By any estimation, it was an unusual experience. 2007, this was. A cluster of us gathered around a makeshift, plywood coffin, peering in at a friend who lay therein, his eyes closed and arms crossed around his exposed torso. The group’s ringmaster, dressed in a monkish robe and gazing at our mutual acquaintance through black-painted eyes, recited a few incantations before leaning over the face of the reposed and inserting a spoon, filled with “zombie paste,” into his mouth. Employing the help of his assistants, the non-monk closed the top half of the coffin, and per his instructions, the rest of us edged in, pounding on the closed box with hands and fists, and making riotous whooping sounds fit to raise the dead ”“ which, after all, was the point.
This task completed, the coffin was re-opened, and the man lying within wrested himself to his knees, stood and laughed. Then, he reached for a whiskey sour and got blasted.
Only on Halloween.
Clearly, it’s a strange circle in which I travel. Not every host would cobble together a handful of amateur actors to ring in the holiday with an arcane zombie-raising ritual culled from the Internet. As far as Halloween celebrations go, it was admittedly over-the-top; most adults who still play dress-up content themselves with costumes and cocktails, maybe a Jell-O treat molded in the shape of a severed finger. The rest, having consigned All Hallow’s Eve to their candy-crazed children, engage in something simpler: Carting the kiddies around to various neighborhoods, where they knock on neighbors’ doors to collect Snickers bars and Junior Mints ”“ all in preparation for ignoring their dentists’ warnings and gorging on treats until they slip into a semi-lucid sugar coma. You haven’t done Halloween right until you’ve lain groaning in a pile of empty Dum Dum wrappers, and begged for a swift and merciful death.
It’s an odd time of year, with odd traditions associated with it. Curious, I took to my laptop to see how different cultures choose to acknowledge this most ghoulish of holidays, expecting that no custom could be as strange as pounding on a fake coffin and quaffing Jim Beam while dressed as a decomposing pirate.
I was wrong.
Apparently there’s something about this time of year that inspires people to ratchet up the creepiness factor to a skin-crawling degree. Viewed objectively, sure, trick-or-treating is an off-beat practice; we’re so used to it, having been exposed to it at a young age, that we fail to see the ludicrousness of begging for Smarties in a ballerina tutu. But as strange as this custom is, it pales to how the people of the Czech Republic choose to mark Oct. 31. Each year, the Czechs place a series of chairs by the fireside ”“ one chair for each living family member, and one chair for each deceased family member’s spirit ”“ and then they just sorta sit there. What they do after this is ostensibly a mystery; I guess you’d have to ask a Czech what comes next. Backgammon with great-great-grandpa Olaf? Bizarre. I’m betting the conversation at these shindigs is disproportionately one-sided.
This is according to pimpkinpatchesandmore.org, which cites actual sources and references, like a big boy. And of course, as we all know, everything on the Internet is completely trustworthy. Wink, wink.
Assuming the site is on the up-and-up, it reveals some downright quirky traditions smattered across world cultures ”“ with one of the quirkiest coming from, of all places, England. You’d think English and American cultures would hew fairly closely to each other, since we split off from the mother country like a multiplying cell; but no, their Englishness goes beyond mere tea and crumpets. Instead of carving pumpkins, Anglo children carve designs into giant beets, which they call “punkies,” then carry their punkies through the streets while singing the “Punkie Night Song” and knocking on doors to beg for money. Not candy ”“ cash. There’s a kind of collective genius at work here. I wish the United States had adopted this moolah-centric practice when I was a child haunting neighbors’ doorsteps. Almond Joys and taffy squares are fantastic, don’t get me wrong, but if I’d come home with a bag full of money instead, I could have used the loot to purchase longer-lasting mementos of the holiday. Important kid stuff, like Spider-Man slap bracelets and fake vomit. I consider it a lost opportunity.
Never to be outdone in the strangeness department is China, which celebrates a Halloween-like festival called Teng Chieh. During this unpronounceable holiday, food and water are placed before photos of the dead, while bonfires and lanterns are lit to illuminate the paths of spirits as they travel the Earth. Now, it’s been my observation that dead people require significantly less food and water than do the living; you don’t see a lot of zombies ordering sliced ham at the deli counter. They also tend not to travel much, as most airlines still consider them checked luggage. But that’s not the topper. Teng Chieh’s crescendo comes when participants build giant boats out of paper, and then burn them to free those spirits whose bodies were never buried. The connection between freed spirits and life-sized origami boats has never been made clear. Maybe ghosts are afraid of the ocean. Too many jellyfish and whatnot. It’s understandable.
Yeah, I know, I’m a jackass. Here are these cultures honoring the memories of lost loved ones, and here I am squirting water at them from the plastic flower on my lapel. Yet it’s clearly the time of year for off-the-charts weird, and it seems none among us are exempt ”“ least of all me and my coffin-thumping ways. Maybe the long, slow slide from autumn into winter just gives us all the willies, and this is how we react: Mammoth beets, empty chairs, paper boats and blood-sucking vampires. Sounds like a party at Nicholas Cage’s house.
So have fun trick-or-treating, folks. On this day, it’s about the most normal activity there is.
— Jeff Lagasse is a staff writer and columnist for the Journal Tribune. Either he or his monster-skeleton-mutant-succubus alter-ego can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 319 or jlagasse@journaltribune.com.
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