Ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight? This was the question put to Michael Keaton’s Batman by actor Jack Nicholson, the Joker. I thought up the title after I received an email from some concerned friend (out to save my poor heathen soul) about the holiday of Halloween, which was likened to “dancing with the devil.”

Every time a holiday comes up the religious right (which appears to be neither) sends out mass emails trying to scare everyone in the name of their Western Asian Semitic savior deity and his thunder god Pops. There are a lot of threats to the “unsaved” about living all of eternity in a really drab netherworld of unbearable heat run by pitch fork wielding, cloven hoofed, pointed horned, barbed-tailed overlords, if they take part in these “blasphemous” events. Some of these zealots actually take to the streets and pass out pamphlets with pictures of damnation and torture instead of candy. Others create “Hell Houses” at their churches as an alternative to Halloween, where the monsters are teens at raves slitting their wrists with razor blades or young girls bleeding to death from terrible abortions---all of whom are consequently dragged off to Hell by demons, naturally. Relegating everyone to children, these new age fire and brimstone fanatics attempts to scare the beejeezus outta anyone that reads a Harry Potter book or puts up a Jack O’ Lantern.

This leaves some people in an interesting pickle. I have friends with kids who on the one hand don’t want them participating in anything with such a depraved history and linkage. They’d also rather ease up on the bombardment of deemed “Eurocentric” holidays. On the other hand however, they realize they don’t live in a social vacuum and don’t want their kids to be deprived of a childhood experience. So they ask, is there a way to have Halloween and still be black and not worship the devil? The cultural purists and religious fanatics may say no. I ain’t so pure and not really fanatic about anything except Gabrielle Union (she is THE TRUTH) so I’ll say---yeah. Now this brief article isn’t to get anyone to go and be Celtic for a day. If one doesn’t want to celebrate Halloween for whatever reason, that’s a personal choice and right. To many it might just be another European holiday that robs pocketbooks, brainwashes minds and rots teeth. However for those who are truly interested in a middle road, I offer a bit of information that one is free to cross-reference for accuracy.

First off, know what Halloween is and where it comes from. Contrary to the religious extremists Halloween has nothing to do with worshipping the devil or the like. In fact there was no devil in Halloween, until the Christians brought it there.

Halloween’s origins begin with the ancient Euro Celtic (Irish, Scottish, Welsh) New Year’s festival called Samhain, celebrated on Nov. 1st. They believed that the separation between this world and the nether realm was weakest this time of year. Friends and relatives who had died were thought to return, with their souls inhabiting animals such as a black cat. On Samhain the crops were to be harvested and animals were brought in from the distant fields.

The newly arriving Christians, armed with the first commandment, labeled such belief "pagan" and the work of the "devil." They created "All Saints Day" to combat it. The spirits and mythical creatures associated with the Celtic holiday were now declared demons by Christians. And the Church's response to Samhain was to dress as devils, demons, etc. and persecute those thought to be witches---often women. They also started a negative ad campaign that depicted traditional Celtic religious adherents as blood thirsty “savages.” Biggest of all was to claim the Celts practiced human sacrifice and cannibalism. And in truth, perhaps some aspect of Celtic belief system did. However that’s a bit of a hypocritical charge coming from the Church. After all, the main guy in Christianity is sacrificed only to have his followers later ritually cannibalize him (“eat of my flesh and drink of my blood” sound familiar?). So let’s keep things in perspective…

At any rate, attempts to wholly stamp out Samhain didn’t work. In fact, in a way, it backfired. Many traditional Celtic beliefs and customs associated with Samhain, most notably that night was the time of the wandering dead, the practice of leaving offerings of food and drink to masked and costumed revelers, and the lighting of bonfires, continued to be practiced on Oct. 31^st. Black cats remained a part of the holiday as did the practice of hollowing out turnips and placing candles inside, to protect them from the wind. These lanterns were placed on windowsills to guide the dead back to their relatives. In modern times the turnips turned to pumpkins, the famed Jack-O-Lanterns.

Samhain, though altered, remained in practice as the Eve of All Saints, the Eve of All Hallows, or Hallow Even. It is the glossing of the name Hallow Even that has given us the name Hallow e'en/Halloween.

So, now you know where Halloween comes from, if you didn’t before. If it sounds too pagan to you or you just can’t get into cultural sharing, then you can stop reading here, go pray for me or bemoan my “Eurocentric” nature. If you can handle the European links and paganism and choose to go further, read on.

The second thing to understand about Halloween is, like HipHop, it wasn’t always all blood and violence. The Halloween holiday in America became popular in the1920s and 1930s. At that time, Halloween activities were fairly simple—kids would bob for apples or the like. The more daring would play with Ouijah boards, as no one was really scared of such things back then. According to costume experts, simple non-gory or graphic witch and ghosts costumes were common, as were Chinese and Japanese dress in response to the Asian arts movement at the end of the century. It is the modern movie-making industry (always the exploiting capitalists eh?) would later inspire the more elaborate monster and horror-themed costumes we know today. So the point is you don’t have to dress your kids in R-rated violence, slasher costumes for Halloween. You may even choose to put a more culturally relevant make over.

Before anyone starts crying about assimilation to European norms, keep in mind that in the Diaspora we have been “Africanizing” European norms since the first ships dropped us off as chattel in the 1500s. A perfect comparison and example would be tap-dancing: a Celtic derived art form that black Americans infused with African rhythms and movements. So for the cultural purists (who shouldn’t even have come this far in the article) don’t get ya’ cowrie shells and head wraps in a bunch.

So again, if one wants to celebrate Halloween and/or you want your kids to have the experience, you might even turn it into a cultural teaching tool. There have after all been similar festivals to Halloween worldwide. In certain West African groupings, the roles are reversed where masked men show up at the home of children. India has its own various renditions. And probably the most famous is the indigenous Meso-American derived "Day of the Dead" still practiced in Mexico and related regions. Professor of Popular Culture Jack Santino has documented many of these in his work, Halloween and Other Festivals of Life and Death.

For the inventive, Halloween can be used to explore many creations derived from African and Diaspora mythology. Children’s author Virginia Hamilton certainly did something similar, mixing monsters, spirits, mermaids and talking animals with issues of race and culture. Her final posthumous book, released this Fall in fact, was Wee Winnie Witch's Skinny: An Original Scare Tale for Halloween. Journalist and fiction author Nnedi Okorafor too researched numerous mythic creatures and beings from Africa and its Diaspora that can equally be fused to create a more culturally themed Halloween. She speaks of Diabless (also called La Jah-bless), an Afro-Caribbean mythic monster that appears as a beautiful woman in a flowing white dress that hides her mismatched feet (one is normal, the other is a hoof). There is the Afro-Caribbean Soucouyant (known as the Ol' Higue in Jamaica) a type of vampire who travels at night by shedding its human skin and turning into a ball of fire. There are even the many African-American tales of hanks and other such folkloric monsters as documented by African-American anthropologists like Zora Neale Hurston. Europeans did not invent nor corner the market on imaginative monsters, scary creatures and fantastic beings.

Again, this brief article isn’t imploring anyone to go out and celebrate Halloween. Neither is it attempting to remake anyone over as an ancient Celt. But for those who wonder about Halloween, the purpose of this brief commentary was to illustrate perhaps the holiday is not as “scary” as it seems. And for the more adventurous and exploring, it might even prove a useful teaching tool. Besides, its not often I decide to write a piece about complete fluff---so enjoy this kinda article from me while u can.

MORPHEUS- Exposin Fake Shyt