Description: Check out our other new and used items>>>>>HERE! (click me) FOR SALE:A retired and hard-to-find Halloween time product HALLOWEEN COSTUME CONTEST SKELETON TROPHIES (6 PACK) DETAILS:And the award goes to......Get ready to elevate your Halloween costume contest with this fantastic 6-pack of Halloween-themed award trophies with labels! These trophies are perfect for adding an extra touch of excitement and recognition to your spooky celebrations. Whether you're hosting a party, school event, or neighborhood gathering, these trophies will surely delight and inspire. Features: ◆Set of 6 Halloween costume contest award trophies ◆3 unique gold tone skeleton statuette trophy designs ◆Each design includes 2 trophies: 2 anatomical position skeletons, 2 humorous skeletons holding their own skull, and 2 skeletons holding a traditional jack-o'-lantern ◆Label sticker sheet includes 2 "Scariest Costume", 2 "Funniest Costume", 2 "Creative Costume" ◆Made of lightweight plastic for easy handling and display Add a touch of spooktacular charm and make your costume contest truly memorable with these eye-catching trophies. With their distinctive skeleton designs and labels, these trophies are the perfect way to recognize and reward the efforts of the participants in your Halloween event. Dimensions:Height: 6-1/2"Base Diameter: 2-1/8" The anatomical position skeleton's skull reminds us a bit of a cross between a the robotic skeletons from The Terminator series and the alien robot the Iron Giant. CONDITION:New in package. These Halloween costume contest trophies are new in the box; however, due to their close proximity during storage, some trophies may have acquired minor paint scuffs (photo #13 shows an example). These scuffs are only superficial and do not affect the overall appearance or functionality of the trophies. Please see photos.To ensure safe delivery all items are carefully packaged before shipping out. THANK YOU FOR LOOKING. QUESTIONS? JUST ASK.*ALL PHOTOS AND TEXT ARE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OF SIDEWAYS STAIRS CO. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.* "Halloween or Hallowe'en (less commonly known as Allhalloween,[5] All Hallows' Eve,[6] or All Saints' Eve)[7] is a celebration observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Saints' Day. It begins the observance of Allhallowtide,[8] the time in the liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all the faithful departed.[9][10][11][12] One theory holds that many Halloween traditions were influenced by Celtic harvest festivals, particularly the Gaelic festival Samhain, which are believed to have pagan roots.[13][14][15][16] Some go further and suggest that Samhain may have been Christianized as All Hallow's Day, along with its eve, by the early Church.[17] Other academics believe Halloween began solely as a Christian holiday, being the vigil of All Hallow's Day.[18][19][20][21] Celebrated in Ireland and Scotland for centuries, Irish and Scottish immigrants took many Halloween customs to North America in the 19th century,[22][23] and then through American influence Halloween had spread to other countries by the late 20th and early 21st century.[24][25] Popular Halloween activities include trick-or-treating (or the related guising and souling), attending Halloween costume parties, carving pumpkins or turnips into jack-o'-lanterns, lighting bonfires, apple bobbing, divination games, playing pranks, visiting haunted attractions, telling scary stories, and watching horror or Halloween-themed films.[26] Some people practice the Christian religious observances of All Hallows' Eve, including attending church services and lighting candles on the graves of the dead,[27][28][29] although it is a secular celebration for others.[30][31][32] Some Christians historically abstained from meat on All Hallows' Eve, a tradition reflected in the eating of certain vegetarian foods on this vigil day, including apples, potato pancakes, and soul cakes.[33][34][35][36] Etymology "Halloween" (1785) by Scottish poet Robert Burns, recounts various legends of the holiday. The word Halloween or Hallowe'en ("Saints' evening"[37]) is of Christian origin;[38][39] a term equivalent to "All Hallows Eve" is attested in Old English.[40] The word hallowe[']en comes from the Scottish form of All Hallows' Eve (the evening before All Hallows' Day):[41] even is the Scots term for "eve" or "evening",[42] and is contracted to e'en or een;[43] (All) Hallow(s) E(v)en became Hallowe'en. History Christian origins and historic customs Halloween is thought to have influences from Christian beliefs and practices.[44][45] The English word 'Halloween' comes from "All Hallows' Eve", being the evening before the Christian holy days of All Hallows' Day (All Saints' Day) on 1 November and All Souls' Day on 2 November.[46] Since the time of the early Church,[47] major feasts in Christianity (such as Christmas, Easter and Pentecost) had vigils that began the night before, as did the feast of All Hallows'.[48][44] These three days are collectively called Allhallowtide and are a time when Western Christians honour all saints and pray for recently departed souls who have yet to reach Heaven. Commemorations of all saints and martyrs were held by several churches on various dates, mostly in springtime.[49] In 4th-century Roman Edessa it was held on 13 May, and on 13 May 609, Pope Boniface IV re-dedicated the Pantheon in Rome to "St Mary and all martyrs".[50] This was the date of Lemuria, an ancient Roman festival of the dead.[51] In the 8th century, Pope Gregory III (731–741) founded an oratory in St Peter's for the relics "of the holy apostles and of all saints, martyrs and confessors".[44][52] Some sources say it was dedicated on 1 November,[53] while others say it was on Palm Sunday in April 732.[54][55] By 800, there is evidence that churches in Ireland[56] and Northumbria were holding a feast commemorating all saints on 1 November.[57] Alcuin of Northumbria, a member of Charlemagne's court, may then have introduced this 1 November date in the Frankish Empire.[58] In 835, it became the official date in the Frankish Empire.[57] Some suggest this was due to Celtic influence, while others suggest it was a Germanic idea,[57] although it is claimed that both Germanic and Celtic-speaking peoples commemorated the dead at the beginning of winter.[59] They may have seen it as the most fitting time to do so, as it is a time of 'dying' in nature.[57][59] It is also suggested the change was made on the "practical grounds that Rome in summer could not accommodate the great number of pilgrims who flocked to it", and perhaps because of public health concerns over Roman Fever, which claimed a number of lives during Rome's sultry summers.[60][44] On All Hallows' Eve, Christians in some parts of the world visit cemeteries to pray and place flowers and candles on the graves of their loved ones.[61] Top: Christians in Bangladesh lighting candles on the headstone of a relative. Bottom: Lutheran Christians praying and lighting candles in front of the central crucifix of a graveyard. By the end of the 12th century, the celebration had become known as the holy days of obligation in Western Christianity and involved such traditions as ringing church bells for souls in purgatory. It was also "customary for criers dressed in black to parade the streets, ringing a bell of mournful sound and calling on all good Christians to remember the poor souls".[62] The Allhallowtide custom of baking and sharing soul cakes for all christened souls,[63] has been suggested as the origin of trick-or-treating.[64] The custom dates back at least as far as the 15th century[65] and was found in parts of England, Wales, Flanders, Bavaria and Austria.[66] Groups of poor people, often children, would go door-to-door during Allhallowtide, collecting soul cakes, in exchange for praying for the dead, especially the souls of the givers' friends and relatives. This was called "souling".[65][67][68] Soul cakes were also offered for the souls themselves to eat,[66] or the 'soulers' would act as their representatives.[69] As with the Lenten tradition of hot cross buns, soul cakes were often marked with a cross, indicating they were baked as alms.[70] Shakespeare mentions souling in his comedy The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1593).[71] While souling, Christians would carry "lanterns made of hollowed-out turnips", which could have originally represented souls of the dead;[72][73] jack-o'-lanterns were used to ward off evil spirits.[74][75] On All Saints' and All Souls' Day during the 19th century, candles were lit in homes in Ireland,[76] Flanders, Bavaria, and in Tyrol, where they were called "soul lights",[77] that served "to guide the souls back to visit their earthly homes".[78] In many of these places, candles were also lit at graves on All Souls' Day.[77] In Brittany, libations of milk were poured on the graves of kinfolk,[66] or food would be left overnight on the dinner table for the returning souls;[77] a custom also found in Tyrol and parts of Italy.[79][77] Christian minister Prince Sorie Conteh linked the wearing of costumes to the belief in vengeful ghosts: "It was traditionally believed that the souls of the departed wandered the earth until All Saints' Day, and All Hallows' Eve provided one last chance for the dead to gain vengeance on their enemies before moving to the next world. In order to avoid being recognized by any soul that might be seeking such vengeance, people would don masks or costumes".[80] In the Middle Ages, churches in Europe that were too poor to display relics of martyred saints at Allhallowtide let parishioners dress up as saints instead.[81][82] Some Christians observe this custom at Halloween today.[83] Lesley Bannatyne believes this could have been a Christianization of an earlier pagan custom.[84] Many Christians in mainland Europe, especially in France, believed "that once a year, on Hallowe'en, the dead of the churchyards rose for one wild, hideous carnival" known as the danse macabre, which was often depicted in church decoration.[85] Christopher Allmand and Rosamond McKitterick write in The New Cambridge Medieval History that the danse macabre urged Christians "not to forget the end of all earthly things".[86] The danse macabre was sometimes enacted in European village pageants and court masques, with people "dressing up as corpses from various strata of society", and this may be the origin of Halloween costume parties.[87][88][89][72] In Britain, these customs came under attack during the Reformation, as Protestants berated purgatory as a "popish" doctrine incompatible with the Calvinist doctrine of predestination. State-sanctioned ceremonies associated with the intercession of saints and prayer for souls in purgatory were abolished during the Elizabethan reform, though All Hallow's Day remained in the English liturgical calendar to "commemorate saints as godly human beings".[90] For some Nonconformist Protestants, the theology of All Hallows' Eve was redefined; "souls cannot be journeying from Purgatory on their way to Heaven, as Catholics frequently believe and assert. Instead, the so-called ghosts are thought to be in actuality evil spirits".[91] Other Protestants believed in an intermediate state known as Hades (Bosom of Abraham).[92] In some localities, Catholics and Protestants continued souling, candlelit processions, or ringing church bells for the dead;[46][93] the Anglican church eventually suppressed this bell-ringing.[94] Mark Donnelly, a professor of medieval archaeology, and historian Daniel Diehl write that "barns and homes were blessed to protect people and livestock from the effect of witches, who were believed to accompany the malignant spirits as they traveled the earth".[95] After 1605, Hallowtide was eclipsed in England by Guy Fawkes Night (5 November), which appropriated some of its customs.[96] In England, the ending of official ceremonies related to the intercession of saints led to the development of new, unofficial Hallowtide customs. In 18th–19th century rural Lancashire, Catholic families gathered on hills on the night of All Hallows' Eve. One held a bunch of burning straw on a pitchfork while the rest knelt around him, praying for the souls of relatives and friends until the flames went out. This was known as teen'lay.[97] There was a similar custom in Hertfordshire, and the lighting of 'tindle' fires in Derbyshire.[98] Some suggested these 'tindles' were originally lit to "guide the poor souls back to earth".[99] In Scotland and Ireland, old Allhallowtide customs that were at odds with Reformed teaching were not suppressed as they "were important to the life cycle and rites of passage of local communities" and curbing them would have been difficult.[22] In parts of Italy until the 15th century, families left a meal out for the ghosts of relatives, before leaving for church services.[79] In 19th-century Italy, churches staged "theatrical re-enactments of scenes from the lives of the saints" on All Hallow's Day, with "participants represented by realistic wax figures".[79] In 1823, the graveyard of Holy Spirit Hospital in Rome presented a scene in which bodies of those who recently died were arrayed around a wax statue of an angel who pointed upward towards heaven.[79] In the same country, "parish priests went house-to-house, asking for small gifts of food which they shared among themselves throughout that night".[79] In Spain, they continue to bake special pastries called "bones of the holy" (Spanish: Huesos de Santo) and set them on graves.[100] At cemeteries in Spain and France, as well as in Latin America, priests lead Christian processions and services during Allhallowtide, after which people keep an all night vigil.[101] In 19th-century San Sebastián, there was a procession to the city cemetery at Allhallowtide, an event that drew beggars who "appeal[ed] to the tender recollectons of one's deceased relations and friends" for sympathy.[102] Gaelic folk influence An early 20th-century Irish Halloween mask displayed at the Museum of Country Life Today's Halloween customs are thought to have been influenced by folk customs and beliefs from the Celtic-speaking countries, some of which are believed to have pagan roots.[103] Jack Santino, a folklorist, writes that "there was throughout Ireland an uneasy truce existing between customs and beliefs associated with Christianity and those associated with religions that were Irish before Christianity arrived".[104] The origins of Halloween customs are typically linked to the Gaelic festival Samhain.[105] Samhain is one of the quarter days in the medieval Gaelic calendar and has been celebrated on 31 October – 1 November[106] in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man.[107][108] A kindred festival has been held by the Brittonic Celts, called Calan Gaeaf in Wales, Kalan Gwav in Cornwall and Kalan Goañv in Brittany; a name meaning "first day of winter". For the Celts, the day ended and began at sunset; thus the festival begins the evening before 1 November by modern reckoning.[109] Samhain is mentioned in some of the earliest Irish literature. The names have been used by historians to refer to Celtic Halloween customs up until the 19th century,[110] and are still the Gaelic and Welsh names for Halloween. Snap-Apple Night, painted by Daniel Maclise in 1833, shows people feasting and playing divination games on Halloween in Ireland.[111] Samhain marked the end of the harvest season and beginning of winter or the 'darker half' of the year.[112][113] It was seen as a liminal time, when the boundary between this world and the Otherworld thinned. This meant the Aos Sí, the 'spirits' or 'fairies', could more easily come into this world and were particularly active.[114][115] Most scholars see them as "degraded versions of ancient gods [...] whose power remained active in the people's minds even after they had been officially replaced by later religious beliefs".[116] They were both respected and feared, with individuals often invoking the protection of God when approaching their dwellings.[117][118] At Samhain, the Aos Sí were appeased to ensure the people and livestock survived the winter. Offerings of food and drink, or portions of the crops, were left outside for them.[119][120][121] The souls of the dead were also said to revisit their homes seeking hospitality.[122] Places were set at the dinner table and by the fire to welcome them.[123] The belief that the souls of the dead return home on one night of the year and must be appeased seems to have ancient origins and is found in many cultures.[66] In 19th century Ireland, "candles would be lit and prayers formally offered for the souls of the dead. After this the eating, drinking, and games would begin".[124] Throughout Ireland and Britain, especially in the Celtic-speaking regions, the household festivities included divination rituals and games intended to foretell one's future, especially regarding death and marriage.[125] Apples and nuts were often used, and customs included apple bobbing, nut roasting, scrying or mirror-gazing, pouring molten lead or egg whites into water, dream interpretation, and others.[126] Special bonfires were lit and there were rituals involving them. Their flames, smoke, and ashes were deemed to have protective and cleansing powers.[112] In some places, torches lit from the bonfire were carried sunwise around homes and fields to protect them.[110] It is suggested the fires were a kind of imitative or sympathetic magic – they mimicked the Sun and held back the decay and darkness of winter.[123][127][128] They were also used for divination and to ward off evil spirits.[74] In Scotland, these bonfires and divination games were banned by the church elders in some parishes.[129] In Wales, bonfires were also lit to "prevent the souls of the dead from falling to earth".[130] Later, these bonfires "kept away the devil".[131] photograph A plaster cast of a traditional Irish Halloween turnip (rutabaga) lantern on display in the Museum of Country Life, Ireland[132] From at least the 16th century,[133] the festival included mumming and guising in Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man and Wales.[134] This involved people going house-to-house in costume (or in disguise), usually reciting verses or songs in exchange for food. It may have originally been a tradition whereby people impersonated the Aos Sí, or the souls of the dead, and received offerings on their behalf, similar to 'souling'. Impersonating these beings, or wearing a disguise, was also believed to protect oneself from them.[135] In parts of southern Ireland, the guisers included a hobby horse. A man dressed as a Láir Bhán (white mare) led youths house-to-house reciting verses – some of which had pagan overtones – in exchange for food. If the household donated food it could expect good fortune from the 'Muck Olla'; not doing so would bring misfortune.[136] In Scotland, youths went house-to-house with masked, painted or blackened faces, often threatening to do mischief if they were not welcomed.[134] F. Marian McNeill suggests the ancient festival included people in costume representing the spirits, and that faces were marked or blackened with ashes from the sacred bonfire.[133] In parts of Wales, men went about dressed as fearsome beings called gwrachod.[134] In the late 19th and early 20th century, young people in Glamorgan and Orkney cross-dressed.[134] Elsewhere in Europe, mumming was part of other festivals, but in the Celtic-speaking regions, it was "particularly appropriate to a night upon which supernatural beings were said to be abroad and could be imitated or warded off by human wanderers".[134] From at least the 18th century, "imitating malignant spirits" led to playing pranks in Ireland and the Scottish Highlands. Wearing costumes and playing pranks at Halloween did not spread to England until the 20th century.[134] Pranksters used hollowed-out turnips or mangel wurzels as lanterns, often carved with grotesque faces.[134] By those who made them, the lanterns were variously said to represent the spirits,[134] or used to ward off evil spirits.[137][138] They were common in parts of Ireland and the Scottish Highlands in the 19th century,[134] as well as in Somerset (see Punkie Night). In the 20th century they spread to other parts of Britain and became generally known as jack-o'-lanterns.[134] Spread to North America The annual New York Halloween Parade in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, is the world's largest Halloween parade, with millions of spectators annually, and has its roots in New York’s queer community.[139] Lesley Bannatyne and Cindy Ott write that Anglican colonists in the southern United States and Catholic colonists in Maryland "recognized All Hallow's Eve in their church calendars",[140][141] although the Puritans of New England strongly opposed the holiday, along with other traditional celebrations of the established Church, including Christmas.