Talk:Geography of Halloween

Question

May I ask WHY Canada and the USA have a merged identity in this subject??? These are two very distinct countries and should be treated as such.

Also the section focuses about 80 percent on the USA while Canada gets a few mentions in between paragraphs :( JackRendar (talk) 15:04, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps thats why, there is not a lot of material about Canada. It needs expansion feel free to do it.Slatersteven (talk) 15:07, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks I think I will... when i get the time ;) JackRendar (talk) 23:58, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Halloween in Poland

For twenty years this festival is celebrated in Poland.

Take place in the various events, including in schools. Primary school children can come to school in costume. The homes are embellished above all windows and doors. Is not very popular to ask for candy —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.54.80.247 (talk) 15:39, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

As previously stated, you should add information about Halloween in Poland if you know about the customs and how Poland celebrates this event.--MrNiceGuy1113 (talk) 17:17, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Poland traditionally never observed Halloween and since its introduction it is seen as imported, culturally alien, holiday. Some may treat All Saints' Day as sad, but stating that this is the reason for scepticism is oversimplification at best. (AFAIK many people rather fear that it would turn All Saints' into shallow pop-cultural event in a similar manner to what happens with Christmas worldwide.) While some people indeed do celebrate it in Poland and I heard that even some schools organize some Halloween events, stating that many go trick-or-treating in big cities contradicts my experience of living in Warsaw where I meet such group only once. Therefore source for both claims would be welcome, but I believe the first one (the one regarding All Hallows' being sad observance) is invalid altogether. — mwgamera (talk) 21:04, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Moved content into "India" section

I moved some new content that was added to the main Halloween article by another user to the "India" subsection of this page. I didn't write it, it's generally unsourced, and I have no idea whatsoever if it is accurate. Please revise, tag, or delete as y'all see fit. It looks like something that probably ought to have it's own article, but it's better off here than in the main Halloween page IMO. DigitalHoodoo (talk) 20:02, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Cleanups

I added an {{articleissues}} tag. It was first added by another editor in Sept '09 combining other cleanup templates present, and removed not long after by an editor objecting that there was no talkpage section explaining the issue. The version it was removed from had 13 or so unreferenced sub/sections. {{refimprove}} was present from the earliest edit.

Existing cites may not be to authoritative WP:RSs or verify the text. For example, the Australian section starts out saying how it's frowned upon by some there and in the next sentence that it's "also considered an unwanted American influence". The cited newsarticles/op-ed & Brisbane tourism website's views of individual householders or religious groups/individual rectors or general commentary don't really back up what's said. Any original research or unpublished synthesis of published material through poor sourcing, lack of sourcing or piecing together disparate snippet sources would similarly be a problem.

An editor recently rearranged it by continent then countries/area so it wasn't a long list of countries. Restructuring, whether it involve common themes or influences, chronology, regional background etc might make for a better read & flow.

The initial version split from the "Halloween" article wasn't ever really properly sourced either. Rather than being written from sources originally, much of it was probably added at Halloween by people who, finding nothing about their own location added their own observations. –Whitehorse1 00:10, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

England

Although Halloween may have been observed in earlier times it had more or less died out in England in the post-war period. The modern practices especially the commercial ones are an American import in the last few decades. As a child growing up in the 1950s and 1960s halloween was a non-event. Occasionally there might have been Halloween parties (usually adults only) but these were fairly rare. Unfortunately I don't have any sources to back this up. Can anyone substantiate this? I would hate people to get the impression that Halloween was at that time a major social event in England on a par with Christmas, Bonfire Night etc but that certainly wasn't my impression. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.6.1.151 (talk) 17:09, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

British Isles

I note there is a major mistake and omission in the wikipedia article on Halloween in Ireland, which I hope someone will correct as it really undermines the usefulness of wikipedia. Halloween is not known as "Oíche Shamhna". If you are speaking in English it is known as "Halloween" - All Hallows Eve (i.e the day before All Saints Day). If you are speaking in Irish it is known as "Oíche Fhéile na Marbh" - the night of the feast of the dead.

Leaving aside the pedantry and giving a more "British Isles" perspective, I grew up as a child in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in the 60's and 70's and Halloween was a huge event.

When I went to live in Glasgow in the late 80's I was really surprised to find out that Halloween was not observed there at all (and obviously not in England either,nor Wales I presume). Up until then I presumed Halloween was celebrated everywhere, and I presumed we weren't any different. What became obvious to me is that the English and Scots used to celebrate Halloween (the clue is in the name) but at some point later on they switched it to Guy Fawkes day. Guy Fawkes / Bonfire night isn't observed in Ireland, it's unknown here. This is surprising because the bulk of Ireland's Protestants came from England and Scotland in the 17th and early 18th centuries when the controversies relating to Guy Fawkes and religion were still real, but they didn't bring Guy Fawkes day with them, they kept Halloween. And bearing in mind the similarities between the two, the conclusion can only be that Halloween wasn't fully switched to Guy Fawkes / bonfire night in England and Scotland until after the early 18th century.

Leaving aside the very ancient history, for us in Belfast and me as a child in the 60's and 70's Halloween was thus - in the days leading up we went around neighbours houses wearing "false faces", reciting the Halloween rhyme about the geese getting fat and putting a penny in the old man's hat. Most people gave a few pence, but some told us to bugger off. In the rural area where my grandparents lived people took us into their houses and gave us sweets or nuts ( I always preferred the money, myself) - we had no special name for this ritual.

