interior of Guyana for
decades. These missionaries had decorated a “haunted house” and invited the
local population to share the experience.
With
some trepidation and curiosity, we entered the haunted house. There was Dr.
Frank Davis, (the missionaries had their own doctor,) lying deathly still, in a
coffin, covered in blood (ketchup.) I remember the panic, the screams of
fright, these many decades later! Some adult Guyanese were unimpressed and
declared the good White Christian Americans “heathens” and refused to believe
that they were genuine Christians. Most of the Amerindian population in the
Rupununi at the time were Catholic and many African Guyanese, like my family
were Anglicans. We did not “do” Halloween. Today Guyanese are familiar with
Halloween even though many do not know the history of what they are celebrating.
Halloween in Guyana is now popular because of the influence of American
television on the Guyanese population. American soap operas and sit-coms
glorify American culture and since the celebration of Halloween is seen as
American culture, Guyanese have swallowed it, “hook, line and sinker.” They
organize Halloween parties in homes or attend Halloween parties in restaurants,
bars and hotels.
“Curiouser
and curiouser!” as the character Alice in the book “Alice in Wonderland”
exclaimed, in Guyana we have many otherworldly characters of our own that we
never celebrated. As a child, just the mention of “jumbie story” would have us
diving into bed, with covers drawn over our heads. Yes, we had our own jumbie
stories, bacoo stories, moongazer, choorile and oldhigue stories but no one
encouraged the creatures to be a part of our lives by dressing up like them or
celebrating them! But now, with the advent and influence of American culture,
Guyanese seem to have lost the fear of those other worldly creatures and
perhaps unknowingly, revel in encouraging them, at least on October 31. So far,
I have not had the heart, or the gall to ask anyone celebrating Halloween in
Guyana, if they know that during their Halloween celebrations, they are
inviting into their parties and homes during their revelries on October 31, the
creatures that (traditionally,) had their elders backing through the front door
after dark.
Murphy
Browne © October 31-2019
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