[142] Almanacs of the late 18th and early 19th century give no indication that Halloween was widely celebrated in North America.[22] It was not until after mass Irish and Scottish immigration in the 19th century that Halloween became a major holiday in America.[22] Most American Halloween traditions were inherited from the Irish and Scots,[23][143] though "In Cajun areas, a nocturnal Mass was said in cemeteries on Halloween night. Candles that had been blessed were placed on graves, and families sometimes spent the entire night at the graveside".[144] Originally confined to these immigrant communities, it was gradually assimilated into mainstream society and was celebrated coast to coast by people of all social, racial, and religious backgrounds by the early 20th century.[145] Then, through American influence, these Halloween traditions spread to many other countries by the late 20th and early 21st century, including to mainland Europe and some parts of the Far East.[24][25][146] Symbols At Halloween, yards, public spaces, and some houses may be decorated with traditionally macabre symbols including skeletons, ghosts, cobwebs, headstones, and scary looking witches. Development of artifacts and symbols associated with Halloween formed over time. Jack-o'-lanterns are traditionally carried by guisers on All Hallows' Eve in order to frighten evil spirits.[73][147] There is a popular Irish Christian folktale associated with the jack-o'-lantern,[148] which in folklore is said to represent a "soul who has been denied entry into both heaven and hell":[149] On route home after a night's drinking, Jack encounters the Devil and tricks him into climbing a tree. A quick-thinking Jack etches the sign of the cross into the bark, thus trapping the Devil. Jack strikes a bargain that Satan can never claim his soul. After a life of sin, drink, and mendacity, Jack is refused entry to heaven when he dies. Keeping his promise, the Devil refuses to let Jack into hell and throws a live coal straight from the fires of hell at him. It was a cold night, so Jack places the coal in a hollowed out turnip to stop it from going out, since which time Jack and his lantern have been roaming looking for a place to rest.[150] In Ireland and Scotland, the turnip has traditionally been carved during Halloween,[151][152] but immigrants to North America used the native pumpkin, which is both much softer and much larger, making it easier to carve than a turnip.[151] The American tradition of carving pumpkins is recorded in 1837[153] and was originally associated with harvest time in general, not becoming specifically associated with Halloween until the mid-to-late 19th century.[154] Decorated house in Weatherly, Pennsylvania The modern imagery of Halloween comes from many sources, including Christian eschatology, national customs, works of Gothic and horror literature (such as the novels Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus and Dracula) and classic horror films such as Frankenstein (1931) and The Mummy (1932).[155][156] Imagery of the skull, a reference to Golgotha in the Christian tradition, serves as "a reminder of death and the transitory quality of human life" and is consequently found in memento mori and vanitas compositions;[157] skulls have therefore been commonplace in Halloween, which touches on this theme.[158] Traditionally, the back walls of churches are "decorated with a depiction of the Last Judgment, complete with graves opening and the dead rising, with a heaven filled with angels and a hell filled with devils", a motif that has permeated the observance of this triduum.[159] One of the earliest works on the subject of Halloween is from Scottish poet John Mayne, who, in 1780, made note of pranks at Halloween; "What fearfu' pranks ensue!", as well as the supernatural associated with the night, "bogles" (ghosts),[160] influencing Robert Burns' "Halloween" (1785).[161] Elements of the autumn season, such as pumpkins, corn husks, and scarecrows, are also prevalent. Homes are often decorated with these types of symbols around Halloween. Halloween imagery includes themes of death, evil, and mythical monsters.[162] Black cats, which have been long associated with witches, are also a common symbol of Halloween. Black, orange, and sometimes purple are Halloween's traditional colors.[163] Trick-or-treating and guising Main article: Trick-or-treating Trick-or-treaters in Sweden Trick-or-treating is a customary celebration for children on Halloween. Children go in costume from house to house, asking for treats such as candy or sometimes money, with the question, "Trick or treat?" The word "trick" implies a "threat" to perform mischief on the homeowners or their property if no treat is given.[64] The practice is said to have roots in the medieval practice of mumming, which is closely related to souling.[164] John Pymm wrote that "many of the feast days associated with the presentation of mumming plays were celebrated by the Christian Church."[165] These feast days included All Hallows' Eve, Christmas, Twelfth Night and Shrove Tuesday.[166][167] Mumming practiced in Germany, Scandinavia and other parts of Europe,[168] involved masked persons in fancy dress who "paraded the streets and entered houses to dance or play dice in silence".[169] Girl in a Halloween costume in 1928, Ontario, Canada, the same province where the Scottish Halloween custom of guising was first recorded in North America In England, from the medieval period,[170] up until the 1930s,[171] people practiced the Christian custom of souling on Halloween, which involved groups of soulers, both Protestant and Catholic,[93] going from parish to parish, begging the rich for soul cakes, in exchange for praying for the souls of the givers and their friends.[67] In the Philippines, the practice of souling is called Pangangaluluwa and is practiced on All Hallow's Eve among children in rural areas.[26] People drape themselves in white cloths to represent souls and then visit houses, where they sing in return for prayers and sweets.[26] In Scotland and Ireland, guising – children disguised in costume going from door to door for food or coins – is a traditional Halloween custom.[172] It is recorded in Scotland at Halloween in 1895 where masqueraders in disguise carrying lanterns made out of scooped out turnips, visit homes to be rewarded with cakes, fruit, and money.[152][173] In Ireland, the most popular phrase for kids to shout (until the 2000s) was "Help the Halloween Party".[172] The practice of guising at Halloween in North America was first recorded in 1911, where a newspaper in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, reported children going "guising" around the neighborhood.[174] American historian and author Ruth Edna Kelley of Massachusetts wrote the first book-length history of Halloween in the US; The Book of Hallowe'en (1919), and references souling in the chapter "Hallowe'en in America".[175] In her book, Kelley touches on customs that arrived from across the Atlantic; "Americans have fostered them, and are making this an occasion something like what it must have been in its best days overseas. All Halloween customs in the United States are borrowed directly or adapted from those of other countries".[176] While the first reference to "guising" in North America occurs in 1911, another reference to ritual begging on Halloween appears, place unknown, in 1915, with a third reference in Chicago in 1920.[177] The earliest known use in print of the term "trick or treat" appears in 1927, in the Blackie Herald, of Alberta, Canada.[178] An automobile trunk at a trunk-or-treat event at St. John Lutheran Church and Early Learning Center in Darien, Illinois The thousands of Halloween postcards produced between the turn of the 20th century and the 1920s commonly show children but not trick-or-treating.[179] Trick-or-treating does not seem to have become a widespread practice in North America until the 1930s, with the first US appearances of the term in 1934,[180] and the first use in a national publication occurring in 1939.[181] A popular variant of trick-or-treating, known as trunk-or-treating (or Halloween tailgating), occurs when "children are offered treats from the trunks of cars parked in a church parking lot", or sometimes, a school parking lot.[100][182] In a trunk-or-treat event, the trunk (boot) of each automobile is decorated with a certain theme,[183] such as those of children's literature, movies, scripture, and job roles.[184] Trunk-or-treating has grown in popularity due to its perception as being more safe than going door to door, a point that resonates well with parents, as well as the fact that it "solves the rural conundrum in which homes [are] built a half-mile apart".[185][186] Costumes Main article: Halloween costume Halloween costumes were traditionally modeled after figures such as vampires, ghosts, skeletons, scary looking witches, and devils.[64] Over time, the costume selection extended to include popular characters from fiction, celebrities, and generic archetypes such as ninjas and princesses. Halloween shop in Derry, Northern Ireland, selling masks Dressing up in costumes and going "guising" was prevalent in Scotland and Ireland at Halloween by the late 19th century.[152] A Scottish term, the tradition is called "guising" because of the disguises or costumes worn by the children.[173] In Ireland and Scotland, the masks are known as 'false faces',[38][187] a term recorded in Ayr, Scotland in 1890 by a Scot describing guisers: "I had mind it was Halloween . . . the wee callans were at it already, rinning aboot wi’ their fause-faces (false faces) on and their bits o’ turnip lanthrons (lanterns) in their haun (hand)".[38] Costuming became popular for Halloween parties in the US in the early 20th century, as often for adults as for children, and when trick-or-treating was becoming popular in Canada and the US in the 1920s and 1930s.[178][188] Eddie J. Smith, in his book Halloween, Hallowed is Thy Name, offers a religious perspective to the wearing of costumes on All Hallows' Eve, suggesting that by dressing up as creatures "who at one time caused us to fear and tremble", people are able to poke fun at Satan "whose kingdom has been plundered by our Saviour". Images of skeletons and the dead are traditional decorations used as memento mori.[189][190] "Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF" is a fundraising program to support UNICEF,[64] a United Nations Programme that provides humanitarian aid to children in developing countries. Started as a local event in a Northeast Philadelphia neighborhood in 1950 and expanded nationally in 1952, the program involves the distribution of small boxes by schools (or in modern times, corporate sponsors like Hallmark, at their licensed stores) to trick-or-treaters, in which they can solicit small-change donations from the houses they visit. It is estimated that children have collected more than $118 million for UNICEF since its inception. In Canada, in 2006, UNICEF decided to discontinue their Halloween collection boxes, citing safety and administrative concerns; after consultation with schools, they instead redesigned the program.[191][192] The yearly New York's Village Halloween Parade was begun in 1974; it is the world's largest Halloween parade and America's only major nighttime parade, attracting more than 60,000 costumed participants, two million spectators, and a worldwide television audience.[193] Since the late 2010s, ethnic stereotypes as costumes have increasingly come under scrutiny in the United States.[194] Such and other potentially offensive costumes have been met with increasing public disapproval.[195][196] Pet costumes According to a 2018 report from the National Retail Federation, 30 million Americans will spend an estimated $480 million on Halloween costumes for their pets in 2018. This is up from an estimated $200 million in 2010. The most popular costumes for pets are the pumpkin, followed by the hot dog, and the bumblebee in third place.[197] Games and other activities In this 1904 Halloween greeting card, divination is depicted: the young woman looking into a mirror in a darkened room hopes to catch a glimpse of her future husband. There are several games traditionally associated with Halloween. Some of these games originated as divination rituals or ways of foretelling one's future, especially regarding death, marriage and children. During the Middle Ages, these rituals were done by a "rare few" in rural communities as they were considered to be "deadly serious" practices.[198] In recent centuries, these divination games have been "a common feature of the household festivities" in Ireland and Britain.[125] They often involve apples and hazelnuts. In Celtic mythology, apples were strongly associated with the Otherworld and immortality, while hazelnuts were associated with divine wisdom.[199] Some also suggest that they derive from Roman practices in celebration of Pomona.[64] Children bobbing for apples at Hallowe'en The following activities were a common feature of Halloween in Ireland and Britain during the 17th–20th centuries. Some have become more widespread and continue to be popular today. One common game is apple bobbing or dunking (which may be called "dooking" in Scotland)[200] in which apples float in a tub or a large basin of water and the participants must use only their teeth to remove an apple from the basin. A variant of dunking involves kneeling on a chair, holding a fork between the teeth and trying to drive the fork into an apple. Another common game involves hanging up treacle or syrup-coated scones by strings; these must be eaten without using hands while they remain attached to the string, an activity that inevitably leads to a sticky face. Another once-popular game involves hanging a small wooden rod from the ceiling at head height, with a lit candle on one end and an apple hanging from the other. The rod is spun round and everyone takes turns to try to catch the apple with their teeth.[201] Image from the Book of Hallowe'en (1919) showing several Halloween activities, such as nut roasting Several of the traditional activities from Ireland and Britain involve foretelling one's future partner or spouse. An apple would be peeled in one long strip, then the peel tossed over the shoulder. The peel is believed to land in the shape of the first letter of the future spouse's name.[202][203] Two hazelnuts would be roasted near a fire; one named for the person roasting them and the other for the person they desire. If the nuts jump away from the heat, it is a bad sign, but if the nuts roast quietly it foretells a good match.[204][205] A salty oatmeal bannock would be baked; the person would eat it in three bites and then go to bed in silence without anything to drink. This is said to result in a dream in which their future spouse offers them a drink to quench their thirst.[206] Unmarried women were told that if they sat in a darkened room and gazed into a mirror on Halloween night, the face of their future husband would appear in the mirror.[207] The custom was widespread enough to be commemorated on greeting cards[208] from the late 19th century and early 20th century. Another popular Irish game was known as púicíní ("blindfolds"); a person would be blindfolded and then would choose between several saucers. The item in the saucer would provide a hint as to their future: a ring would mean that they would marry soon; clay, that they would die soon, perhaps within the year; water, that they would emigrate; rosary beads, that they would take Holy Orders (become a nun, priest, monk, etc.); a coin, that they would become rich; a bean, that they would be poor.[209][210][211][212] The game features prominently in the James Joyce short story "Clay" (1914).[213][214][215] In Ireland and Scotland, items would be hidden in food – usually a cake, barmbrack, cranachan, champ or colcannon – and portions of it served out at random. A person's future would be foretold by the item they happened to find; for example, a ring meant marriage and a coin meant wealth.[216] Up until the 19th century, the Halloween bonfires were also used for divination in parts of Scotland, Wales and Brittany. When the fire died down, a ring of stones would be laid in the ashes, one for each person. In the morning, if any stone was mislaid it was said that the person it represented would not live out the year.[110] Telling ghost stories, listening to Halloween-themed songs and watching horror films are common fixtures of Halloween parties. Episodes of television series and Halloween-themed specials (with the specials usually aimed at children) are commonly aired on or before Halloween, while new horror films are often released before Halloween to take advantage of the holiday. Haunted attractions Main article: Haunted attraction (simulated) Humorous tombstones in front of a house in California Humorous display window in Historic 25th Street, Ogden, Utah Haunted attractions are entertainment venues designed to thrill and scare patrons. Most attractions are seasonal Halloween businesses that may include haunted houses, corn mazes, and hayrides,[217] and the level of sophistication of the effects has risen as the industry has grown. The first recorded purpose-built haunted attraction was the Orton and Spooner Ghost House, which opened in 1915 in Liphook, England. This attraction actually most closely resembles a carnival fun house, powered by steam.[218][219] The House still exists, in the Hollycombe Steam Collection. It was during the 1930s, about the same time as trick-or-treating, that Halloween-themed haunted houses first began to appear in America. It was in the late 1950s that haunted houses as a major attraction began to appear, focusing first on California. Sponsored by the Children's Health Home Junior Auxiliary, the San Mateo Haunted House opened in 1957. The San Bernardino Assistance League Haunted House opened in 1958. Home haunts began appearing across the country during 1962 and 1963. In 1964, the San Manteo Haunted House opened, as well as the Children's Museum Haunted House in Indianapolis.[220] The haunted house as an American cultural icon can be attributed to the opening of The Haunted Mansion in Disneyland on 12 August 1969.[221] Knott's Berry Farm began hosting its own Halloween night attraction, Knott's Scary Farm, which opened in 1973.[222] Evangelical Christians adopted a form of these attractions by opening one of the first "hell houses" in 1972.[223] The first Halloween haunted house run by a nonprofit organization was produced in 1970 by the Sycamore-Deer Park Jaycees in Clifton, Ohio. It was cosponsored by WSAI, an AM radio station broadcasting out of Cincinnati, Ohio. It was last produced in 1982.[224] Other Jaycees followed suit with their own versions after the success of the Ohio house. The March of Dimes copyrighted a "Mini haunted house for the March of Dimes" in 1976 and began fundraising through their local chapters by conducting haunted houses soon after. Although they apparently quit supporting this type of event nationally sometime in the 1980s, some March of Dimes haunted houses have persisted until today.[225] On the evening of 11 May 1984, in Jackson Township, New Jersey, the Haunted Castle (Six Flags Great Adventure) caught fire. As a result of the fire, eight teenagers perished.[226] The backlash to the tragedy was a tightening of regulations relating to safety, building codes and the frequency of inspections of attractions nationwide. The smaller venues, especially the nonprofit attractions, were unable to compete financially, and the better funded commercial enterprises filled the vacuum.[227][228] Facilities that were once able to avoid regulation because they were considered to be temporary installations now had to adhere to the stricter codes required of permanent attractions.[229][230][231] In the late 1980s and early 1990s, theme parks entered the business seriously. Six Flags Fright Fest began in 1986 and Universal Studios Florida began Halloween Horror Nights in 1991. Knott's Scary Farm experienced a surge in attendance in the 1990s as a result of America's obsession with Halloween as a cultural event. Theme parks have played a major role in globalizing the holiday. Universal Studios Singapore and Universal Studios Japan both participate, while Disney now mounts Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party events at its parks in Paris, Hong Kong and Tokyo, as well as in the United States.[232] The theme park haunts are by far the largest, both in scale and attendance.[233] Food Pumpkins for sale during Halloween On All Hallows' Eve, many Western Christian denominations encourage abstinence from meat, giving rise to a variety of vegetarian foods associated with this day.