Magic for festivals

Festivals are the days when a community performs its magic in public. Samhain and Halloween, Walpurgis night, Midsummer, Beltane, Day of the Dead, Nowruz fire-jumping, Diwali, Chinese Ghost Festival, Obon in Japan, Songkran, Carnival and the Burning Man gathering all combine religion, play and custom. This page asks what they do for communities and how they have changed. Many of them are tied to the moon or the sun, and they set the shared calendar of a village or a nation.

Fire, the dead and the season

Festivals cluster around turning points of the year. Fire is common: bonfires on Midsummer in Europe, Chaharshanbe Suri in Iran, Holika in India. The dead return in many: Samhain in Ireland, Obon in Japan, the Day of the Dead in Mexico, the Hungry Ghost Festival in China. In each, offerings of food, light and welcome are set out. Many involve masks, drums, processions and a shared meal, so that rites for protection and fertility become collective events open to the whole village.

Order and inversion

Many festivals allow a licensed breach of the rules. Carnival turns social order upside down, and masquerades in West Africa, such as Egungun among the Yoruba, bring ancestors to the village in cloth. Anthropologists see this as a way to renew order. Some, such as Holi, blur class lines for a day, though real divisions often persist. Within each festival there is usually a night when the dead or the spirits are thought to be close, and a day of celebration after it.

Church and state

Authorities have banned, absorbed and taxed festivals. The Church placed All Saints on the first of November and recast older rites. Puritan England banned Christmas for a time. Communist states discouraged ancestor and spirit festivals, while modern governments often list them as cultural heritage and promote them for tourism. Mexico's Day of the Dead was inscribed by UNESCO in 2008. Many are marked by a day of rest, a shared meal and the lighting of lamps or fires, and children often take a lively role.

Spectacle and respect

Large festivals bring crowds, risk and commerce. Halloween is now a global market, and parts of the Day of the Dead have been staged for visitors and film. Communities often ask guests to behave as guests, especially at rites for the dead or at sacred sites. Safety around fire, crowds and costume deserves care. Anthropologists observe that festivals teach each new generation what the community values, and that changes in a festival often show changes in the community.

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

Ognyena Maria: Unknown author, Public domain, source

Krampus: Naturpuur, CC BY-SA 4.0, source

Matsyendranath: Unknown author, Public domain, source

Azazel: Louis Le Breton, Public domain, source

John Frum: Tim Ross, CC BY 3.0, source

Befana: El Ágora, Public domain, source

Marabout: Jan Broekhuijse, CC BY-SA 3.0, source

Dongyue Dadi: H2v5o68z, CC0, source

Ravana: Gita Press Gorakhpur, CC0, source

Vesna: Viktor Vasnetsov, Public domain, source

Morana: Marta Malina Moraczewska, CC BY-SA 4.0, source

Tam Lin: Richard Webb, CC BY-SA 2.0, source

Zwarte Piet: The illustrator is Daan Hoeksma, who died in 1935. The author is liste, Public domain, source

Caloian: Costică Acsinte Archive, No restrictions, source

Jack O'The Lantern: Bodrugan, CC BY-SA 3.0, source

Djákninn á Myrká: Théodore Meyer-Heine / Jules Worms, Public domain, source

Festivals: practices that mark them