Customs of Halloween

Today, Halloween - time "binge" of various hungry ghouls, vengeful spirits, evil goblins and other evil dead in our reality, yet the barriers between worlds are closed again by the next morning.

While Halloween can already be considered a global celebration of evil, with its immutable attributes like infernal pumpkins and candy importunate beggars in suits nonhumans, many national culture got its own characteristics and its unique celebration of demons and devils.

Below is the world's five most interesting cultural features Halloween.

1. Halloween

In western Europe, the eve of All Saints' Day is celebrated annually on October 31. The date of this festival is inextricably linked with the onset of the next (November 1) All Saints Day, when people pray for the repose of those who are no longer with us.

However, many believe that this festival comes from the Celtic harvest festival, the so-called Samhain, which indicates the beginning of the new year according to the calendar of the people. It was believed that during Samhain barriers between the real and otherworldly worlds become so thin that allowed all the raging and evil undead invade our world and create excesses, destroying crops and ruining domestic animals, if they did not leave treats and offerings.

In addition, the souls of dead relatives on that day would also be pleased to visit their former possessions, so they specifically covered refectory table and left the place of honor.

2. those who hunger ghosts

In traditional Chinese culture, the seventh month of the calendar month is called the Ghosts. This is the period when the spirits and phantoms freely cross the borders of the lower worlds to visit the living.

This happens every year in the 15 day of the month of Ghosts (this year it fell to August), when the dead pays a visit to our world. It is believed, though those spirits who in this world does not remain relatives or they forgot about the deceased, sadly wander through the streets of cities alongside the living, bowing to the ground her thin and exhausted from eternal hunger neck in search of food.

Those families who revere their ancestors, or perform Buddhist rituals Lao to help the spirits to rest. For example, in Hong Kong and Taiwan people fumigate the room incense sticks, burn paper money - offerings, specially created for the dead.

3. Kite Festival

31 October and 1 November the residents of Central America and the Caribbean are going to the cemetery to honor the memory of the departed. And in Sumpango in Guatemala people create giant colorful kites made of paper and bamboo, some of which may be more than 6 meters in diameter.

With the coming of the Day of All Saints residents climb on the highest hill, adjacent to the city cemetery, and released into the wild wind kites. Usually kites short-lived - strong gusts of wind tearing apart the fragile products, which also symbolizes the natural life cycle of life and death.

4. Spirit of cannibalism

Among the indigenous peoples of North America cannibalism associated with what tasted human flesh, as it were invited malicious spirit in his own body.

Algonquin Indian tribe feared the so-called spirit-eating - Wendigo. It was believed that this fiend of hell can take control of the body of any person.

Wendigo was seen as a symbol of insatiable hunger and barren winter time. Anyone can become a repository of the insatiable demon tasted human flesh, and sometimes Wendigo could take possession of the body and sleep.

5. Clay monster

According to Jewish tradition the power of man to create inanimate being no worse than the vaunted Frankenstein - the monster-earth golem. To do this you need to create his flesh from the earth, and then spice it up by saying the name of the Lord's secret symbols or letters traced on the forehead of the truth of the Hebrew alphabet.

Jewish mythology states that the first human being - Adam - is a soulless golem in the first hours of its existence. To destroy the man-made clay monster, you need to repeat the procedure on the contrary - to read God's name backwards or delete characters true to his forehead.

Thus, there is a legend that says if Prague Jews in the 16th century created their own golem to protect against anti-Semitic attacks.
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