[234] A candy apple Because in the Northern Hemisphere Halloween comes in the wake of the yearly apple harvest, candy apples (known as toffee apples outside North America), caramel apples or taffy apples are common Halloween treats made by rolling whole apples in a sticky sugar syrup, sometimes followed by rolling them in nuts. At one time, candy apples were commonly given to trick-or-treating children, but the practice rapidly waned in the wake of widespread rumors that some individuals were embedding items like pins and razor blades in the apples in the United States.[235] While there is evidence of such incidents,[236] relative to the degree of reporting of such cases, actual cases involving malicious acts are extremely rare and have never resulted in serious injury. Nonetheless, many parents assumed that such heinous practices were rampant because of the mass media. At the peak of the hysteria, some hospitals offered free X-rays of children's Halloween hauls in order to find evidence of tampering. Virtually all of the few known candy poisoning incidents involved parents who poisoned their own children's candy.[237] One custom that persists in modern-day Ireland is the baking (or more often nowadays, the purchase) of a barmbrack (Irish: báirín breac), which is a light fruitcake, into which a plain ring, a coin, and other charms are placed before baking.[238] It is considered fortunate to be the lucky one who finds it.[238] It has also been said that those who get a ring will find their true love in the ensuing year. This is similar to the tradition of king cake at the festival of Epiphany. A jack-o'-lantern Halloween cake with a witches hat List of foods associated with Halloween: Barmbrack (Ireland) Bonfire toffee (Great Britain) Candy apples/toffee apples (Great Britain and Ireland) Candy apples, candy corn, candy pumpkins (North America) Chocolate Monkey nuts (peanuts in their shells) (Ireland and Scotland) Caramel apples Caramel corn Colcannon (Ireland; see below) Halloween cake Sweets/candy Novelty candy shaped like skulls, pumpkins, bats, worms, etc. Roasted pumpkin seeds Roasted sweet corn Soul cakes Pumpkin Pie Christian religious observances The Vigil of All Hallows' is being celebrated at an Episcopal Christian church on Hallowe'en On Hallowe'en (All Hallows' Eve), in Poland, believers were once taught to pray out loud as they walk through the forests in order that the souls of the dead might find comfort; in Spain, Christian priests in tiny villages toll their church bells in order to remind their congregants to remember the dead on All Hallows' Eve.[239] In Ireland, and among immigrants in Canada, a custom includes the Christian practice of abstinence, keeping All Hallows' Eve as a meat-free day and serving pancakes or colcannon instead.[240] In Mexico children make an altar to invite the return of the spirits of dead children (angelitos).[241] The Christian Church traditionally observed Hallowe'en through a vigil. Worshippers prepared themselves for feasting on the following All Saints' Day with prayers and fasting.[242] This church service is known as the Vigil of All Hallows or the Vigil of All Saints;[243][244] an initiative known as Night of Light seeks to further spread the Vigil of All Hallows throughout Christendom.[245][246] After the service, "suitable festivities and entertainments" often follow, as well as a visit to the graveyard or cemetery, where flowers and candles are often placed in preparation for All Hallows' Day.[247][248] In Finland, because so many people visit the cemeteries on All Hallows' Eve to light votive candles there, they "are known as valomeri, or seas of light".[249] Halloween Scripture Candy with gospel tract Today, Christian attitudes towards Halloween are diverse. In the Anglican Church, some dioceses have chosen to emphasize the Christian traditions associated with All Hallow's Eve.[250][251] Some of these practices include praying, fasting and attending worship services.[1][2][3] O LORD our God, increase, we pray thee, and multiply upon us the gifts of thy grace: that we, who do prevent the glorious festival of all thy Saints, may of thee be enabled joyfully to follow them in all virtuous and godly living. Through Jesus Christ, Our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen. —Collect of the Vigil of All Saints, The Anglican Breviary[252] Votive candles in the Halloween section of Walmart Other Protestant Christians also celebrate All Hallows' Eve as Reformation Day, a day to remember the Protestant Reformation, alongside All Hallow's Eve or independently from it.[253] This is because Martin Luther is said to have nailed his Ninety-five Theses to All Saints' Church in Wittenberg on All Hallows' Eve.[254] Often, "Harvest Festivals" or "Reformation Festivals" are held on All Hallows' Eve, in which children dress up as Bible characters or Reformers.[255] In addition to distributing candy to children who are trick-or-treating on Hallowe'en, many Christians also provide gospel tracts to them. One organization, the American Tract Society, stated that around 3 million gospel tracts are ordered from them alone for Hallowe'en celebrations.[256] Others order Halloween-themed Scripture Candy to pass out to children on this day.[257][258] Belizean children dressed up as Biblical figures and Christian saints Some Christians feel concerned about the modern celebration of Halloween because they feel it trivializes – or celebrates – paganism, the occult, or other practices and cultural phenomena deemed incompatible with their beliefs.[259] Father Gabriele Amorth, an exorcist in Rome, has said, "if English and American children like to dress up as witches and devils on one night of the year that is not a problem. If it is just a game, there is no harm in that."[260] In more recent years, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston has organized a "Saint Fest" on Halloween.[261] Similarly, many contemporary Protestant churches view Halloween as a fun event for children, holding events in their churches where children and their parents can dress up, play games, and get candy for free. To these Christians, Halloween holds no threat to the spiritual lives of children: being taught about death and mortality, and the ways of the Celtic ancestors actually being a valuable life lesson and a part of many of their parishioners' heritage.[262] Christian minister Sam Portaro wrote that Halloween is about using "humor and ridicule to confront the power of death".[263] In the Roman Catholic Church, Halloween's Christian connection is acknowledged, and Halloween celebrations are common in many Catholic parochial schools in the United States.[264][265] Many fundamentalist and evangelical churches use "Hell houses" and comic-style tracts in order to make use of Halloween's popularity as an opportunity for evangelism.[266] Others consider Halloween to be completely incompatible with the Christian faith due to its putative origins in the Festival of the Dead celebration.[267] Indeed, even though Eastern Orthodox Christians observe All Hallows' Day on the First Sunday after Pentecost, The Eastern Orthodox Church recommends the observance of Vespers or a Paraklesis on the Western observance of All Hallows' Eve, out of the pastoral need to provide an alternative to popular celebrations.[268] Analogous celebrations and perspectives Judaism According to Alfred J. Kolatch in the Second Jewish Book of Why, in Judaism, Halloween is not permitted by Jewish Halakha because it violates Leviticus 18:3, which forbids Jews from partaking in gentile customs. Many Jews observe Yizkor communally four times a year, which is vaguely similar to the observance of Allhallowtide in Christianity, in the sense that prayers are said for both "martyrs and for one's own family".[269] Nevertheless, many American Jews celebrate Halloween, disconnected from its Christian origins.[270] Reform Rabbi Jeffrey Goldwasser has said that "There is no religious reason why contemporary Jews should not celebrate Halloween" while Orthodox Rabbi Michael Broyde has argued against Jews' observing the holiday.[271] Purim has sometimes been compared to Halloween, in part due to some observants wearing costumes, especially of Biblical figures described in the Purim narrative.[272] Islam Sheikh Idris Palmer, author of A Brief Illustrated Guide to Understanding Islam, has ruled that Muslims should not participate in Halloween, stating that "participation in Halloween is worse than participation in Christmas, Easter, ... it is more sinful than congratulating the Christians for their prostration to the crucifix".[273] It has also been ruled to be haram by the National Fatwa Council of Malaysia because of its alleged pagan roots stating "Halloween is celebrated using a humorous theme mixed with horror to entertain and resist the spirit of death that influence humans".[274][275] Dar Al-Ifta Al-Missriyyah disagrees provided the celebration is not referred to as an 'eid' and that behaviour remains in line with Islamic principles.[276] Hinduism Hindus remember the dead during the festival of Pitru Paksha, during which Hindus pay homage to and perform a ceremony "to keep the souls of their ancestors at rest". It is celebrated in the Hindu month of Bhadrapada, usually in mid-September.[277] The celebration of the Hindu festival Diwali sometimes conflicts with the date of Halloween; but some Hindus choose to participate in the popular customs of Halloween.[278] Other Hindus, such as Soumya Dasgupta, have opposed the celebration on the grounds that Western holidays like Halloween have "begun to adversely affect our indigenous festivals".[279] Neopaganism There is no consistent rule or view on Halloween amongst those who describe themselves as Neopagans or Wiccans. Some Neopagans do not observe Halloween, but instead observe Samhain on 1 November,[280] some neopagans do enjoy Halloween festivities, stating that one can observe both "the solemnity of Samhain in addition to the fun of Halloween". Some neopagans are opposed to the celebration of Hallowe'en, stating that it "trivializes Samhain",[281] and "avoid Halloween, because of the interruptions from trick or treaters".[282] The Manitoban writes that "Wiccans don't officially celebrate Halloween, despite the fact that 31 Oct. will still have a star beside it in any good Wiccan's day planner. Starting at sundown, Wiccans celebrate a holiday known as Samhain. Samhain actually comes from old Celtic traditions and is not exclusive to Neopagan religions like Wicca. While the traditions of this holiday originate in Celtic countries, modern day Wiccans don't try to historically replicate Samhain celebrations. Some traditional Samhain rituals are still practised, but at its core, the period is treated as a time to celebrate darkness and the dead – a possible reason why Samhain can be confused with Halloween celebrations."[280] Geography Main article: Geography of Halloween Halloween display in Kobe, Japan The traditions and importance of Halloween vary greatly among countries that observe it. In Scotland and Ireland, traditional Halloween customs include children dressing up in costume going "guising", holding parties, while other practices in Ireland include lighting bonfires, and having firework displays.[172][283][284] In Brittany children would play practical jokes by setting candles inside skulls in graveyards to frighten visitors.[285] Mass transatlantic immigration in the 19th century popularized Halloween in North America, and celebration in the United States and Canada has had a significant impact on how the event is observed in other nations.[172] This larger North American influence, particularly in iconic and commercial elements, has extended to places such as Brazil, Ecuador, Chile,[286] Australia,[287] New Zealand,[288] (most) continental Europe, Finland,[289] Japan, and other parts of East Asia." (wikipedia.org) "A trophy is a tangible, durable reminder of a specific achievement, and serves as a recognition or evidence of merit. Trophies are often awarded for sporting events, from youth sports to professional level athletics. In many sports medals (or, in North America, rings) are often given out either as the trophy or along with more traditional trophies....Etymology Further information: Tropaion Trophies have marked victories since ancient times. The word trophy, coined in English in 1550, was derived from the French trophée in 1513, "a prize of war", from Old French trophee, from Latin trophaeum, monument to victory, variant of tropaeum, which in turn is the latinisation of the Greek τρόπαιον (tropaion),[2] the neuter of τροπαῖος (tropaios), "of defeat" or "for defeat", but generally "of a turning" or "of a change",[3] from τροπή (tropē), "a turn, a change"[4] and that from the verb τρέπω (trepo), "to turn, to alter".[5][6] In ancient Greece, trophies were made on the battlefields of victorious battles, from captured arms and standards, and were hung upon a tree or a large stake made to resemble a warrior. Often, these ancient trophies were inscribed with a story of the battle and were dedicated to various gods. Trophies made about naval victories sometimes consisted of entire ships (or what remained of them) laid out on the beach. To destroy a trophy was considered a sacrilege.[7] The ancient Romans kept their trophies closer to home. The Romans built magnificent trophies in Rome, including columns and arches atop a foundation. Most of the stone trophies that once adorned huge stone memorials in Rome have been long since stolen.History In ancient Greece, the winners of the Olympic games initially received no trophies except laurel wreaths. Later the winner also received an amphora with sacred olive oil. In local games, the winners received different trophies, such as a tripod vase, a bronze shield or a silver cup. In ancient Rome, money usually was given to winners instead of trophies. Chalices were given to winners of sporting events at least as early as the very late 1600s in the New World. For example, the Kyp Cup (made by silversmith Jesse Kyp), a small, two-handled, sterling cup in the Henry Ford Museum, was given to the winner of a horse race between two towns in New England in about 1699. Chalices, particularly, are associated with sporting events, and were traditionally made in silver. Winners of horse races, and later boating and early automobile races, were the typical recipients of these trophies. The Davis Cup, Stanley Cup, America's Cup and numerous World Cups are all now famous cup-shaped trophies given to sports winners.[8] Today, the most common trophies are much less expensive, and thus much more pervasive, thanks to mass-produced plastic/resin trophies. The oldest sports trophies in the world are the Carlisle Bells, a horse racing trophy dating back to 1559 and 1599 and were first awarded by Elizabeth I. The race has been run for over 400 years in Carlisle, Cumbria, United Kingdom. The bells are on show at the local museum, Tullie House, which houses a variety of historic artifacts from the area from Roman legions to present day. Types Trophy for the 1934 Melbourne Cup. The trophy is an example of a loving cup-styled trophy, with three handles attached to the bowl. Contemporary trophies often depict an aspect of the event commemorated, for example in basketball tournaments, the trophy takes the shape of a basketball player, or a basketball. Trophies have been in the past objects of use such as two-handled cups, bowls, or mugs (all usually engraved); or representations such as statues of people, animals, and architecture while displaying words, numbers or images. While trophies traditionally have been made with metal figures, wood columns, and wood bases, in recent years they have been made with plastic figures and marble bases. This is to retain the weight traditionally associated with a quality award and make them more affordable to use as recognition items. Trophies increasingly have used resin depictions. The Academy Awards Oscar is a trophy with a stylized human; the Hugo Award for science fiction is a space ship; and the Wimbledon awards for its singles champions are a large loving cup for men and a large silver plate for women. A loving-cup trophy is a common variety of trophy; it is a cup shape, usually on a pedestal, with two or more handles, and is often made from silver or silver plate.[10][11] Hunting trophies are reminders of successes from hunting animals, such as an animal's head mounted to be hung on a wall. There's also people who get their animals Taxidermy, where you can have just the head, or you can have the full animal stuffed; and put out for show. Perpetual trophies are held by the winner until the next event, when the winner must compete again in order to keep the trophy. In some competitions winners in a certain number of consecutive or non-consecutive events receive the trophy or its copy in permanent ownership. Sporting Trophies have been awarded for team, or individual accomplishments in sports. Many combat sports, such as boxing, mixed martial arts, and professional wrestling use championship belts as trophies; however, unlike most of the trophies mentioned below, a new one is not created every time a new champion is crowned; rather, the new champion takes the belt from the old one." (wikipedia.org) "An award, sometimes called a distinction, is something given to a recipient as a token of recognition of excellence in a certain field.[1][2] When the token is a medal, ribbon or other item designed for wearing, it is known as a decoration. An award may be described by three aspects: 1) who is given 2) what 3) by whom, all varying according to purpose. The recipient is often an individual, such as a student or athlete, or a representative of a group of people, be it an organisation, a sports team or a whole country. The award item may be a decoration, that is an insignia suitable for wearing, such as a medal, badge, or rosette (award). It can also be a token object such as certificate, diploma, championship belt, trophy, or plaque. The award may also be or be accompanied by a title of honor, as well as an object of direct value such as prize money or a scholarship. Furthermore, an honorable mention is an award given, typically in education, that does not confer the recipient(s) a higher standing but is considered worth mentioning in an honourable way. An award may be conferred as a state decoration by sovereign state, dynasty or other public authority (see fount of honour), or else a private organisation or individual. The latter may also include ecclesiastical authorities, such as in the case of ecclesiastical awards. For example, the Nobel Prize recognizes contributions to society, while the Pulitzer prize honors literary achievements. An award may also simply be a public acknowledgment of excellence, without any tangible token or prize. Awards for sports tournaments often take the form of cups, following a tradition harking back to the ancient Greek tripod given to winners in athletic contests.[3] The Stanley Cup is a modern example. In contrast, awards for employee recognition often take the form of plaques or crystal pieces.[4] An award may carry a monetary prize given to the recipient. Finally, an award may recognize participation rather than victory. There is controversy regarding the appropriateness of participation awards for students in United States schools.[5] A relative field to awards is phal eristics, an auxiliary sciences of history auxiliary science of history and numismatics which studies orders, fraternity fraternities and Award or decoration award items, such as medals and other decorations." (wikipedia.org) "Trick-or-treating is a traditional Halloween custom for children and adults in some countries. During the evening of Halloween, on October 31, people in costumes travel from house to house, asking for treats with the phrase "trick or treat". The "treat" is some form of confectionery, usually candy/sweets, although in some cultures money is given instead. The "trick" refers to a threat, usually idle, to perform mischief on the resident(s) or their property if no treat is given. Some people signal that they are willing to hand out treats by putting up Halloween decorations outside their doors; houses may also leave their porch lights on as a universal indicator that they have candy; some simply leave treats available on their porches for the children to take freely, on the honor system. The history of trick-or-treating traces back to Scotland and Ireland, where the tradition of guising, going house to house at Halloween and putting on a small performance to be rewarded with food or treats, goes back at least as far as the 16th century, as does the tradition of people wearing costumes at Halloween. There are many accounts from 19th-century Scotland and Ireland of people going house to house in costume at Halloween, reciting verses in exchange for food, and sometimes warning of misfortune if they were not welcomed.