Compare and Contrast Essay

Halloween versus Day of the dead

Which day do you prefer to celebrate? Halloween or Day of the dead. It depends on the traditions that you have, but it is a fact that even when we are Mexicans, Halloween is attracting more people than Day of the dead.

Halloween has its origin as a Celtic celebration, known as Samhain, which means “End of Summer”. Celts said that exactly that day, the spirits were released from their world, so that they were able to visit the human’s one, it did not matter what kind of spirits they were, they visited the humans. It used to be a pagan celebration, but it was Christianized. It arrived to United States in 1840, but it was not born there, as many people think, in fact because of American people it is also known as Witches night. While Day of the dead is a Mexican celebration of prehispanic origins. Ancient Mesoamerican people had their beliefs about the death, for example, for them there was not paradise or hell, they said that depending the death of the person, there was a specific place for them after death. But when Europeans arrived to America they mixed both beliefs, Mesoamerican’s and Catholic’s, into a celebration, since the celebration of ancient Mesoamericans matched with the Catholic’s celebration of “Día de los fieles difuntos y todos los Santos”.

Nowadays, Halloween means celebrating not only in USA, many countries celebrate it too, as a result of globalization. The meaning of the day is based on the belief that in Halloween, the gate that keeps dead people and spirits away from people is opened and they come that night to visit and to scare the people alive, so each family has to put a candle in front of the door, so that they cannot enter the house to scare the people in there. In the other hand we have that Day of the dead means a day that connects people with their dead family members; it is a day to remember them, to visit their graves and to pray for them. It is also a belief that this day is used by the spirits to visit their family, but they are not here to scare them as the spirits of Halloween, Mexicans do not want the spirits of their family away from them, they want them to stay here, to give them a great night; it is a day where people can coexist with spirits of their family again, they can feel their presence.

Talking about the way to celebrate this day, Halloween is celebrated around the world on October 31. In this day, people offer costume parties without a meaning, just to have fun. The costumes are related to monsters and scary creatures. There is a special rite for kids that day, children get dressed costumes for the “trick or treat” rite, where they ask for “trick-or-treat”, if the neighbors give them candies or any other reward, the children accept them, that is what “treat” means, but if someone does not want to give children anything, the children throw eggs to the door, that is what trick means. Day of the dead is celebrated on November 2^nd. This day has a lot of traditions such as when people write some kind of humoristic epitaphs known as “Calaveritas”. Also, there is “Pan de muerto”, a traditional food of that day in Mexico, it is a sweet piece of bread with a round form, and sometimes it is made with the appearance of a skull. There is another special food for that day, it is a candy of sugar with shape of skull. Another tradition of Day of the dead is the Cempaxóchitl flower which is used to decorate the graves and the altar. The altar is a kind of decoration to grace a dead person. It is the most notorious element, and is the one that represent the Day of the dead; it is made of a table, covered with a tablecloth and decorated with Cempaxóchitl flowers, sugared candies, a picture of the person that is being honored with the things he/she liked in life (Food, Drinks, Toys, e.t.c.)

Both celebrations are great, but “Día de Muertos” (Day of the dead) is more interesting and meaningful than Halloween since it is not just about celebrating parties or getting disguised, it is about the reunion of people with their dead family members, it is another way to show that neither death nor other thing could separate families. In other words, Day of the dead is more about the love that people have to the family members that are no longer physically with them, while Halloween is more about monsters, devils, and scary spirits.

It is very sad that because of globalization, Halloween is attracting more and more people here in Mexico, because that means that the tradition of Day of the dead is being mixed with Halloween, and it is losing presence in Mexico.