Santino, Jack, ed. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee
Press, 1994 (reprint, , 2000). 280 pp. $18.95 (USD). ISBN:
0-87049-813-4.
[1] The mystique of the most occult-oriented
event of the North American calendar draws peopležscholars
and lay-people alikežto Santino's ground-breaking collection
of essays loosely organized around the topic of Halloween,
as does the style and presentation of this particular text,
which covers a broad spectrum.
[2] Santino opens the discussion with a
very personal, almost chatty, introduction. He describes how
his interest in the topic grew, leading to his formal study
of Halloween customs in the 1970s. He whimsically puzzles
over the fact that Halloween has grown into one of the most
celebrated holidays on the calendar, and yet there remains
no vacation day for it. He mentions various facets of the
holiday, including its representation of the juxtaposition
of life and death through the symbols of harvest and winter.
Halloween also can be seen as a rite of passage as people
age, and is seen in widely differing lights by different groups
from Wiccans to the Christian Right. In all, Santino explains
that the diversity of approaches in his text should be read
as an indication of the richness of the subject and thus the
book can be seen as a preliminary step in the formal study
of this popular holiday.
[3] The text is divided into three sections
("Customs," "Communities," and "Material
Culture"), although these do not form rigid boundaries
and seem to add nothing to the volume. Santino himself acknowledges
that there is a fair amount of cross-over between some essays
and the rather arbitrary headings.
In the lead-off essay ("Harvest, Halloween,
and Hogmanay: Acculturation in Some Calendar Customs of the
Ulster Scots")žparticularly dry after Santino's lively
introductionžPhilip Robinson compares Halloween to other yearly
events, arguing that all of the events complete the symbolic
cycle of life and death. Bill Ellis ("ŠSafe' Spooks:
New Halloween Traditions in Response to Sadism Legends")
examines the way Halloween has evolved in light of "Sadistic
treat" legendsžsuch as the razor-in-the-apple myth, and
the Satan scare of the 1980sžand argues that the increasingly
stringent security measures enforced for "safe"
trick-or-treating represent adults wresting control from children
in a degradation of the role-reversal so integral to the symbolism
of the holiday. Based on a series of interviews, Steve Siporin
("Halloween Pranks: ŠJust a Little Inconvenience'")
describes the difference between urban and rural celebrations
of Halloween, with the former emphasising tick-or-treating
and the latter centred on "pranking," and concludes
that the pranks are a remnant of an archetypal need to warn
farmers of the upcoming winter. The last article in the first
section (Tad Teluja's "'Trick or Treat' Pre-Texts and
Contexts") examines the historical roots of Halloween
and its evolution into the North American holiday of trick-or-treating,
and concludes (like Ellis) that the Halloween tradition has
evolved from a religious festival into a part of the modern
corporate machine, reflecting the society within which it
grows.
[4] The second section of the book ("Community")
continues the theme of the modern corporate takeover of what
was once a holiday ruled by children, indicating the pointlessness
of the headings. Russell Belk ("Carnival, Control, and
Corporate Culture in Contemporary Halloween Celebrations")
describes the evolving removal of all "carnivalesque"
elements of Halloween in an attempt to control and subdue
potential rowdy elements; for example, companies harness the
mystique of Halloween to encourage employee loyalty. In an
interesting ethnographic study that may be of limited general
application, Michael Taft ("Adult Halloween Celebrations
on the Canadian Prairies") addresses "mumming"
practices of some rural Canadians in Saskatchewan, noting
that Canadian prairie farmers do not associate Halloween with
the end of harvest in the way that American farmers might
(since the harvest ends much earlier in Canada then it does
further south). In an ethnographic study conducted over a
number of years, Jack Kugelmas ("Wishes Can Come True:
Designing the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade") reports
on the bawdy parades and "promenades" of Greenwich
village in which the emphasis has less to do with religious
enchantment and more to do with the license they provide (and
as is found in other carnival-type settings).
[5] The final two articles make up the third
and final section of the book ("Material Culture").
The first by Carl Holmberg (whimsically titled "Things
That Go Snap-Rattle-Clang-Toot-Crank in the Night") begins
glibly with an anecdote from childhood but becomes more professional
when analysing the importance of Halloween noise-makers (popular
in the 1950s but virtually nonexistent now), concluding that
children used noise-makers as a power tool in the adult-child
inversion typical of the season but overlooking the next step
(reached by others in this collection) that the lack of such
noise-makers today may be a symptom of the seizure of control
by adults. The final article (Grey Gundaker's, "Halloween
Imagery in Two Southern Settings"), drawing on observations
from two disparate situations (the use of Halloween decorations
at children's grave sites, and as year-long warning signs
on the houses of certain African-Americans), concludes that
both uses create a space where the living and the dead can
coexist through the symbols of Halloween, ending the collection
nicely by forcing readers to think about the impact of Halloween
images at a very emotional level.
[6] Because the volume includes more than
discussions of Halloween, there are a few articles that don't
seem to fit well. Catherine Schwoeffermann's contribution
("Bonfire Night in Brigus, Newfoundland"), which
only tangentially relates to Halloween in that Bonfire Night
can be linked to Guy Fawkes' Dayžwhich can in turn be linked
back to Halloweenžis an ethnographic study of the kind of
role-inversion that takes place during this season as, in
this case, adolescents take charge of constructing huge community
bonfires. In another essay not directly related to Halloweenžand
one that is overwhelming in detail but not especially interestingžKay
Turner and Pat Jasper ("Day of the Dead: The Tex-Mex
Tradition") describe the differences between the Mexican
and Texan variations of this observance. The article by A.
W. Salder ("The Seasonal Context of Halloween: Vermont's
Unwritten Law") fails to establish its point clearly;
while it seems to argue that Vermont farmers attach a different
significance to Halloween than do people elsewhere, it focuses
instead on the fact that hunting season begins just after
Halloween, establishing a connection with death in that context
rather than one assumed to exist with Halloween.
[7] In all, this book provides the reader
with a wide array of ideas and approaches to the study of
a very popular North American tradition which has its roots
in those of other cultures and times. Halloween traditions
continue to evolve and change, though the meaning behind the
tradition seems to be a constant one of inversion and upheaval.
The essays, while of varying degrees of usefulness, can be
of interest to scholars in a numbers of different fields,
including religion, anthropology, folklore, sociology, and
popular culture, and is certainly a very useful resource for
anyone interested in pursuing a study of Halloween specifically,
especially as a foundation for further research. Despite the
failings of some articles within this collection, and a minor
criticism of the way in which they were laid out, Santino's
Halloween and Other Festivals of Death and Life remains
an important work almost a decade after its first publication.
Christopher Moreman
University of Wales, Lampeter
c_moreman@hotmail.com