[1][2] In North America, the earliest known occurrence of guising – children going from house to house for food or money while disguised in costume[2] – is from 1911, when children were recorded as having done this in the province of Ontario, Canada.[3] The interjection "trick or treat!" was then first recorded in the same Canadian province of Ontario in 1917. While going house to house in costume has long been popular among the Scots and Irish, it is only in the 2000s that saying "trick or treat" has become common in Scotland and Ireland.[4] Prior to this, children in Ireland would commonly say "help the Halloween party" at the doors of homeowners.[4] The activity is prevalent in the Anglospheric countries of the United Kingdom, Ireland, the United States, Canada, and Australia. It also has extended into Mexico. In northwestern and central Mexico, the practice is called calaverita (Spanish diminutive for calavera, "skull" in English), and instead of "trick or treat", the children ask, "¿Me da mi calaverita?" ("[Can you] give me my little skull?"), where a calaverita is a small skull made of sugar or chocolate. History Ancient precursors Traditions similar to the modern custom of trick-or-treating extend all the way back to classical antiquity, although it is extremely unlikely that any of them are directly related to the modern custom. The ancient Greek writer Athenaeus of Naucratis records in his book The Deipnosophists that, in ancient times, the Greek island of Rhodes had a custom in which children would go from door-to-door dressed as swallows, singing a song, which demanded the owners of the house to give them food and threatened to cause mischief if the owners of the house refused.[5][6][7] This tradition was claimed to have been started by the Rhodian lawgiver Cleobulus.[8] Souling Since the Middle Ages, a tradition of mumming on a certain holiday has existed in parts of Britain and Ireland. It involved going door-to-door in costume, performing short scenes or parts of plays in exchange for food or drink. The custom of trick-or-treating on Halloween may come from the belief that supernatural beings, or the souls of the dead, roamed the earth at this time and needed to be appeased. "A soul-cake, a soul-cake, have mercy on all Christian souls for a soul-cake." — a popular English souling rhyme[9] It may otherwise have originated in a Celtic festival, Samhain, held on 31 October–1 November, to mark the beginning of winter, in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man, and Calan Gaeaf in Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany. The festival is believed to have pre-Christian roots. In the 9th century, the Catholic Church made 1 November All Saints' Day. Among Celtic-speaking peoples, it was seen as a liminal time, when the spirits or fairies (the Aos Sí), and the souls of the dead, came into our world and were appeased with offerings of food and drink. Similar beliefs and customs were found in other parts of Europe. It is suggested that trick-or-treating evolved from a tradition whereby people impersonated the spirits, or the souls of the dead, and received offerings on their behalf. S. V. Peddle suggests they "personify the old spirits of the winter, who demanded reward in exchange for good fortune".[10] Impersonating these spirits or souls was also believed to protect oneself from them.[11] Starting as far back as the 15th century, among Christians, there had been a custom of sharing soul-cakes at Allhallowtide (October 31 through November 2).[12][13] People would visit houses and take soul-cakes, either as representatives of the dead, or in return for praying for their souls.[14] Later, people went "from parish to parish at Halloween, begging soul-cakes by singing under the windows some such verse as this: 'Soul, souls, for a soul-cake; Pray you good mistress, a soul-cake!'"[15] They typically asked for "mercy on all Christian souls for a soul-cake".[16] It was known as 'Souling' and was recorded in parts of Britain, Flanders, southern Germany, and Austria.[17] Shakespeare mentions the practice in his comedy The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1593), when Speed accuses his master of "puling [whimpering or whining] like a beggar at Hallowmas".[18] In western England, mostly in the counties bordering Wales, souling was common.[13] According to one 19th century English writer "parties of children, dressed up in fantastic costume […] went round to the farm houses and cottages, singing a song, and begging for cakes (spoken of as "soal-cakes"), apples, money, or anything that the goodwives would give them".[19] Guising "Guising" redirects here. For other uses, see Guising (disambiguation). Halloween shop in Derry, Northern Ireland. Halloween masks are called ‘false faces’ in Ireland and Scotland. In Scotland and Ireland, "guising" – children going from door to door in disguise – is traditional, and a gift in the form of food, coins or "apples or nuts for the Halloween party" (and in more recent times, chocolate) is given out to the children.[4][20][21] The tradition is called "guising" because of the disguises or costumes worn by the children.[2][22] In the West Mid Scots dialect, guising is known as "galoshans".[23] In Scotland, youths went house to house in white with masked, painted or blackened faces, reciting rhymes and often threatening to do mischief if they were not welcomed.[24][25] Guising has been recorded in Scotland since the 16th century, often at New Year. The Kirk Session records of Elgin name men and women who danced at New Year 1623. Six men, described as guisers or "gwysseris" performed a sword dance wearing masks and visors covering their faces in the churchyard and in the courtyard of a house. They were each fined 40 shillings.[26] A record of guising at Halloween in Scotland in 1895 describes masqueraders in disguise carrying lanterns made out of scooped out turnips, visit homes to be rewarded with cakes, fruit, and money.[27] In Ireland, children in costumes would commonly say "Help the Halloween Party" at the doors of homeowners.[4][28] Halloween masks are referred to as "false faces" in Ireland and Scotland.[29][30] A writer using Scots language recorded guisers in Ayr, Scotland in 1890: I had mind it was Halloween . . . the wee callans were at it already, rinning aboot wi’ their fause-faces (false faces) on and their bits o’ turnip lanthrons (lanterns) in their haun (hand).[30] Guising also involved going to wealthy homes, and in the 1920s, boys went guising at Halloween up to the affluent Thorntonhall, South Lanarkshire.[31] An account of guising in the 1950s in Ardrossan, North Ayrshire, records a child receiving 12 shillings and sixpence, having knocked on doors throughout the neighbourhood and performed.[32] Growing up in Derry, Northern Ireland in the 1960s, The Guardian journalist Michael Bradley recalls children asking, “Any nuts or apples?”.[33] In Scotland and Ireland, the children are only supposed to receive treats if they perform a party trick for the households they go to. This normally takes the form of singing a song or reciting a joke or a funny poem which the child has memorised before setting out.[32][20] While going from door to door in disguise has remained popular among Scots and Irish at Halloween, the North American saying "trick-or-treat" has become common in the 2000s.[4][28] Spread to North America Girl in a Halloween costume in 1928 in Ontario, Canada, the same province where the Scottish Halloween custom of "guising" is first recorded in North America The earliest known occurrence of the practice of guising at Halloween in North America is from 1911, when a newspaper in Kingston, Ontario, Canada reported on children going "guising" around the neighborhood.[3] American historian and author Ruth Edna Kelley of Massachusetts wrote the first book length history of the holiday in the US; The Book of Hallowe'en (1919), and references souling in the chapter "Hallowe'en in America"; "The taste in Hallowe'en festivities now is to study old traditions, and hold a Scotch party, using Burn's poem Hallowe'en as a guide; or to go a-souling as the English used. In short, no custom that was once honored at Hallowe'en is out of fashion now."[34] Kelley lived in Lynn, Massachusetts, a town with 4,500 Irish immigrants, 1,900 English immigrants, and 700 Scottish immigrants in 1920.[35] In her book, Kelley touches on customs that arrived from across the Atlantic; "Americans have fostered them, and are making this an occasion something like what it must have been in its best days overseas. All Hallowe'en customs in the United States are borrowed directly or adapted from those of other countries".[36] While the first reference to "guising" in North America occurs in 1911, another reference to ritual begging on Halloween appears, place unknown, in 1915, with a third reference in Chicago in 1920.[37] The emergence of "Trick or treat!" The interjection "Trick or treat!" — a request for sweets or candy, originally and sometimes still with the implication that anyone who is asked and who does not provide sweets or other treats will be subjected to a prank or practical joke — seems to have arisen in central Canada, before spreading into the northern and western United States in the 1930s and across the rest of the United States through the 1940s and early 1950s.[38] Initially it was often found in variant forms, such as "tricks or treats," which was used in the earliest known case, a 1917 report in The Sault Daily Star in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario:[39] Almost everywhere you went last night, particularly in the early part of the evening, you would meet gangs of youngsters out to celebrate. Some of them would have adopted various forms of "camouflage" such as masks, or would appear in long trousers and big hats or with long skirts. But others again didn't. . . . "Tricks or treats" you could hear the gangs call out, and if the householder passed out the "coin" for the "treats" his establishment would be immune from attack until another gang came along that knew not of or had no part in the agreement.[40] As shown by word sleuth Barry Popik,[41] who also found the first use from 1917,[39] variant forms continued, with "trick or a treat" found in Chatsworth, Ontario in 1921,[42] "treat up or tricks" and "treat or tricks" found in Edmonton, Alberta in 1922,[43] and "treat or trick" in Penhold, Alberta in 1924.[44] The now canonical form of "trick or treat" was first seen in 1917 in Chatsworth, only one day after the Sault Ste. Marie use,[45] but "tricks or treats" was still in use in the 1966 television special, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.[41] The thousands of Halloween postcards produced between the start of the 20th century and the 1920s commonly show children but do not depict trick-or-treating.[46] The editor of a collection of over 3,000 vintage Halloween postcards writes, "There are cards which mention the custom [of trick-or-treating] or show children in costumes at the doors, but as far as we can tell they were printed later than the 1920s and more than likely even the 1930s. Tricksters of various sorts are shown on the early postcards, but not the means of appeasing them".[47] Trick-or-treating does not seem to have become a widespread practice until the 1930s, with the first U.S. appearance of the term in 1932,[48] and the first use in a national publication occurring in 1939.[49] Behavior similar to trick-or-treating was more commonly associated with Thanksgiving from 1870 (shortly after that holiday's formalization) until the 1930s. In New York City, a Thanksgiving ritual known as Ragamuffin Day involved children dressing up as beggars and asking for treats, which later evolved into dressing up in more diverse costumes.[50][51] Increasing hostility toward the practice in the 1930s eventually led to the begging aspects being dropped, and by the 1950s, the tradition as a whole had ceased. Increased popularity Almost all pre-1940 uses of the term "trick-or-treat" are from the United States and Canada. Trick-or-treating spread throughout the United States, stalled only by World War II sugar rationing that began in April, 1942 and lasted until June, 1947.[52][53] Magazine advertisement in 1962 Early national attention to trick-or-treating was given in October, 1947 issues of the children's magazines Jack and Jill and Children's Activities,[54] and by Halloween episodes of the network radio programs The Baby Snooks Show in 1946 and The Jack Benny Show and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet in 1948.[55] Trick-or-treating was depicted in the Peanuts comic strip in 1951.[56] The custom had become firmly established in popular culture by 1952, when Walt Disney portrayed it in the cartoon Trick or Treat, and Ozzie and Harriet were besieged by trick-or-treaters on an episode of their television show.[57] In 1953 UNICEF first conducted a national campaign for children to raise funds for the charity while trick-or-treating.[58] Although some popular histories of Halloween have characterized trick-or-treating as an adult invention to re-channel Halloween activities away from Mischief Night vandalism, there are very few records supporting this. Des Moines, Iowa is the only area known to have a record of trick-or-treating being used to deter crime.[59] Elsewhere, adults, as reported in newspapers from the mid-1930s to the mid-1950s, typically saw it as a form of extortion, with reactions ranging from bemused indulgence to anger.[60] Likewise, as portrayed on radio shows, children would have to explain what trick-or-treating was to puzzled adults, and not the other way around. Sometimes even the children protested: for Halloween 1948, members of the Madison Square Boys Club in New York City carried a parade banner that read "American Boys Don't Beg."[61] The National Confectioners Association reported in 2005 that 80 percent of adults in the United States planned to give out confectionery to trick-or-treaters,[62] and that 93 percent of children, teenagers, and young adults planned to go trick-or-treating or participating in other Halloween activities.[63] Phrase introduction to the UK and Ireland Despite the concept of trick-or-treating originating in Britain and Ireland in the form of souling and guising, the use of the term "trick or treat" at the doors of homeowners was not common until the 1980s, with its popularisation in part through the release of the film E.T.[64] Guising requires those going door-to-door to perform a song or poem without any jocular threat,[32] and according to one BBC journalist, in the 1980s, "trick or treat" was still often viewed as an exotic and not particularly welcome import, with the BBC referring to it as "the Japanese knotweed of festivals" and "making demands with menaces".[65] In Ireland before the phrase "trick or treat" became common in the 2000s, children would say "Help the Halloween Party".[4] Very often, the phrase "trick or treat" is simply said and the revellers are given sweets, with the choice of a trick or a treat having been discarded. Etiquette Two children trick-or-treating on Halloween in Arkansas, United States Trick-or-treating typically begins at dusk on October 31. Some municipalities choose other dates.[66][67][68][69][70][71] Homeowners wishing to participate sometimes decorate their homes with artificial spider webs, plastic skeletons and jack-o-lanterns. Conversely, those who do not wish to participate may turn off outside lights for the evening or lock relevant gates and fences to keep people from coming onto their property. In most areas where trick-or-treating is practiced, it is considered an activity for children. Some jurisdictions in the United States forbid the activity for anyone over the age of 12.[72] Dressing up is common at all ages; adults will often dress up to accompany their children, and young adults may dress up to go out and ask for gifts for a charity. Local variants U.S. and Canada Children of the St. Louis, Missouri, area are expected to perform a joke, usually a simple Halloween-themed pun or riddle, before receiving any candy; this "trick" earns the "treat".[73] Children in Des Moines, Iowa also tell jokes or otherwise perform before receiving their treat. In some parts of Canada, children sometimes say "Halloween apples" instead of "trick or treat". This probably originated when the toffee apple was a popular type of candy. Apple-giving in much of Canada, however, has been taboo since the 1960s when stories (of almost certainly questionable authenticity) appeared of razors hidden inside Halloween apples; parents began to check over their children's fruit for safety before allowing them to eat it. In Quebec, children also go door to door on Halloween. However, in French-speaking neighbourhoods, instead of "Trick or treat", they will simply say "Halloween", though it traditionally used to be "La charité, s'il-vous-plaît" ("Charity, please").[74] Trunk-or-treat Trunk-or-treating event held at St. John Lutheran Church & Early Learning Center in Darien, Illinois Some organizations around the United States and Canada sponsor a "trunk-or-treat" on Halloween night (or, on occasion, a day immediately preceding Halloween, or a few days from it, on a weekend, depending on what is convenient). Trunk-or-treating is done from parked car to parked car in a local parking lot, often at a school or church. The activity makes use of the open trunks of the cars, which display candy, and often games and decorations. Some parents regard trunk-or-treating as a safer alternative to trick-or-treating,[75] while other parents see it as an easier alternative to walking the neighborhood with their children. This annual event began in the mid-1990s as a "fall festival" for an alternative to trick-or-treating, but became "trunk-or-treat" two decades later. Some have called for more city or community group-sponsored trunk-or-treats, so they can be more inclusive.[76] By 2006 these had become increasingly popular.[77] Portugal In Portugal, children go from house to house in All Saints Day and All Souls Day, carrying pumpkin carved lanterns called coca,[78] asking everyone they see for Pão-por-Deus singing rhymes where they remind people why they are begging, saying "...It is for me and for you, and to give to the deceased who are dead and buried"[79] or "It is to share with your deceased"[80] In the Azores the bread given to the children takes the shape of the top of a skull.[81] The tradition of pão-por-Deus was already recorded in the 15th century.[82] Scandinavia In Sweden, children dress up as witches and monsters when they go trick-or-treating on Maundy Thursday (the Thursday before Easter) while Danish children dress up in various attires and go trick-or-treating on Fastelavn (or the next day, Shrove Monday). In Norway, the practice is quite common among children, who come dressed up to people's doors asking for, mainly, candy. The Easter witch tradition is done on Palm Sunday in Finland (virvonta). Europe In parts of Flanders, some parts of the Netherlands, and most areas of Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, children go to houses with home-made beet lanterns or with paper lanterns (which can hold a candle or electronic light), singing songs about St. Martin on St. Martin's Day (the 11th of November), in return for treats.[83] The equivalent of "trick-or-treat" in German language is "Süßes oder Saures", asking for sweeties or threatening something less pleasant. In Northern Germany and Southern Denmark, children dress up in costumes and go trick-or-treating on New Year's Eve in a tradition called "Rummelpott [de]".[84] Trick-or-treat for charity UNICEF started a program in 1950 called Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF in which trick-or-treaters ask people to give money for the organization, usually instead of collecting candy. Participating trick-or-treaters say when they knock at doors "Trick-or-treat for UNICEF!"[85] This program started as an alternative to candy. The organization has long produced disposable collection boxes that state on the back what the money can be used for in developing countries. In Canada, students from the local high schools, colleges, and universities dress up to collect food donations for the local Food Banks as a form of trick-or-treating. This is sometimes called "Trick-or-Eat"." (wikipedia.org) "A figurine (a diminutive form of the word figure) or statuette, is a small, three-dimensional sculpture that represents a human, deity or animal, or, in practice, a pair or small group of them. Figurines have been made in many media, with clay, metal, wood, glass, and today plastic or resin the most significant. Ceramic figurines not made of porcelain are called terracottas in historical contexts. Figures with movable parts, allowing limbs to be posed, are more likely to be called dolls, mannequins, or action figures; or robots or automata, if they can move on their own. Figurines and miniatures are sometimes used in board games, such as chess, and tabletop role playing games. The main difference between a figurine and a statue is size. There is no agreed limit, but typically objects are called "figurines" up to a height of perhaps two feet (60 cm), though most types are less than one foot (30 cm) high....Modern era Modern figurines, particularly those made of plastic, are often referred to as figures. They can encompass modern action figures and other model figures as well as Precious Moments figurines and Hummel figurines, Bobbleheads, Sebastian Miniatures and other kinds of memorabilia. Some companies which produce porcelain figurines are Royal Doulton, Lladró and Camal Enterprises.