On Halloween (and speaking as a Catholic here) we got out of school to go to mass during the day to pray for the "repose of the souls of the deceased", it being All Souls Day. All Souls Day / Halloween wasn't deemed "a holy day of obligation" by the Catholic church unlike the next day, All Saints day, when we had to go to mass again.

At home on the evening of Halloween all lights were turned out and candles were lit, including a candle in a hollowed out turnip with a face cut into it. We then had a children's party with sweets, toffee apples, sparklers, small boxes of "indoor fireworks", ducking for apples,etc. After that we went out into the darkness to frighten ourselves, and see if any ghosts would appear ( I don't think any did, but on a shadowy moonlit Halloween you might convince yourself you saw soemthing...). For me the whole thing fired the imagination, it was a magical, atmospeheric night.

Several thoughts occur to me now. Some people perceive Halloween as an American import, but there is little, if anything, in the American celebration that isn't recognised in this part of the British Isles (although when we went round for Halloween there was never such thing as a trick from those who gave, it was a treat or it was nothing). And, it isn't just the Americans, when I was a child Halloween also a had a commercial aspect here, you had to buy your "false face" from a shop, and in the lead up to Halloween the shops were full of them, along with toffee apples and sparklers, etc.

The only "American" thing that jars with me now is that I've seen houses in Belfast at this time of year with stickers on the windows saying "Happy Halloween", it strikes me as a typically American "have a nice day" type sentiment, and completely out of tune with the Halloween atmosphere - it's supposed to be about fear and excitement - not happiness, that's what Christmas is for. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.4.32.242 (talk) 01:57, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

India section

Recent additions appear to be a collection of cut-and-paste copyvios concerning, essentially, an unrelated Hindu festival. See here and here as examples. RashersTierney (talk) 20:57, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Vandalism

There is quite a lot of vandalism in the China section right now (e.g. 'China sucks'), could not somebody lock it ? 109.210.155.228 (talk) 12:55, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Inappropriate restoration of unsourced content and bad sourcing

In May 2010, an IP added unsourced content to the "Central and South America" section that was itself unsourced.[1] In November 2012 more unsourced content was added to the section.[2] At the time, I tagged the "Central and South America" section, along with several others, with {{tl|unreferenced section]}.[3] In May 2013 another editor tagged the subsections titled "Brazil" and "Colombia" individually.[4] On 1 November 2013, as much of the content had remained unsourced for well over three years, despite being challenged on to separate occasions in the preceding twelve months, I removed it as it was clear that nobody was going to bother providing citations. however, Mouseinphilly has persistently restored the section,[5][6][7][8] despite its removal by different editors. He has added citations, but all of these failed to support the claims made in the article:

1. [9] - fails to support "Saci is one of the most popular characters of the Brazilian folklore." it doesn't even mention Saci.
2. [10] does not support "Children dress up and visit their neighbours chanting "¡Triqui triqui halloween, Quiero dulces para mi, Si no hay dulces para mi, Se le crece la nariz!" (Tricky tricky halloween, I want candy for me, If there is no candy for me, Your nose will grow!)". "Triqui triqui" and associated text is not mentioned, nor is the English translation.
3. [11] - fails to support "The images and symbols commonly associated with Halloween (witches, skeletons, spider webs, pumpkins and so on) are faithfully represented Halloween celebrations." It mentions skeletons, but that is not the same thing.
4. [12] - also fails to support "The images and symbols commonly associated with Halloween (witches, skeletons, spider webs, pumpkins and so on) are faithfully represented Halloween celebrations." It too mentions skeletons, but again that is not the same thing.
5. [13] - fails to support "'Halloween' is by far the word used for the celebration". In fact it says "Halloween is known as 'El Dia de los Muertos.'" Fails to support "'Halloween' is by far the word used for the celebration, not only because the latter name is far more famous, but because there is already a Children's Day celebrated in Colombia on April's last Saturday." It doesn't even mention "Children's Day".

Realising that that Mouseinphilly was going to persistently restore the content, I decided to challenge the statements that required citations and mark the citations that failed verification.[14] However, Mouseinphilly has inappropriately removed all of the {{citation needed}} and {{failed verification}} tags.[15][16]

Citations need to directly support claims made and, per Wikipedia:Verifiability, "any material that needs a source but does not have one may be removed". It is simply not appropriate to persistently restore unsourced content that was legitimately removed and try to justify the restoration with citations that do not support the claims. Nor is it appropriate to remove {{citation needed}} and {{failed verification}} tags without replacing them with appropriate citations. --AussieLegend (✉) 19:01, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

In an edit to this article, I accidentally restored it. But I agree, such text must be removed because it is WP:OR and fails WP:V, and additionally, it's not even true. Epicgenius^{(give him tirade • check out damage)} 15:40, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Section seems subjective and irrelevant

Please see the final paragraph under "parades" about North Carolina. Though a news article is sourced, the paragraph bears no relevance to Halloween and seems to contain sarcastic, subjective language, presumably written by a jaded participant in the event. I move that it be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 167.206.174.75 (talk) 14:04, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Name of China section

Should the China section not be named "Hong Kong" or "China and Hong Kong"? It seems almost entirely based around Hong Kong and only mentions China briefly. Blue Edits (talk) 15:12, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

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Halloween in Colombia

Been doing some researching and searching about Halloween in Colombia. I found many links regarding, the influence of how Halloween came to Colombia, what is done through the various regions of Colombia, how certain regions keep some of the traditions of original Halloween. You can see them at the following. [17][18][19][20][21][22][23] It's weird as this is the only time adding something is tripping me up. It's the way I want to word it and make it concise that's tripping me up. Mr. C.C.^{Hey yo!}_{I didn't do it!} 16:44, 2 November 2023 (UTC)