Did you know that • Halloween

In recent years, the Halloween party or the so-called “Witches' Night” has been gaining ground in our country. A festive night, where boys and girls go out into the city to ask for sweets dressed as vampires, witches or ghosts, and where adolescents and adults celebrate with activities based on this theme.

But the truth is that its origins go back far beyond our borders.

Historians have linked this celebration to a Celtic ritual called Samhain, which celebrated the end of summer and the beginning of winter. A day -they believed- where the border between the living and the dead was blurred, and where the souls returned to Earth to visit those close to them. In these ceremonies, people wore masks to avoid being recognized by evil spirits and lit bonfires to ward off bad harvests.

Over time, this tradition -whose name comes from the English phrase "All Hallows' Eve", which means eve of all saints- settled in the United States, after the migration of the Irish to said territory in the nineteenth century. This is where some variations in the celebration appear, such as the phrase “trick or treat” or the classic image of the scarecrow placed in the houses.

This is the largest non-religious holiday in that country, while in Chile it has become a reason for celebration for adults and children.