[2] Figurines of comic book or sci-fi/fantasy characters without movable parts have been referred to by the terms inaction figures (originally used to describe Kevin Smith's View Askew figurines) and staction figures (a portmanteau of statue and action figures coined by Four Horsemen artists to describe Masters of the Universe figures). Also Amiibo is a line of plastic figurines with NFC tags embedded to its base that can be used in order to interact with certain videogames for Nintendo consoles. There is also a hobby known as mini war gaming in which players use figurines (for example toy soldiers) in table top based games. These figurines are mostly made of plastic and pewter. However, some premium models are made of resin." (wikipedia.org) "Halloween costumes are costumes worn on Halloween, a festival which falls on October 31. An early reference to wearing costumes at Halloween comes from Scotland in 1585, but they may pre-date this. There are many references to the custom during the 18th and 19th centuries in the Celtic countries of Scotland, Ireland, Mann and Wales. It has been suggested that the custom comes from the Celtic festivals of Samhain and Calan Gaeaf, or from the practise of "souling" during the Christian observance of Allhallowtide. The Christian tradition of acknowledging the danse macabre is also suggested as the origin of dressing up on Halloween [1][2][3][4] Dressing up is not strictly restricted to Halloween among Christians, with similar practices being observed on holidays like Christmas.[5] Halloween costumes are traditionally based on frightening supernatural or folkloric beings. However, by the 1930s costumes based on characters in mass media such as film, literature, and radio were popular. Halloween costumes have tended to be worn mainly by young people, but since the mid-20th century they have been increasingly worn by adults also. History of Halloween costumes An early 20th-century Irish Halloween mask (a "rhymer" or a "vizor") displayed at the Museum of Country Life. The wearing of costumes at Halloween may come from the belief that supernatural beings, or the souls of the dead, roamed the earth at this time. The practice may have originated in a Celtic festival, held on 31 October to mark the beginning of winter. It was called Samhain in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man, and Calan Gaeaf in Wales, Cornwall and Brittany. The festival is believed to have pre-Christian roots. After the Christianization of Ireland in the 5th century, some of these customs may have been retained in the Christian observance of All Hallows' Eve in that region—which continued to be called Samhain/Calan Gaeaf—blending the traditions of their ancestors with Christian ones.[6][7] It was seen as a liminal time, when the spirits or fairies (the Aos Sí), and the souls of the dead, could more easily come into our world.[8] It was believed that the Aos Sí needed to be propitiated to ensure that the people and their livestock survived the winter. From at least the 16th century,[9] the festival included mumming and guising,[10] which involved people going house-to-house in costume (or in disguise), usually reciting verses or songs in exchange for food.[10] It may have originally been a tradition whereby people impersonated the Aos Sí, or the souls of the dead, and received offerings on their behalf. Impersonating these beings, or wearing a disguise, was also believed to protect oneself from them.[11] It is suggested that the mummers and guisers "personify the old spirits of the winter, who demanded reward in exchange for good fortune".[12] F. Marian McNeill suggests the ancient pagan festival included people wearing masks or costumes to represent the spirits, and that faces were marked (or blackened) with ashes taken from the sacred bonfire.[9] In parts of southern Ireland, a man dressed as a Láir Bhán (white mare) led youths house-to-house reciting verses—some of which had pagan overtones—in exchange for food. If the household donated food it could expect good fortune from the 'Muck Olla'; not doing so would bring misfortune.[13] In 19th century England , youths went house-to-house with masked, painted or blackened faces, often threatening to do mischief if they were not welcomed.[10] In parts of Wales, men went about dressed as fearsome beings called gwrachod,[10] while in some places, young people cross-dressed.[10] Elsewhere in Europe, mumming and costumes were part of other yearly festivals. However, in the Celtic-speaking regions they were "particularly appropriate to a night upon which supernatural beings were said to be abroad and could be imitated or warded off by human wanderers".[10] It has also been suggested that the wearing of Halloween costumes developed from the custom of souling, which was practised by Christians in parts of Western Europe from at least the 15th century.[14][15] At Allhallowtide, groups of poor people would go door-to-door, collecting soul cakes – either as representatives of the dead,[16] or in return for saying prayers for them.[17] One 19th century English writer said it "used to consist of parties of children, dressed up in fantastic costume, who went round to the farm houses and cottages, singing a song, and begging for cakes (spoken of as "Soal-cakes"), apples, money, or anything that the goodwives would give them".[18] The soulers typically asked for "mercy on all Christian souls for a soul cake".[19] The practice was mentioned by Shakespeare his play The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1593).[20][21] Christian minister Prince Sorie Conteh wrote on the wearing of costumes: "It was traditionally believed that the souls of the departed wandered the earth until All Saints' Day, and All Hallows' Eve provided one last chance for the dead to gain vengeance on their enemies before moving to the next world. In order to avoid being recognised by any soul that might be seeking such vengeance, people would don masks or costumes to disguise their identities".[22] In the Middle Ages, statues and relics of martyred saints were paraded through the streets at Allhallowtide. Some churches who could not afford these things had people dress as saints instead.[23][24] Some believers continue the practice of dressing as saints, biblical figures, and reformers in Halloween celebrations today.[25] Many Christians in continental Europe, especially in France, believed that on Halloween "the dead of the churchyards rose for one wild, hideous carnival," known as the danse macabre, which has often been depicted in church decoration.[26] An article published by Christianity Today claimed the danse macabre was enacted at village pageants and at court masques, with people "dressing up as corpses from various strata of society", and suggested this was the origin of Halloween costume parties.[27][28] People in Halloween Costumes The custom of guising at Halloween in North America is first recorded in 1911, where a newspaper in Kingston, Ontario reported children going "guising" around the neighborhood.[29] In 19th century America, Halloween was often celebrated with costume parades and "licentious revelries".[30] However, efforts were made to "domesticate" the festival to conform with Victorian era morality. Halloween was made into a private rather than public holiday, celebrations involving liquor and sensuality de-emphasized, and only children were expected to celebrate the festival.[31] Early Halloween costumes emphasized the gothic nature of Halloween, and were aimed primarily at children. Costumes were also made at home, or using items (such as make-up) which could be purchased and utilized to create a costume. But in the 1930s, A.S. Fishbach, Ben Cooper, Inc., and other firms began mass-producing Halloween costumes for sale in stores as trick-or-treating became popular in North America. Halloween costumes are often designed to imitate supernatural and scary beings. Costumes are traditionally those of monsters such as vampires, werewolves, zombies, ghosts,[32] skeletons, witches, goblins, trolls, devils, etc. or in more recent years such science fiction-inspired characters as aliens and superheroes. There are also costumes of pop culture figures like presidents, athletes, celebrities, or characters in film, television, literature, etc. Another popular trend is for women (and in some cases, men) to use Halloween as an excuse to wear sexy or revealing costumes, showing off more skin than would be socially acceptable otherwise.[33] Young girls also often dress as entirely non-scary characters at Halloween, including princesses, fairies, angels, cute animals and flowers. Child in a plain white mask Halloween costume parties generally take place on or around October 31, often on the Friday or Saturday prior to the holiday. Halloween parties are the 3rd most popular type of party held in Western countries, falling behind only to Super Bowl & New Year's Eve parties.[34] College students dressed up for Halloween. A couple trying Halloween face masks at a costume store in Iowa Economics of Halloween costumes [35] Researchers conducted a survey for the National Retail Federation in the United States and found that 53.3 percent of consumers planned to buy a costume for Halloween 2005, spending $38.11 on average (up $10 from the year before). They were also expected to spend $4.96 billion in 2006, up significantly from just $3.3 billion the previous year.[36] The troubled economy has caused many Americans to cut back on Halloween spending. In 2009, the National Retail Federation anticipated that American households would decrease Halloween spending by as much as 15% to $56.31.[37] In 2013, Americans spent an estimated $6.9 billion to celebrate Halloween, including a predicted $2.6 billion on costumes (with more spent on adult costumes than for children's costumes) and $330 million on pet costumes.[38][39] In 2017 it was estimated that Americans would spend $9.1 billion on Halloween merchandise with $3.4 billion of that being on spend on Halloween costumes.[40] Another survey by NRF showed that 67% of Halloween shoppers would buy Halloween costumes spending $3.2 billion in 2019.[41] It is estimated that the Halloween spending in 2022 could reach $10.6 billion." (wikipedia.org) "Symbols of death are the motifs, images and concepts associated with death throughout different cultures, religions and societies. Images Image of the Grim Reaper on the tailfin of a U.S. Navy F-14D Tomcat of Flight Squadron, VF-101, nicknamed the "Grim Reapers." Traditional Jolly Roger, the flag of "Black Sam" Bellamy and other pirates of the 18th century, displaying a skull and crossbones. Various images are used traditionally to symbolize death; these rank from blunt depictions of cadavers and their parts to more allusive suggestions that time is fleeting and all men are mortals. The human skull is an obvious and frequent symbol of death, found in many cultures and religious traditions.[1] Human skeletons and sometimes non-human animal skeletons and skulls can also be used as blunt images of death; the traditional figures of the Grim Reaper – a black-hooded skeleton with a scythe – is one use of such symbolism.[2] Within the Grim Reaper itself, the skeleton represents the decayed body whereas the robe symbolizes those worn by religious people conducting funeral services.[2] The skull and crossbones motif (☠) has been used among Europeans as a symbol of both piracy and poison.[3] The skull is also important as it remains the only "recognizable" aspect of a person once they have died.[3] Decayed cadavers can also be used to depict death; in medieval Europe, they were often featured in artistic depictions of the danse macabre, or in cadaver tombs which depicted the living and decomposed body of the person entombed. Coffins also serve as blunt reminders of mortality.[4] Europeans were also seen to use coffins and cemeteries to symbolize the wealth and status of the person who has died, serving as a reminder to the living and the deceased as well.[4] Less blunt symbols of death frequently allude to the passage of time and the fragility of life, and can be described as memento mori;[5] that is, an artistic or symbolic reminder of the inevitability of death. Clocks, hourglasses, sundials, and other timepieces both call to mind that time is passing.[3] Similarly, a candle both marks the passage of time, and bears witness that it will eventually burn itself out as well as a symbol of hope of salvation.[3] These sorts of symbols were often incorporated into vanitas paintings, a variety of early still life. Certain animals such as crows, cats, owls, moths, vultures and bats are associated with death; some because they feed on carrion, others because they are nocturnal.[3] Along with death, vultures can also represent transformation and renewal.[3] Religious symbols Veve of Maman Brigitte, the loa of death in Haitian Vodou. Religious symbols of death and depictions of the afterlife will vary with the religion practiced by the people who use them. Tombs, tombstones, and other items of funeral architecture are obvious candidates for symbols of death.[3] In ancient Egypt, the gods Osiris and Ptah were typically depicted as mummies; these gods governed the Egyptian afterlife. In Christianity, the Christian cross is frequently used on graves, and is meant to call to mind the crucifixion of Jesus.[3] Some Christians also erect temporary crosses along public highways as memorials for those who died in accidents. In Buddhism, the symbol of a wheel represents the perpetual cycle of death and rebirth that happens in samsara.[6] The symbol of a grave or tomb, especially one in a picturesque or unusual location, can be used to represent death, as in Nicolas Poussin's famous painting Et in Arcadia ego. Images of life in the afterlife are also symbols of death. Here, again, the ancient Egyptians produced detailed pictorial representations of the life enjoyed by the dead. In Christian folk religion, the spirits of the dead are often depicted as winged angels or angel-like creatures, dwelling among the clouds; this imagery of the afterlife is frequently used in comic depictions of the life after death.[3] In the Islamic view of the Afterlife, death is symbolised by a black and white ram which in turn will be slain to symbolise the Death of Death. The Banshee also symbolizes the coming of death in Irish Mythology.[3] This is typically represented by an older woman who is seen sobbing to symbolize the suffering of a person before their death.[3] Colors Black is the color of mourning in many European cultures. Black clothing is typically worn at funerals to show mourning for the death of the person. In East Asia, white is similarly associated with mourning; it represented the purity and perfection of the deceased person's spirit.[7] During the Victorian era, purple and grey were considered to be mourning colors in addition to black.[8] Furthermore, in Revelation 6 in The Bible, Death is one of the four horsemen; and he rides a pale horse." (wikipedia.org) "Skull symbolism is the attachment of symbolic meaning to the human skull. The most common symbolic use of the skull is as a representation of luck, bravery and academic success . Humans can often recognize the buried fragments of an only partially revealed cranium even when other bones may look like shards of stone. The human brain has a specific region for recognizing faces,[1] and is so attuned to finding them that it can see faces in a few dots and lines or punctuation marks; the human brain cannot separate the image of the human skull from the familiar human face. Because of this, both the death and the now-past life of the skull are symbolized. Hindu temples and depiction of some Hindu deities have displayed association with skulls. Moreover, a human skull with its large eye sockets displays a degree of neoteny, which humans often find visually appealing—yet a skull is also obviously dead, and to some can even seem to look sad due to the downward facing slope on the ends of the eye sockets. A skull with the lower jaw intact may also appear to be grinning or laughing due to the exposed teeth. As such, human skulls often have a greater visual appeal than the other bones of the human skeleton, and can fascinate even as they repel. Societies predominantly associate skulls with death and evil. Unicode reserves character U+1F480 (💀) for a human skull pictogram. Examples Throughout the centuries skulls symbolized either warnings of various threats or as reminder of the vanity of earthly pleasures in contrast with our own mortality. Nevertheless, the skull seems to be omnipresent in the first decade of the twenty-first century, appearing on jeweler, bags, clothing and in the shape of various decorative items. However, the increasing use of the skull as a visual symbol in popular culture reduces its original meaning as well as its traditional connotation.[2][3] Literature One of the best-known examples of skull symbolism occurs in Shakespeare's Hamlet, where the title character recognizes the skull of an old friend: "Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest..." Hamlet is inspired to utter a bitter soliloquy of despair and rough ironic humor. Compare Hamlet's words "Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft" to Talmudic sources: "...Rabi Ishmael [the High Priest]... put [the severed head of a martyr] in his lap... and cried: oh sacred mouth!...who buried you in ashes...!". The skull was a symbol of melancholy for Shakespeare's contemporaries.[4] An old Yoruba folktale[5] tells of a man who encountered a skull mounted on a post by the wayside. To his astonishment, the skull spoke. The man asked the skull why it was mounted there. The skull said that it was mounted there for talking. The man then went to the king, and told the king of the marvel he had found, a talking skull. The king and the man returned to the place where the skull was mounted; the skull remained silent. The king then commanded that the man be beheaded, and ordered that his head be mounted in place of the skull. The skull speaks in the catacombs of the Capuchin brothers beneath the church of Santa Maria della Concezione in Rome,[6] where disassembled bones and teeth and skulls of the departed Capuchins have been rearranged to form a rich Baroque architecture of the human condition, in a series of anterooms and subterranean chapels with the inscription, set in bones: Noi eravamo quello che voi siete, e quello che noi siamo voi sarete. "We were what you are; and what we are, you will be." Art The skull of Adam at the foot of the Cross: detail from a Crucifixion by Fra Angelico, 1435 The Serpent crawling through the eyes of a skull is a familiar image that survives in contemporary Goth subculture. The serpent is a chthonic god of knowledge and of immortality, because he sloughs off his skin. The serpent guards the Tree in the Greek Garden of the Hesperides and, later, a Tree in the Garden of Eden. The serpent in the skull is always making its way through the socket that was the eye: knowledge persists beyond death, the emblem says, and the serpent has the secret. The late medieval and Early Renaissance Northern and Italian painters place the skull where it lies at the foot of the Cross at Golgotha (Aramaic for the place of the skull). But for them it has become quite specifically the skull of Adam. Skull on table Vanitas, by Pieter Claesz, painted in 1630 In Elizabethan England, the Death's-Head Skull, usually a depiction without the lower jawbone, was emblematic of bawds, rakes, sexual adventurers and prostitutes; the term Death's-Head was actually parlance for these rakes, and most of them wore half-skull rings to advertise their station, either professionally or otherwise. The original Rings were wide silver objects, with a half-skull decoration not much wider than the rest of the band; This allowed it to be rotated around the finger to hide the skull in polite company, and to reposition it in the presence of likely conquests.