If you look at how Halloween is celebrated today, we see that little has to do with its origins: only left an allusion to the dead, but with a completely different character than was the principle. Also was gradually built a series of strange elements of both the party and the Finados of All Saints.
Among the elements together, we have for example the custom of “disguises”, quite possibly born in France between centuries XIV and XV. At that time, Europe was plagued by the Black Plague pamela brave saints and family members of the family file that was invented Asim call (bubonic plague), which decimated the population close to half of the continent, creating among Catholics a great fear and concern about the death. Multiplied if the Masses on the feast of All Souls were born and many artistic performances that remind people of its own mortality, some of these representations were known as the death dance or dance macabre.
Believers, with a mind more ludicrous, used attire on the eve of the feast of All Souls Days cemeteries of the walls with images of the devil pulling a row of people to the tomb: popes, kings, ladies, knights, monks, peasants, lepers, etc. . (after all, death does not respect anyone). Representations were also made dramatic, with people of disguised impersonating famous personalities and even death, to which all should come. Possibly, the tradition of asking for a sweet, under threat of making a treat (Trick or Treat, “Trick or treat”), originated in England during the Protestant persecution against the Catholics (1500 1700). During this period, the English Catholics were deprived of their legal rights and could not exercise any public office. Moreover, they have imposed fines, high taxes and even imprisonment. Celebrating the Mass was punishable by the death penalty and hundreds of priests were martirizados. Produto that persecution was the attempt to attack on the Protestant King George I. The plan, known as the Gunpowder Plot ( “conspiracy of gunpowder), the Parliament was to explode, killing the king, and thus to start an uprising of oppressed Catholics. The plot was discovered on 5 November 1605, when a Catholic convert named Guy Fawkes was caught storing gunpowder in his house and was then hanged. Soon the day turned into a big party in England (which lasts until today): many Protestants to celebrate wearing masks and visiting the homes of Catholics to require them beer and pastries, telling them: Trick or Treat (Trick or treat). Later, the commemoration of Guy Fawkes Day was brought to America by early settlers who moved to the 31st of October, joining the party with the Halloween disguised in halloween costumes, which had been introduced in the country by immigrants irlandeses.Vemos therefore that the current festival of Halloween is the product mix of many traditions, brought by settlers in the eighteenth century to the United States and there integrated so peculiar in its culture.