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By the pricking of our thumbs, something spooky this way comes!

The leaves are changing, the pumpkins are in the patch, and the cold is sweeping in. That can only mean one thing: Halloween is upon us.

What is Halloween?

A festival with Celtic roots, Halloween is widely celebrated in the UK and is now mainly associated with trick or treating, fancy dressing and all things ghostly and ghoulish. In ancient times, it was believed that the barrier between our world and the world of spirits was at its thinnest at this time of year, and that the spirits of the dead could interact with the living.

Many other festivals around the world have to do with honouring those who have passed away.

5 festivals of the dead

1. Guatemala: Festival de Barriletes Gigantes

Guatemala celebrates Festival de Barriletes Gigantes (giant kite festival) in conjunction with Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) and All Saints’ Day celebrations to honour the deceased. The autumn brings strong winds to Guatemala, so it’s the perfect conditions to fly colourful kites of up to 60 feet (just over 18 metres) across! While this festival is relatively young, kite flying is an ancient tradition, possibly started 3,000 years ago with the Maya.

The kites are constructed over several weeks, and the final products are then showcased between 31 October and 2 November. Kites can be decorated with personal and historical symbols as well as contemporary mantras, for example relating to social issues such as climate change.

2. Italy: Ognissanti and Commemorazione dei defunti

While modern Italians might also celebrate Halloween, Italy has its own historical traditions for Ognissanti or Tutti i Santi (All Saints’ Day) and All Souls’ Day, known in Italian as Commemorazione dei defunti. Masses and graveside vigils are often held up and down the country. Tombs are decorated with chrysanthemums, an autumn flower, as well as candles which are left burning overnight. In Sardinia there is a custom similar to trick-or-treating, with children going house to house on All Souls’ Day and are gifted cakes, nuts or dried fruit in exchange for a prayer. In Sicily, children who’ve been good might even receive a gift or sweets from a loved one who’s passed on.

3. Nepal: Gai Jatra

Gai Jatra (Cow Procession) is a festival celebrated for eight days every year in Nepal, historically by the Newar people of Kathmandu Valley. It takes place at the end of the summer in the sixth month of the Hindu calendar (known as Badhra) and is celebrated with drum music, costumed dances and comedy. It started as a festival to honour the untimely death of a prince in the 1600s, but with the intention of being a positive event to cheer the queen and those who had experienced a loss in the previous year. As part of the festival, loved ones of the deceased lead a cow through the street, and if a cow is not available, they dress a child up instead.

4. China and Asia: Zhongyuan Festival

Variations of the Zhongyuan Festival (Hungry Ghost Festival) are celebrated in many countries across Asia, including Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It originated in China as both a Taoist and a Buddhist festival (known as Yulanpen or Yu Lan Festival). The celebrations start on the 15th day of the seventh month in the Lunar Calendar and many festivities take place, including food offerings and Chinese opera. On Ghost Day families write their ancestors’ names on wooden lanterns and paper boats before placing them in a river, so their spirits will follow the lanterns as they float away. In Hong Kong, performers carry a long, decorated dragon through the streets as part of the celebrations, and several superstitions are heeded during the festival – including not hanging your clothes outside.

5. UK and Ireland: Samhain

Not Halloween as we know it, but many of the customs we practise today evolved from this Pagan festival. Pronounced ‘sow-en’, Samhain is a Gaelic holiday beckoning the ‘darker half’ of the year. It takes place on the evening of 31 October through to 1 November as the Celtic day begins and ends at sunset. According to Pagan tradition, in these hours the threshold between the living and the dead was at its thinnest, and Pagan gods were offered food and drink to ensure a blessed winter. Several end-of-year traditions including wassailing (carolling), mumming (folk plays), guising (trick-or-treating) and burning bonfires are also thought to have roots in Samhain.

A 19th-Century Irish legend that coincides with this holiday is that of Stingy Jack, who bested the devil but was consequently doomed to wander between Heaven and Hell with a flame in a turnip to light his way – hence why we have Jack-o’-Lanterns!

This article was published in October 2022 and updated in June 2023