[citation needed] Venetian painters of the 16th century elaborated moral allegories for their patrons, and memento mori was a common theme. The theme carried by an inscription on a rustic tomb, "Et in Arcadia ego"—"I too [am] in Arcadia", if it is Death that is speaking—is made famous by two paintings by Nicolas Poussin, but the motto made its pictorial debut in Guercino's version, 1618–22 (in the Galleria Barberini, Rome): in it, two awestruck young shepherds come upon an inscribed plinth, in which the inscription ET IN ARCADIA EGO gains force from the prominent presence of a wormy skull in the foreground. lady at round mirror and dressing table resembling a skull "All is Vanity" by C. Allan Gilbert All is Vanity by C. Allan Gilbert, 1873–1929 In C. Allan Gilbert's much-reproduced lithograph of a lovely Gibson Girl seated at her fashionable vanity table, an observer can witness its transformation into an alternate image. A ghostly echo of the worldly Magdalene's repentance motif lurks behind this turn-of-the-20th century icon. The skull becomes an icon itself when its painted representation becomes a substitute for the real thing. Simon Schama chronicled the ambivalence of the Dutch to their own worldly success during the Dutch Golden Age of the first half of the 17th century in The Embarrassment of Riches. The possibly frivolous and merely decorative nature of the still life genre was avoided by Pieter Claesz in his Vanitas: Skull, opened case-watch, overturned emptied wineglasses, snuffed candle, book: "Lo, the wine of life runs out, the spirit is snuffed, oh Man, for all your learning, time yet runs on: Vanity!" The visual cues of the hurry and violence of life are contrasted with eternity in this somber, still and utterly silent painting. Symbolism of Fortuna's wheel divine justice and Skull mortality in a Pompeiian mosaic Symbolism of chance (Fortuna's wheel) divine justice (right angle and plumb-bob) and mortality in a Pompeiian mosaic The skull speaks. It says "Et in Arcadia ego" or simply "Vanitas." In a first-century mosaic tabletop from a Pompeiian triclinium (now in Naples), the skull is crowned with a carpenter's square and plumb-bob, which dangles before its empty eyesockets (Death as the great leveler), while below is an image of the ephemeral and changeable nature of life: a butterfly atop a wheel—a table for a philosopher's symposium. Similarly, a skull might be seen crowned by a chaplet of dried roses, a carpe diem, though rarely as bedecked as Mexican printmaker José Guadalupe Posada's Catrina. In Mesoamerican architecture, stacks of skulls (real or sculpted) represented the result of human sacrifices. Pirates The pirate death's-head epitomizes the pirates' ruthlessness and despair; their usage of death imagery might be paralleled with their occupation challenging the natural order of things.[7] "Pirates also affirmed their unity symbolically", Marcus Rediker asserts, remarking the skeleton or skull symbol with bleeding heart and hourglass on the black pirate ensign, and asserting "it triad of interlocking symbols—death, violence, limited time—simultaneously pointed to meaningful parts of the seaman's experience, and eloquently bespoke the pirates' own consciousness of themselves as preyed upon in turn. Pirates seized the symbol of mortality from ship captains who used the skull 'as a marginal sign in their logs to indicate the record of a death'"[8] Religion The Mexican death goddess or folk saint known as Santa Muerte is portrayed with a skull instead of a normal head.[9] Skull art is found in depictions of some Hindu Gods. Shiva has been depicted as carrying skull.[10] Goddess Chamunda is described as wearing a garland of severed heads or skulls (Mundamala). Kedareshwara Temple, Hoysaleswara Temple, Chennakeshava Temple, Lakshminarayana Temple are some of the Hindu temples that include sculptures of skulls and Goddess Chamunda.[11] The temple of Kali is veneered with skulls, but the goddess Kali offers life through the welter of blood. In Vajrayana Buddhist iconography, skull symbolism is often used in depictions of wrathful deities and of dakinis. In some Korean life replacement narratives, a person discovers an abandoned skull and worships it. The skull later gives advice on how to cheat the gods of death and prevent an early death. An example of the OSS "Black Propaganda" Humor: at left an Adolf Hitler profile on a "German Reich" stamp; at right the OSS-forged Hitler face version, turned into a death's head on a "Fallen Reich" stamp Political symbol A skull was worn as a trophy on the belt of the Lombard king Alboin, it was a constant grim triumph over his old enemy, and he drank from it. In the same way a skull is a warning when it decorates the palisade of a city, or deteriorates on a pike at a Traitor's Gate. The Skull Tower, with the embedded skulls of Serbian rebels, was built in 1809 on the highway near Niš, Serbia, as a stark political warning from the Ottoman government. In this case the skulls are the statement: that the current owner had the power to kill the former. "Drinking out of a skull the blood of slain (sacrificial) enemies is mentioned by Ammianus and Livy,[12] and Solinus describes the Irish custom of bathing the face in the blood of the slain and drinking it."[13] The rafters of a traditional Jívaro medicine house in Peru, or in New Guinea.[14] When the skull appears in Nazi SS insignia, the death's-head (Totenkopf) represents loyalty unto death. Humans typically note the skull and crossbones sign as the almost universal symbol for toxicity. Holidays Skulls and skeletons are the main symbol of the Day of the Dead, a Mexican holiday. Skull-shaped decorations called calaveras are a common sight during the festivities. Skull on a gravestone edge, at Durisdeer Skull on a gravestone edge, Durisdeer Other uses When tattooed on the forearm its apotropaic power is thought to help an outlaw biker cheat death.[15] The skull and crossbones signify "Poison" when they appear on a glass bottle containing a white powder, or any container in general. The skull that is often engraved or carved on the head of early New England tombstones might be merely a symbol of mortality, but the skull is also often backed by an angelic pair of wings, lofting mortality beyond its own death." (wikipedia.org) "Gold, also called golden, is a color tone resembling the gold chemical element. The web color gold is sometimes referred to as golden to distinguish it from the color metallic gold. The use of gold as a color term in traditional usage is more often applied to the color "metallic gold" (shown below). The first recorded use of golden as a color name in English was in 1300 to refer to the element gold. The word gold as a color name was first used in 1400 and in 1423 to refer to blond hair.[1] Metallic gold, such as in paint, is often called goldtone or gold tone, or gold ground when describing a solid gold background. In heraldry, the French word or is used.[2] In model building, the color gold is different from brass. A shiny or metallic silvertone object can be painted with transparent yellow to obtain goldtone, something often done with Christmas decorations. Metallic gold Gold (metallic gold) Metallic gold About these coordinates Color coordinates Hex triplet #D4AF37 sRGBB (r, g, b) (212, 175, 55) HSV (h, s, v) (46°, 74%, 83%) CIELChuv (L, C, h) (73, 76, 65°) Source ISCC-NBS ISCC–NBS descriptor Strong yellow B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte) At right is displayed a representation of the color metallic gold (the color traditionally known as gold) which is a simulation of the color of the actual metallic element gold itself—gold shade. The source of this color is the ISCC-NBS Dictionary of Color Names (1955), a color dictionary used by stamp collectors to identify the colors of stamps—See color sample of the color Gold (Color Sample Gold (T) #84) displayed on indicated web page:[3] Web color gold vs. metallic gold Metallic by nature. The American Heritage Dictionary defines the color metallic gold as "A light olive-brown to dark yellow, or a moderate, strong to vivid yellow." Of course, the visual sensation usually associated with the metal gold is its metallic shine. This cannot be reproduced by a simple solid color, because the shiny effect is due to the material's reflective brightness varying with the surface's angle to the light source. This is why, in art, a metallic paint that glitters in an approximation of real gold would be used; a solid color like that of the cell displayed in the adjacent box does not aesthetically "read" as gold. Especially in sacral art in Christian churches, real gold (as gold leaf) was used for rendering gold in paintings, e.g. for the halo of saints. Gold can also be woven into sheets of silk to give an East Asian traditional look. More recent art styles, e.g. art nouveau, also made use of a metallic, shining gold; however, the metallic finish of such paints was added using fine aluminum powder and pigment rather than actual gold. Shades Old gold Main article: Old gold Old gold About these coordinates Color coordinates Hex triplet #CFB53B sRGBB (r, g, b) (207, 181, 59) HSV (h, s, v) (49°, 71%, 81%) CIELChuv (L, C, h) (74, 74, 72°) Source [1]/Maerz and Paul[4] ISCC–NBS descriptor Strong yellow B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte) Old gold is a dark yellow, which varies from heavy olive or olive brown to deep or strong yellow. The widely accepted color old gold is on the darker rather than the lighter side of this range. The first recorded use of old gold as a color name in English was in the early 19th century (exact year uncertain).[5] The official colors of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, founded in 1906 are black and old gold. The Delta Sigma Pi fraternity, founded in 1907, official colors are designated royal purple and old gold and Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity's colors are garnet and old gold. Maroon and old gold are the colors of Texas State University's intercollegiate sports teams. Old Gold and black are the team colors of Purdue University Boilermakers intercollegiate sports teams. The Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets formerly wore white and old gold (now called Tech Gold). The Wake Forest Demon Deacons, UCF Knights, and Vanderbilt Commodores wear old gold and black. The UAB Blazers team colors are Forest Green and Old Gold. The New Orleans Saints list their official team colors as black, old gold and white. Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C., an association football club in England, also traditionally features old gold and black uniforms. Golden yellow Golden yellow as a quaternary color on the RYB color wheel yellow golden yellow amber "Gold-yellow" redirects here. For the food color, see Gold yellow. For the RAL color, see RAL 1004 Golden yellow. Golden yellow About these coordinates Color coordinates Hex triplet #FFDF00 sRGBB (r, g, b) (255, 223, 0) HSV (h, s, v) (52°, 100%, 100%) CIELChuv (L, C, h) (89, 100, 73°) Source [2]/Maerz and Paul ISCC–NBS descriptor Vivid yellow B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte) Golden yellow is the color halfway between amber and yellow on the RGB color wheel. It is a color that is 87.5% yellow and 12.5% red. The first recorded use of golden yellow as a color name in English was in the year 1597.[6] Golden Yellow is one of the colors of the United States Air Force, along with Ultramarine Blue.[7] Golden poppy Golden poppy About these coordinates Color coordinates Hex triplet #FCC200 sRGBB (r, g, b) (252, 194, 0) HSV (h, s, v) (46°, 100%, 99%) CIELChuv (L, C, h) (81, 98, 60°) Source [3]/Maerz and Paul ISCC–NBS descriptor Vivid yellow B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte) Golden poppy is a tone of gold that is the color of the California poppy—the official state flower of California—the Golden State. California poppy California poppy The first recorded use of golden poppy as a color name in English was in 1927.[8] Arizona State University (ASU) Gold ASU Gold About these coordinates Color coordinates Hex triplet #FFC627 sRGBB (r, g, b) (255, 198, 39) HSV (h, s, v) (44°, 85%, 100%) CIELChuv (L, C, h) (83, 95, 60°) Source [4] ASU Brand Guide ISCC–NBS descriptor Vivid yellow B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte) Gold is the oldest color associated with Arizona State University and dates back to 1896 when the school was named the Tempe Normal School.[9] Gold signifies the "golden promise" of ASU. Gold also signifies the sunshine Arizona is famous for, including the power of the sun and its influence on the climate and the economy. The student section, known as The Inferno, wears gold on game days. University of Southern California (USC) Gold USC Gold About these coordinates Color coordinates Hex triplet #FFCC00 sRGBB (r, g, b) (255, 204, 0) HSV (h, s, v) (48°, 100%, 100%) CIELChuv (L, C, h) (84, 98, 64°) Source USC Identity Guidelines ISCC–NBS descriptor Vivid yellow B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte) The official colors of the University of Southern California are Pantone 201C and Pantone 123C. These colors, designated as USC Cardinal and USC Gold, were adopted in 1895 by Rev. George W. White, USC's third president, and are equal in importance in identifying the USC Trojans. California (Berkeley) Gold California Gold About these coordinates Color coordinates Hex triplet #FDB515 sRGBB (r, g, b) (253, 181, 21) HSV (h, s, v) (41°, 92%, 99%) CIELChuv (L, C, h) (78, 99, 53°) Source Brand Guidelines ISCC–NBS descriptor Strong orange yellow B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte) California Gold is one of the official colors of the University of California, Berkeley, as identified in their graphic style guide for use in on-screen representations of the gold color in the university's seal. For print media, the guide recommends to, "[u]se Pantone 7750 metallic or Pantone 123 yellow and 282 blue".[10] The color is one of two most used by Berkeley, the other being Berkeley Blue; these, together, are the original colors of the University of California system, of which variations of blue and gold can be found in each campus' school colors. Cal Poly Pomona gold Cal Poly Pomona Gold About these coordinates Color coordinates Hex triplet #C6930A sRGBB (r, g, b) (198, 147, 10) HSV (h, s, v) (44°, 95%, 78%) CIELChuv (L, C, h) (64, 78, 57°) Source Graphic Standards ISCC–NBS descriptor Deep yellow B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte) Cal Poly Pomona gold was one of the two official colors of California State Polytechnic University, Pomona (Cal Poly Pomona). The official university colors were green (PMS 349) and gold (PMS 131). Cal Poly Pomona's Office of Public Affairs created the colors for web development and has technical guidelines, copyright and privacy protection; as well as logos and images that developers are asked to follow in the University's Guidelines for using official Cal Poly Pomona logos. If web developers are using gold on a university website, they were encouraged to use Cal Poly Pomona gold. Cal Poly Pomona has adopted a new brand color palette including a different gold color: #FFB500.[11] The logo of the Cal Poly Pomona's athletic teams, the Cal Poly Pomona Broncos, has changed in 2014[12] to reflect the new gold color, but is currently using #FFB718.[13] UCLA Gold UCLA Gold About these coordinates Color coordinates Hex triplet #FFD100 sRGBB (r, g, b) (255, 209, 0) HSV (h, s, v) (49°, 100%, 100%) CIELChuv (L, C, h) (85, 98, 66°) Source UCLA Brand Guidelines[14] ISCC–NBS descriptor Vivid yellow B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte) The color was approved by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Chancellor in October 2013. This is a shade of gold identified by the university for use in their printed publications. MU Gold MU Gold About these coordinates Color coordinates Hex triplet #F1B82D sRGBB (r, g, b) (241, 184, 45) HSV (h, s, v) (43°, 81%, 95%) CIELChuv (L, C, h) (78, 89, 58°) Source University of Missouri ISCC–NBS descriptor Vivid yellow B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte) MU Gold is used by the University of Missouri as the official school color along with black. Mizzou Identity Standards designated the color for web development as well as logos and images that developers are asked to follow in the University's Guidelines for using official Mizzou logos.[15] Pale gold Gold (Crayola) About these coordinates Color coordinates Hex triplet #E6BE8A sRGBB (r, g, b) (230, 190, 138) HSV (h, s, v) (34°, 40%, 90%) CIELChuv (L, C, h) (79, 50, 54°) Source Crayola ISCC–NBS descriptor Moderate orange yellow B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte) The color pale gold is displayed at right. This has been the color called gold in Crayola crayons since 1903. Pale gold is one of the Lithuanian basketball club Lietkabelis Panevėžys primary colors.[citation needed] Sunglow Sunglow About these coordinates Color coordinates Hex triplet #FFCC33 sRGBB (r, g, b) (255, 204, 51) HSV (h, s, v) (45°, 80%, 100%) CIELChuv (L, C, h) (84, 93, 63°) Source Crayola ISCC–NBS descriptor Vivid yellow B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte) The color sunglow is displayed at right. This is a Crayola crayon color formulated in 1990. Harvest gold Harvest gold About these coordinates Color coordinates Hex triplet #DA9100 sRGBB (r, g, b) (218, 145, 0) HSV (h, s, v) (40°, 100%, 85%) CIELChuv (L, C, h) (66, 90, 47°) Source Crayola/Maerz and Paul[16] ISCC–NBS descriptor Deep orange yellow B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte) The color harvest gold is displayed at right. This color was originally called harvest in the 1920s. The first recorded use of harvest as a color name in English was in 1923.[17] Harvest gold was a common color for metal surfaces (including automobiles and household appliances), as was the color avocado, during the whole decade of the 1970s. They were both also popular colors for shag carpets. Both colors (as well as shag carpets) went out of style by the early 1980s.[citation needed] Goldenrod Main article: Goldenrod (color) Goldenrod About these coordinates Color coordinates Hex triplet #DAA520 sRGBB (r, g, b) (218, 165, 32) HSV (h, s, v) (43°, 85%, 85%) CIELChuv (L, C, h) (71, 83, 58°) Source X11 ISCC–NBS descriptor Strong yellow B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte) Displayed at right is the web color goldenrod. The color goldenrod is a representation of the color of some of the deeper gold colored goldenrod flowers. Monarch butterfly on goldenrod flower Monarch butterfly on goldenrod flower The first recorded use of goldenrod as a color name in English was in 1915.[18] Vegas gold This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (April 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Vegas gold About these coordinates Color coordinates Hex triplet #C5B358 sRGBB (r, g, b) (197, 179, 88) HSV (h, s, v) (50°, 55%, 77%) CIELChuv (L, C, h) (73, 61, 74°) Source [5] ISCC–NBS descriptor Moderate greenish yellow B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte) Displayed at right is the color Vegas gold. Vegas gold, rendered within narrow limits, is associated with the glamorous casinos and hotels of the Las Vegas Strip, United States. Vegas gold is one of the official athletic colors for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Boston College Eagles, Colorado Buffaloes, South Florida Bulls, St. Vincent–St. Mary High School, Vanderbilt Commodores, the United States Naval Academy Midshipmen, and Western Carolina University Catamounts. It is one of the official colors of the NHL's Vegas Golden Knights, and was the type of gold the Pittsburgh Penguins used on their uniforms until they reverted to "Pittsburgh gold", the shade traditionally associated with the city. Satin sheen gold Satin sheen gold About these coordinates Color coordinates Hex triplet #CBA135 sRGBB (r, g, b) (203, 161, 53) HSV (h, s, v) (43°, 74%, 80%) CIELChuv (L, C, h) (68, 72, 61°) Source [6][19] ISCC–NBS descriptor Deep yellow B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte) At right is displayed the color satin sheen gold. This is the name of the color of the Starfleet command personnel uniform worn by Captain Kirk of the USS Enterprise in the TV show and movies Star Trek.[19][20][21] Golden brown Not to be confused with the song Golden Brown. Golden brown About these coordinates Color coordinates Hex triplet #996515 sRGBB (r, g, b) (153, 101, 21) HSV (h, s, v) (36°, 86%, 60%) CIELChuv (L, C, h) (47, 61, 46°) Source ISCC-NBS ISCC–NBS descriptor Strong yellowish brown B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte) The first recorded use of golden brown as a color name in English was in the year 1891.