When October ends, I find Americans outdoing each other in dressing up in scary costumes and consuming Gargantuan amounts of sugar.
Other cultures have different ways of marking a somber time of year.
My cousin’s photo, taken in a typical “forest cemetery” reminds me of an All Souls Eve I spent years ago in a cemetery in the Mayan city of Totonicapán in Guatemala. Families there, gathered for an all night vigil in honor of the departed, a time of quiet remembrance.
Dace’s photo, well worthy of 10,000 words, is of her family’s graves.
Evolving from paganism, Latvia’s “Days of Remembrance for the Deceased” are traditionally marked as Candlelight Evenings, during which time leaves are raked, graves are covered with spruce branches, and candles are lit in memory of loved ones.
A Latvian colleague uses a different term for this special time: Veļu laiks. It comes from Latvian folklore and lasts from the end of September to mid November.
According to tradition, this is “when the veļi -souls of the dead – come and check on us.” “We are supposed to treat them kindly, leaving some food and drink for them and lighting a candle in the evening to show that we remember them.”
Grok, the AI robot, puts it charmingly: Veļu laiks is when “the veil between worlds thins; ancestors return to visit the living.”
Unlike America’s Halloween, it is a silent time: There is to be “No loud work, spinning, or swearing.” It’s a “time of remembrance, respect, and ensuring ancestral blessings.”
As an adolescent in 50s America, Halloween was a time for mischief: soaping windows, toilet papering trees, and egging houses, etc. Besides this deviltry our goal was to collect as much candy as one could carry – two or three shopping bags full.
The practical jokes have waned somewhat what with parental escorts and security cameras. That’s all to the good.
Here’s hoping the trend away from mindless frivolity continues and we spend more time thinking of and honoring our ancestors .
N.B. For other essays on numerous other topics go to my Nucleus archive from 2010-early 2025.
© Copyright all text John Lubans 2025
I loved the way John reflected on the way different cultures revere their dead, especially the part about the “veil thinning between the two worlds”. Well done, John!