[22] Golden brown is commonly referenced in recipes as the desired color of properly baked and fried foods. Candlelight Candlelight About these coordinates Color coordinates Hex triplet #F8D810 sRGBB (r, g, b) (248, 216, 16) HSV (h, s, v) (52°, 94%, 97%) CIELChuv (L, C, h) (87, 96, 72°) Source [7] ISCC–NBS descriptor Brilliant gold B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte) Candlelight is a brilliant gold color. Golden in nature Protista The golden algae or chrysophytes are a large group of heterokont algae, found mostly in freshwater. Plants Golden bamboo (Phyllostachys aurea) is a bamboo species. The golden poppy and goldenrod are popular flowers to cultivate in horticulture. The Yukon Gold potato is a variety of potato recognizable through its smooth eyes and golden interior. Animals The golden bamboo lemur (Hapalemur aureus) is a medium-sized bamboo lemur endemic to southeastern Madagascar. The golden eagle is a Northern Hemisphere bird of prey. The goldfish was one of the earliest fish to be domesticated, and is still one of the most commonly kept aquarium fish and water garden fish. The golden retriever is a medium-sized breed of dog that is one of the most popular companion animals. The golden toad was an amphibian that used to live in Costa Rica that is now extinct. In culture This article appears to contain trivial, minor, or unrelated references to popular culture. Please reorganize this content to explain the subject's impact on popular culture, providing citations to reliable, secondary sources, rather than simply listing appearances. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2017) Business In advertising for the Union Pacific Railroad in the 1950s, the southwestern states of the United States served by the Union Pacific were collectively called The Golden Empire because the railroad's diesel engines were and are colored golden, red, and black. Ads with maps showing the Union Pacific's Golden Empire colored golden were placed in many popular mass-circulation magazines. Food Golden rice is a variety of rice produced through genetic engineering to biosynthesize the precursors of beta-carotene (pro-vitamin A) in the edible parts of rice. Golden Oreos are composed of vanilla instead of chocolate cookies with a vanilla cream filling. Golden raisins are dried grapes that have been treated with sulfur dioxide and flame-dried. Gemstones South Sea Pearls, which have historically been cultured in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, in the countries of Myanmar, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Northern Australia but mostly attributed to the former thalassocratic Sultanate of Sulu[23] have a gold colored variety from the Pinctada maxima Pearl oyster. This golden pearl is the national gemstone of the Philippines.[24] This can now be manufactured in the laboratory at a much lower cost.[25] Interior design The Queen's bedchamber in the Versailles Palace. The Chrysotriklinos (golden reception hall) throne room of the Byzantine Emperor in the Great Palace of Constantinople from its construction, in the late 6th century, until the 10th century The Queen's Bedchamber in the Grand appartement de la reine in the Versailles Palace is decorated in the color gold. This room was where Marie Antoinette, wife of King Louis XVI of France, slept. Golden is a warm color that can both provide not only a bright and cheerful feeling but also a somber, traditional, and religious aura. Golden tends to go well with earth colors, but it can also enrich a palette of red or burgundy. Literature Blonde hair in women (or sometimes men) is sometimes referred to poetically as golden. Music "Golden Brown" is a song by The Stranglers Parapsychology Psychics who claim to be able to observe the aura with their third eye report that great spiritual teachers usually have golden auras.[26][27] People who have gold auras are said to be those whose pure intellect is applied to abstract philosophy and mathematics.[28] Politics The Gold Shirts were a Mexican fascist party in the 1930s. Gold is often used as an official color by laissez-faire or libertarian political parties, such as the United States Libertarian Party, as well as ideologies such as voluntaryism and anarcho-capitalism, due to their frequent support for Austrian School economics and the gold standard. Religion See also: Gold Mass The color golden is associated with Buddhism: Statues of Buddha are usually painted metallic gold, are made of the metal gold, or have gold plating. Theravada Buddhist monks wear saffron robes, a color close to golden. The Shwedagon Pagoda, in Yangon, Myanmar is plated in solid gold. The Golden Pavilion is a notable Buddhist temple in Kyoto, Kinki, Japan. The Secret of the Golden Flower is an important religious text in Daoism. The Golden Temple in Amritsar, Punjab, India, is the holiest site of the Sikh religion. The Golden Mosque in Samarra, Iraq, a Shiite Muslim holy site constructed in 944. In Paganism, it is used for inner strength, self-realization, understanding, and intuition. It has a masculine energy and brings fortune and luck.[29] Sports In association football, the Wolverhampton Wanderers traditionally uses "old gold" as its primary color, though the shade of the color is not quite metallic. In Major League Baseball, the Milwaukee Brewers, Oakland Athletics, and Pittsburgh Pirates use gold as one of their team's primary colors. The three teams utilize a more yellowish shade of the color (from 1994-2019, the Brewers used a darker gold before reverting to the yellowish hue in 2020). A Gold Glove Award is given to the best player at each fielding position in each major league. The Kansas City Royals use gold as an accent color. In the NBA, the Boston Celtics use "old gold" as an accent color. The Cleveland Cavaliers, Los Angeles Lakers, Indiana Pacers, Denver Nuggets, Golden State Warriors, Memphis Grizzlies, New Orleans Pelicans, Utah Jazz and Oklahoma City Thunder also use gold as an accent color, although the shade is mostly yellowish in appearance. Fans of the National Football League will note the Los Angeles Rams, Pittsburgh Steelers, Washington Commanders, Minnesota Vikings, Green Bay Packers, and Kansas City Chiefs as having gold as a color. The gold they use, however, is a distinctly more yellow color (akin to the non-metallic web color version) than the traditional "old gold" used by the New Orleans Saints and San Francisco 49ers. In both cases, the color is referred to as "gold", with the yellow shade sometimes referred to as "athletic gold" when distinguishing it from the metallic shades. The Rams used a darker gold which was called "New Century Gold" from 2000-2015 when they played in St. Louis. In the NHL, eleven teams currently use a form of gold in their color schemes. The Boston Bruins are the oldest team to do so, and have always used a yellow "athletic" gold; they have even worn several gold sweaters throughout the years. Other teams using athletic gold include the St. Louis Blues, Buffalo Sabres (excluding the 1996–2006 period), Calgary Flames, Florida Panthers (who use a darker, more metallic shade in their logo) and Nashville Predators. Teams that have switched from athletic gold to a metallic shade include the Minnesota North Stars (now the Dallas Stars), Pittsburgh Penguins, and Anaheim Ducks. The Ottawa Senators and Minnesota Wild have always used metallic gold. In addition, the Los Angeles Kings and Vancouver Canucks have used versions of athletic gold in the past. The Kings, Canucks, and Penguins have also worn gold sweaters color in the past. For the 2014–15 season, the Penguins revived the black uniform the team wore during its first two championship seasons in 1991 and 1992, with the team's old shade of gold as an alternate uniform. When the team first switched from shades of blue to black and gold in 1980, the color scheme was similar to that of the Bruins, who protested the Penguins' new uniforms. The protest failed -- largely due to Pittsburgh having a tradition of sports teams wearing gold and black -- and the Penguins wore the shade of gold, now dubbed "Pittsburgh gold", until 2002 and once again in 2014. In college sports, the U.S. Military Academy and the U.S. Naval Academy use gold as a primary color. Vexillology Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Belgium, Bhutan, China, Colombia, Egypt, Ecuador, Germany, Ghana, Malaysia, the Philippines[30] Spain, Sri Lanka, Venezuela, Vietnam are examples of modern nations that use the color golden in their national flags. The Holy Roman Empire, which existed from 800 to 1806, had a golden flag with a black double-headed Imperial Eagle on the field, the origin of the use of the color in the German and Belgian flags. The Byzantine Empire from 1261 until its collapse in 1453 had a flag that had a black double-headed eagle on a field of golden. This flag is still used today as the flag of the Mount Athos autonomous region in Greece.[31] The Flag of the Hispanic People (Bandera de la Raza) is an ethnic flag that is golden and purpure (purple) on a white field. It is also used as the flag of Hispanic America. (This flag is sometimes also called the Flag of the Americas when used on a non-ethnic basis to symbolically represent the combined geographical area of North America and South America together.)" (wikipedia.org) "A jack-o'-lantern (or jack o'lantern) is a carved lantern, most commonly made from a pumpkin or a root vegetable such as a rutabaga or turnip.[1] Jack-o'-lanterns are associated with the Halloween holiday. Its name comes from the reported phenomenon of strange lights flickering over peat bogs, called will-o'-the-wisps or jack-o'-lanterns. The name is also tied to the Irish legend of Stingy Jack, a drunkard who bargains with Satan and is doomed to roam the Earth with only a hollowed turnip to light his way. Jack-o'-lanterns carved from pumpkins are a yearly Halloween tradition that developed in the United States when Celtic Americans brought their root vegetable carving tradition with them.[2] It is common to see jack-o'-lanterns used as external and internal decorations prior to and on Halloween. To make a jack-o'-lantern, the top of a pumpkin or turnip is cut off to form a lid, the inside flesh is scooped out, and an image—usually a "scary" or "funny" face—is carved out of the rind to expose the hollow interior. A light source, traditionally a flames from a candle or tealight, is placed within before the lid is closed. Artificial jack-o'-lanterns with electric lights are also marketed. Etymology An assortment of carved pumpkins. The term jack-o'-lantern was originally used to describe the visual phenomenon ignis fatuus (lit., "foolish fire") known as a will-o'-the-wisp in English folklore.[3] Used especially in East England, its earliest known use dates to the 1660s.[4] History A plaster cast of a traditional Irish Jack-o'-Lantern in the Museum of Country Life, Ireland. Rutabaga or turnip were often used. Modern carving of a Cornish Jack-o'-Lantern made from a turnip. Origin The carving of vegetables has been a common practice in many parts of the world. It is believed that the custom of making jack-o'-lanterns at Halloween time began in the British Isles. [5][6][7] In the 19th century, "turnips or mangel wurzels, hollowed out to act as lanterns and often carved with grotesque faces," were used on Halloween in parts of Ireland and the Scottish Highlands.[8] In these Gaelic-speaking regions, Halloween was also the festival of Samhain and was seen as a time when supernatural beings (the Aos Sí), and the souls of the dead, walked the earth. Jack-o'-lanterns were also made at Halloween time in Somerset, England (see Punkie Night) during the 19th century.[8] By those who made them, the lanterns were said to represent either spirits or supernatural beings,[8] or were used to ward off evil spirits.[9] For example, sometimes they were used by Halloween participants to frighten people,[9][10][11] and sometimes they were set on windowsills to keep harmful spirits out of one's home.[10] It has also been suggested that the jack-o'-lanterns originally represented Christian souls in purgatory, as Halloween is the eve of All Saints' Day (1 November)/All Souls' Day (2 November).[12] On January 16 in 1836, the Dublin Penny Journal published a long story on the legend of "Jack-o'-the-Lantern", although this does not mention the lantern being carved from a vegetable.[13] In 1837, the Limerick Chronicle refers to a local pub holding a carved gourd competition and presenting a prize to "the best crown of Jack McLantern". The term "McLantern" also appears in an 1841 publication of the same paper.[citation needed] There is also evidence that turnips were used to carve what was called a "Hoberdy's Lantern" in Worcestershire, England, at the end of the 18th century. The folklorist Jabez Allies outlines other derivations of the name, "Hobany's", which is most likely derived from "Hob and his", with other variations including "Hob-o'-Lantern", "Hobbedy's Lantern" and "Hobbady-lantern".[14] In North America Adaptations of Washington Irving's short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (1820) often show the Headless Horseman with a pumpkin or jack-o'-lantern in place of his severed head. (In the original story, a shattered pumpkin is discovered next to Ichabod Crane's abandoned hat on the morning after Crane's supposed encounter with the Horseman.) The application of the term to carved pumpkins in American English is first seen in 1834.[15] The carved pumpkin lantern's association with Halloween is recorded in the 1 November 1866 edition of the Daily News (Kingston, Ontario): The old time custom of keeping up Hallowe'en was not forgotten last night by the youngsters of the city. They had their maskings and their merry-makings, and perambulated the streets after dark in a way which was no doubt amusing to themselves. There was a great sacrifice of pumpkins from which to make transparent heads and face, lighted up by the unfailing two inches of tallow candle.[16] James Fenimore Cooper wrote a nautical novel titled The Jack O'lantern (le Feu-Follet), Or the Privateer (1842). The Jack O'lantern was the name of the ship.[17] The poet John Greenleaf Whittier, who was born in Massachusetts in 1807, wrote the poem "The Pumpkin" (1850):[18] Oh!—fruit loved of boyhood!—the old days recalling, When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling! When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin, Glaring out through the dark with a candle within! In 1879's Funny Nursery Rhymes, a poem admonishes children to avoid being similar to untrustworthy "Master Jack o' Lantern," described as a "wicked, deceiving boy" similar to a will-o'-the-wisp who "dances, and jumps, and gambols." He is humorously illustrated as a personification of a lantern.[19] Agnes Carr Sage, in the article, "Halloween Sports and Customs" (Harper's Young People (1885):[20] It is an ancient British custom to light great bonfires (Bone-fire to clear before Winter froze the ground) on Hallowe'en, and carry blazing fagots about on long poles; but in place of this, American boys delight in the funny grinning jack-o'-lanterns made of huge yellow pumpkins with a candle inside. In the United States, the carved pumpkin was first associated with the harvest season in general, long before it became a symbol of Halloween.[21] In 1895, an article on Thanksgiving entertaining recommended a lit jack-o'-lantern as part of the festivities.[21][22] Folklore A commercial "R.I.P." pattern. Halloween jack-o'-lantern. Pumpkin projected onto the wall. The story of the jack-o'-lantern comes in many forms and is similar to the story of Will-o'-the-wisp[23] retold in different forms across Western Europe,[24] including, Italy, Norway, Spain and Sweden.[25] In Switzerland, children will leave bowls of milk or cream out for mythical house spirits called Jack o' the bowl.[26] An old Irish folk tale from the mid-18th century tells of Stingy Jack, a lazy yet shrewd blacksmith who uses a cross to trap Satan. One story says that Jack tricked Satan into climbing an apple tree, and once he was up there, Jack quickly placed crosses around the trunk or carved a cross into the bark, so that Satan couldn't get down.[27] Another version[citation needed] of the story says that Jack was getting chased by some villagers from whom he had stolen. He then met Satan, who claimed it was time for him to die. However, the thief stalled his death by tempting Satan with a chance to bedevil the church-going villagers chasing him. Jack told Satan to turn into a coin with which he would pay for the stolen goods (Satan could take on any shape he wanted); later, when the coin (Satan) disappeared, the Christian villagers would fight over who had stolen it. The Devil agreed to this plan. He turned himself into a silver coin and jumped into Jack's wallet, only to find himself next to a cross Jack had also picked up in the village. Jack closed the wallet tight, and the cross stripped the Devil of his powers; and so he was trapped. In both folktales, Jack lets Satan go only after he agrees to never take his soul. Many years later, the thief died, as all living things do. Of course, Jack's life had been too sinful for him to go to Heaven; however, Satan had promised not to take his soul, and so he was barred from Hell as well.[28] Jack now had nowhere to go. He asked how he would see where to go, as he had no light, and Satan mockingly tossed him a burning coal, to light his way. Jack carved out one of his turnips (which were his favorite food), put the coal inside it, and began endlessly wandering the Earth for a resting place.[28] He became known as "Jack of the Lantern", or jack o'lantern. Cornish folklorist Dr. Thomas Quiller Couch (d. 1884) recorded the use of the term in a rhyme used in Polperro, Cornwall, in conjunction with Joan the Wad, the Cornish version of Will-o'-the-wisp. The people of Polperro regarded them both as pixies. The rhyme goes:[29] Jack o' the lantern! Joan the wad, Who tickled the maid and made her mad Light me home, the weather's bad. Jack-o-lanterns were also a way of protecting one's home against the undead. Superstitious people[30] used them specifically to ward off vampires. They thought this because it was said that the jack-o-lantern's light was a way of identifying vampires who, once their identity was known, would give up their hunt for you. Pumpkin craft A jack-o'-lantern Sections of the pumpkin or turnip are cut out to make holes, often depicting a face, which may be either cheerful, scary, or comical.[31] World records For a long time, Keene, New Hampshire, held the world record for most jack-o'-lanterns carved and lit in one place. The Life is Good Company teamed up with Camp Sunshine,[32] a camp for children with life-threatening illnesses and their families, to break the record. A record was set on October 21, 2006, when 30,128 jack-o'-lanterns were simultaneously lit on Boston Common in downtown Boston, Massachusetts.[33] Highwood, Illinois, tried to set the record on October 31, 2011, with an unofficial count of 30,919 but did not follow the Guinness regulations, so the achievement did not count.[34] On October 19, 2013, Keene broke the Boston record and reclaimed the world record for most lit jack-o'-lanterns on display (30,581). The town has now broken the record eight times since the original attempt." (wikipedia.org) "Memento mori (Latin for 'remember that you [have to] die'[2]) is an artistic or symbolic trope acting as a reminder of the inevitability of death.[2] The concept has its roots in the philosophers of classical antiquity and Christianity, and appeared in funerary art and architecture from the medieval period onwards. The most common motif is a skull, often accompanied by one or more bones. Often this alone is enough to evoke the trope, but other motifs such as a coffin, hourglass and wilting flowers signify the impermanence of human life. Often these function within a work whose main subject is something else, such as a portrait, but the vanitas is an artistic genre where the theme of death is the main subject. The Danse Macabre and Death personified with a scythe as the Grim Reaper are even more direct evocations of the trope. Pronunciation and translation In English, the phrase is typically pronounced /məˈmɛntoʊ ˈmɔːri/, mə-MEN-toh MOR-ee. It is reconstructed as ideally pronounced as something like [mɛˈmɛntoː ˈmɔriː] if spoken by an ancient Roman around the beginning of the AD era.[citation needed] Memento is the 2nd person singular active imperative of meminī, 'to remember, to bear in mind', usually serving as a warning: "remember!" Morī is the present infinitive of the deponent verb morior 'to die'.[3] In other words, "remember death" or "remember that you die".[4] History of the concept In classical antiquity The philosopher Democritus trained himself by going into solitude and frequenting tombs.[5] Plato's Phaedo, where the death of Socrates is recounted, introduces the idea that the proper practice of philosophy is "about nothing else but dying and being dead".[6] The Stoics of classical antiquity were particularly prominent in their use of this discipline, and Seneca's letters are full of injunctions to meditate on death.[7] The Stoic Epictetus told his students that when kissing their child, brother, or friend, they should remind themselves that they are mortal, curbing their pleasure, as do "those who stand behind men in their triumphs and remind them that they are mortal".[8] The Stoic Marcus Aurelius invited the reader (himself) to "consider how ephemeral and mean all mortal things are" in his Meditations.[9][10] In some accounts of the Roman triumph, a companion or public slave would stand behind or near the triumphant general during the procession and remind him from time to time of his own mortality or prompt him to "look behind".[11] A version of this warning is often rendered into English as "Remember, Caesar, thou art mortal", for example in Fahrenheit 451. In Judaism Several passages in the Old Testament urge a remembrance of death. In Psalm 90, Moses prays that God would teach his people "to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom" (Ps. 90:12). In Ecclesiastes, the Preacher insists that "It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart" (Eccl. 7:2). In Isaiah, the lifespan of human beings is compared to the short lifespan of grass: "The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the LORD blows on it; surely the people are grass" (Is. 40:7). In early Christianity The expression memento mori developed with the growth of Christianity, which emphasized Heaven, Hell, and salvation of the soul in the afterlife.[12] The 2nd-century Christian writer Tertullian claimed that during his triumphal procession, a victorious general would have someone (in later versions, a slave) standing behind him, holding a crown over his head and whispering "Respice post te. Hominem te memento" ("Look after you [to the time after your death] and remember you're [only] a man."). Though in modern times this has become a standard trope, in fact no other ancient authors confirm this, and it may have been Christian moralizing rather than an accurate historical report....Christian Theology The thought was then utilized in Christianity, whose strong emphasis on divine judgment, heaven, hell, and the salvation of the soul brought death to the forefront of consciousness.[14] In the Christian context, the memento mori acquires a moralizing purpose quite opposed to the nunc est bibendum (now is the time to drink) theme of classical antiquity. To the Christian, the prospect of death serves to emphasize the emptiness and fleetingness of earthly pleasures, luxuries, and achievements, and thus also as an invitation to focus one's thoughts on the prospect of the afterlife. A Biblical injunction often associated with the memento mori in this context is In omnibus operibus tuis memorare novissima tua, et in aeternum non peccabis (the Vulgate's Latin rendering of Ecclesiasticus 7:40, "in all thy works be mindful of thy last end and thou wilt never sin.") This finds ritual expression in the rites of Ash Wednesday, when ashes are placed upon the worshipers' heads with the words, "Remember Man that you are dust and unto dust, you shall return." Memento mori has been an important part of ascetic disciplines as a means of perfecting the character by cultivating detachment and other virtues, and by turning the attention towards the immortality of the soul and the afterlife.[15] Architecture Unshrouded skeleton on Diana Warburton's tomb (dated 1693) in St John the Baptist Church, Chester The most obvious places to look for memento mori meditations are in funeral art and architecture. Perhaps the most striking to contemporary minds is the transi or cadaver tomb, a tomb that depicts the decayed corpse of the deceased. This became a fashion in the tombs of the wealthy in the fifteenth century, and surviving examples still offer a stark reminder of the vanity of earthly riches. Later, Puritan tomb stones in the colonial United States frequently depicted winged skulls, skeletons, or angels snuffing out candles. These are among the numerous themes associated with skull imagery. Another example of memento mori is provided by the chapels of bones, such as the Capela dos Ossos in Évora or the Capuchin Crypt in Rome. These are chapels where the walls are totally or partially covered by human remains, mostly bones. The entrance to the Capela dos Ossos has the following sentence: "We bones, lying here bare, await yours." Visual art Philippe de Champaigne's Vanitas (c. 1671) is reduced to three essentials: Life, Death, and Time Timepieces have been used to illustrate that the time of the living on Earth grows shorter with each passing minute. Public clocks would be decorated with mottos such as ultima forsan ("perhaps the last" [hour]) or vulnerant omnes, ultima necat ("they all wound, and the last kills"). Clocks have carried the motto tempus fugit, "time flees". Old striking clocks often sported automata who would appear and strike the hour; some of the celebrated automaton clocks from Augsburg, Germany, had Death striking the hour. Private people carried smaller reminders of their own mortality. Mary, Queen of Scots owned a large watch carved in the form of a silver skull, embellished with the lines of Horace, "Pale death knocks with the same tempo upon the huts of the poor and the towers of Kings." In the late 16th and through the 17th century, memento mori jewelry was popular. Items included mourning rings,[16] pendants, lockets, and brooches.[17] These pieces depicted tiny motifs of skulls, bones, and coffins, in addition to messages and names of the departed, picked out in precious metals and enamel.[17][18] During the same period there emerged the artistic genre known as vanitas, Latin for "emptiness" or "vanity". Especially popular in Holland and then spreading to other European nations, vanitas paintings typically represented assemblages of numerous symbolic objects such as human skulls, guttering candles, wilting flowers, soap bubbles, butterflies, and hourglasses. In combination, vanitas assemblies conveyed the impermanence of human endeavours and of the decay that is inevitable with the passage of time. See also the themes associated with the image of the skull. Literature Memento mori is also an important literary theme. Well-known literary meditations on death in English prose include Sir Thomas Browne's Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial and Jeremy Taylor's Holy Living and Holy Dying. These works were part of a Jacobean cult of melancholia that marked the end of the Elizabethan era. In the late eighteenth century, literary elegies were a common genre; Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard and Edward Young's Night Thoughts are typical members of the genre. In the European devotional literature of the Renaissance, the Ars Moriendi, memento mori had moral value by reminding individuals of their mortality.[19] Music Apart from the genre of requiem and funeral music, there is also a rich tradition of memento mori in the Early Music of Europe. Especially those facing the ever-present death during the recurring bubonic plague pandemics from the 1340s onward tried to toughen themselves by anticipating the inevitable in chants, from the simple Geisslerlieder of the Flagellant movement to the more refined cloistral or courtly songs. The lyrics often looked at life as a necessary and god-given vale of tears with death as a ransom, and they reminded people to lead sinless lives to stand a chance at Judgment Day. The following two Latin stanzas (with their English translations) are typical of memento mori in medieval music; they are from the virelai Ad Mortem Festinamus of the Llibre Vermell de Montserrat from 1399: Vita brevis breviter in brevi finietur, Mors venit velociter quae neminem veretur, Omnia mors perimit et nulli miseretur. Ad mortem festinamus peccare desistamus. Ni conversus fueris et sicut puer factus Et vitam mutaveris in meliores actus, Intrare non poteris regnum Dei beatus. Ad mortem festinamus peccare desistamus. Life is short, and shortly it will end; Death comes quickly and respects no one, Death destroys everything and takes pity on no one. To death we are hastening, let us refrain from sinning. If you do not turn back and become like a child, And change your life for the better, You will not be able to enter, blessed, the Kingdom of God. To death we are hastening, let us refrain from sinning. Danse macabre The danse macabre is another well-known example of the memento mori theme, with its dancing depiction of the Grim Reaper carrying off rich and poor alike. This and similar depictions of Death decorated many European churches....The salutation of the Hermits of St. Paul of France Memento mori was the salutation used by the Hermits of St. Paul of France (1620–1633), also known as the Brothers of Death.[20] It is sometimes claimed that the Trappists use this salutation, but this is not true.[21] In Puritan America Thomas Smith's Self-Portrait Colonial American art saw a large number of memento mori images due to Puritan influence. The Puritan community in 17th-century North America looked down upon art because they believed that it drew the faithful away from God and, if away from God, then it could only lead to the devil. However, portraits were considered historical records and, as such, they were allowed. Thomas Smith, a 17th-century Puritan, fought in many naval battles and also painted. In his self-portrait, we see these pursuits represented alongside a typical Puritan memento mori with a skull, suggesting his awareness of imminent death. The poem underneath the skull emphasizes Thomas Smith's acceptance of death and of turning away from the world of the living: Why why should I the World be minding, Therein a World of Evils Finding. Then Farwell World: Farwell thy jarres, thy Joies thy Toies thy Wiles thy Warrs. Truth Sounds Retreat: I am not sorye. The Eternall Drawes to him my heart, By Faith (which can thy Force Subvert) To Crowne me (after Grace) with Glory. Mexico's Day of the Dead Posada's 1910 La Calavera Catrina Main article: Day of the Dead Much memento mori art is associated with the Mexican festival Day of the Dead, including skull-shaped candies and bread loaves adorned with bread "bones". This theme was also famously expressed in the works of the Mexican engraver José Guadalupe Posada, in which people from various walks of life are depicted as skeletons. Another manifestation of memento mori is found in the Mexican "Calavera", a literary composition in verse form normally written in honour of a person who is still alive, but written as if that person were dead. These compositions have a comedic tone and are often offered from one friend to another during Day of the Dead.[22] Contemporary culture Roman Krznaric suggests Memento Mori is an important topic to bring back into our thoughts and belief system; "Philosophers have come up with lots of what I call 'death tasters' – thought experiments for seizing the day." These thought experiments are powerful to get us re-oriented back to death into current awareness and living with spontaneity. Albert Camus stated "Come to terms with death, thereafter anything is possible." Jean-Paul Sartre expressed that life is given to us early, and is shortened at the end, all the while taken away at every step of the way, emphasizing that the end is only the beginning every day.[23] Similar concepts in other religions and cultures In Buddhism The Buddhist practice maraṇasati meditates on death. The word is a Pāli compound of maraṇa 'death' (an Indo-European cognate of Latin mori) and sati 'awareness', so very close to memento mori. It is first used in early Buddhist texts, the suttapiṭaka of the Pāli Canon, with parallels in the āgamas of the "Northern" Schools. In Japanese Zen and samurai culture In Japan, the influence of Zen Buddhist contemplation of death on indigenous culture can be gauged by the following quotation from the classic treatise on samurai ethics, Hagakure:[24] The Way of the Samurai is, morning after morning, the practice of death, considering whether it will be here or be there, imagining the most sightly way of dying, and putting one's mind firmly in death. Although this may be a most difficult thing, if one will do it, it can be done. There is nothing that one should suppose cannot be done.[25] In the annual appreciation of cherry blossom and fall colors, hanami and momijigari, it was philosophized that things are most splendid at the moment before their fall, and to aim to live and die in a similar fashion.[citation needed] In Tibetan Buddhism Tibetan Citipati mask depicting Mahākāla. The skull mask of Citipati is a reminder of the impermanence of life and the eternal cycle of life and death. In Tibetan Buddhism, there is a mind training practice known as Lojong. The initial stages of the classic Lojong begin with 'The Four Thoughts that Turn the Mind', or, more literally, 'Four Contemplations to Cause a Revolution in the Mind'.[citation needed] The second of these four is the contemplation on impermanence and death. In particular, one contemplates that; All compounded things are impermanent. The human body is a compounded thing. Therefore, death of the body is certain. The time of death is uncertain and beyond our control. There are a number of classic verse formulations of these contemplations meant for daily reflection to overcome our strong habitual tendency to live as though we will certainly not die today. Lalitavistara Sutra The following is from the Lalitavistara Sūtra, a major work in the classical Sanskrit canon: अध्रुवं त्रिभवं शरदभ्रनिभं नटरङ्गसमा जगिर् ऊर्मिच्युती। गिरिनद्यसमं लघुशीघ्रजवं व्रजतायु जगे यथ विद्यु नभे॥ ज्वलितं त्रिभवं जरव्याधिदुखैः मरणाग्निप्रदीप्तमनाथमिदम्। भवनि शरणे सद मूढ जगत् भ्रमती भ्रमरो यथ कुम्भगतो॥ The three worlds are fleeting like autumn clouds. Like a staged performance, beings come and go. In tumultuous waves, rushing by, like rapids over a cliff. Like lightning, wanderers in samsara burst into existence, and are gone in a flash. Beings are ablaze with the sufferings of sickness and old age, And with no defence against the conflagration of Death The bewildered, seeking refuge in worldly existence Spin round and round, like bees trapped in a jar.[26] The Udānavarga A very well known verse in the Pali, Sanskrit and Tibetan canons states [this is from the Sanskrit version, the Udānavarga: सर्वे क्षयान्ता निचयाः पतनान्ताः समुच्छ्रयाः | सम्योगा विप्रयोगान्ता मरणान्तं हि जीवितम् |1,22| All that is acquired will be lost What rises will fall Where there is meeting there will be separation What is born will surely die.[27] Shantideva, Bodhicaryavatara Shantideva, in the Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra 'Bodhisattva's Way of Life' reflects at length: कृताकृतापरीक्षोऽयं मृत्युर्विश्रम्भघातकः। स्वस्थास्वस्थैरविश्वास्य आकमिस्मकमहाशनि:॥ २/३४॥ अप्रिया न भविष्यन्ति प्रियो मे न भविष्यति। अहं च न भविष्यामि सर्वं च न भविष्यति॥ २/३७॥ तत्तत्स्मरणताम याति यद्यद्वस्त्वनुभयते। स्वप्नानुभूतवत्सर्वं गतं न पूनरीक्ष्यते॥ २/३६॥ रात्रिन्दिवमविश्राममायुषो वर्धते व्ययः। आयस्य चागमो नास्ति न मरिष्यामि किं न्वहम्॥ २/४० यमदूतैर्गृहीतस्य कुतो बन्धुः कुतः सुह्रत्। पुण्यमेकं तदा त्राणं मया तच्च न सेवितम्॥ २/४१॥ Death does not differentiate between tasks done and undone. This traitor is not to be trusted by the healthy or the ill, for it is like an unexpected, great thunderbolt. BCA 2.33 My enemies will not remain, nor will my friends remain. I shall not remain. Nothing will remain. BCA 2:35 Whatever is experienced will fade to a memory. Like an experience in a dream, everything that has passed will not be seen again. BCA 2:36 Day and night, a life span unceasingly diminishes, and there is no adding onto it. Shall I not die then? BCA 2:39 For a person seized by the messengers of Death, what good is a relative and what good is a friend? At that time, merit alone is a protection, and I have not applied myself to it. BCA 2:41 In more modern Tibetan Buddhist works In a practice text written by the 19th century Tibetan master Dudjom Lingpa for serious meditators, he formulates the second contemplation in this way:[28][29] On this occasion when you have such a bounty of opportunities in terms of your body, environment, friends, spiritual mentors, time, and practical instructions, without procrastinating until tomorrow and the next day, arouse a sense of urgency, as if a spark landed on your body or a grain of sand fell in your eye. If you have not swiftly applied yourself to practice, examine the births and deaths of other beings and reflect again and again on the unpredictability of your lifespan and the time of your death, and on the uncertainty of your own situation. Meditate on this until you have definitively integrated it with your mind... The appearances of this life, including your surroundings and friends, are like last night's dream, and this life passes more swiftly than a flash of lightning in the sky. There is no end to this meaningless work. What a joke to prepare to live forever! Wherever you are born in the heights or depths of saṃsāra, the great noose of suffering will hold you tight. Acquiring freedom for yourself is as rare as a star in the daytime, so how is it possible to practice and achieve liberation? The root of all mind training and practical instructions is planted by knowing the nature of existence. There is no other way. I, an old vagabond, have shaken my beggar's satchel, and this is what came out. The contemporary Tibetan master, Yangthang Rinpoche, in his short text 'Summary of the View, Meditation, and Conduct':[30] །ཁྱེད་རྙེད་དཀའ་བ་མི་ཡི་ལུས་རྟེན་རྙེད། །སྐྱེ་དཀའ་བའི་ངེས་འབྱུང་གི་བསམ་པ་སྐྱེས། །མཇལ་དཀའ་བའི་མཚན་ལྡན་གྱི་བླ་མ་མཇལ། །འཕྲད་དཀའ་བ་དམ་པའི་ཆོས་དང་འཕྲད། འདི་འདྲ་བའི་ལུས་རྟེན་བཟང་པོ་འདི། །ཐོབ་དཀའ་བའི་ཚུལ་ལ་ཡང་ཡང་སོམ། རྙེད་པ་འདི་དོན་ཡོད་མ་བྱས་ན། །འདི་མི་རྟག་རླུང་གསེབ་མར་མེ་འདྲ། ཡུན་རིང་པོའི་བློ་གཏད་འདི་ལ་མེད། །ཤི་བར་དོར་གྲོལ་བའི་གདེངས་མེད་ན། །ཚེ་ཕྱི་མའི་སྡུག་བསྔལ་ཨ་རེ་འཇིགས། །མཐའ་མེད་པའི་འཁོར་བར་འཁྱམས་དགོས་ཚེ། །འདིའི་རང་བཞིན་བསམ་ན་སེམས་རེ་སྐྱོ། །ཚེ་འདི་ལ་བློ་གདེངས་ཐོབ་པ་ཞིག །ཅི་ནས་ཀྱང་མཛད་རྒྱུ་བཀའ་དྲིན་ཆེ། །འདི་བདག་གིས་ཁྱོད་ལ་རེ་བ་ཡིན། You have obtained a human life, which is difficult to find, Have aroused an intention of a spirit of emergence, which is difficult to arouse, Have met a qualified guru, who is difficult to meet, And you have encountered the sublime Dharma, which is difficult to encounter. Reflect again and again on the difficulty Of obtaining such a fine human life. If you do not make this meaningful, It will be like a butter lamp in the wind of impermanence. Do not count on this lasting a long time. The Tibetan Canon also includes copious materials on the meditative preparation for the death process and intermediate period bardo between death and rebirth. Amongst them are the famous "Tibetan Book of the Dead", in Tibetan Bardo Thodol, the "Natural Liberation through Hearing in the Bardo". In Islam The "remembrance of death" (Arabic: تذكرة الموت, Tadhkirat al-Mawt; deriving from تذكرة, tadhkirah, Arabic for memorandum or admonition), has been a major topic of Islamic spirituality since the time of the Islamic prophet Muhammad in Medina. It is grounded in the Qur'an, where there are recurring injunctions to pay heed to the fate of previous generations.[31] The hadith literature, which preserves the teachings of Muhammad, records advice for believers to "remember often death, the destroyer of pleasures."[32] Some Sufis have been called "ahl al-qubur," the "people of the graves," because of their practice of frequenting graveyards to ponder on mortality and the vanity of life, based on the teaching of Muhammad to visit graves.[33] Al-Ghazali devotes to this topic the last book of his "The Revival of the Religious Sciences".[34] Iceland The Hávamál ("Sayings of the High One"), a 13th-century Icelandic compilation poetically attributed to the god Odin, includes two sections – the Gestaþáttr and the Loddfáfnismál – offering many gnomic proverbs expressing the memento mori philosophy, most famously Gestaþáttr number 77: Deyr fé, deyja frændur, deyr sjálfur ið sama; ek veit einn at aldri deyr, dómr um dauðan hvern. Animals die, friends die, and thyself, too, shall die; but one thing I know that never dies the tales of the one who died." (wikipedia.org) "Vanitas (Latin for 'vanity') is a genre of art which uses symbolism to show the transience of life, the futility of pleasure, and the certainty of death. The paintings involved still life imagery of transitory items. The genre began in the 16th century and continued into the 17th century. Vanitas art is a type of allegorical art representing a higher ideal. Etymology The word vanitas comes from Latin and means vanity. Vanity is referenced in the Bible's Old Testament in Ecclesiastes 12:8, "Vanity of Vanities, saith the preacher, all is vanity". The message is that human action is temporary and faith is forever.[1] Vanitas is a sub-genre of still life painting which Dutch painters during the Baroque period (c.1585–1730) employed.[2] The Spanish painters also created vanitas paintings which coincided with the end of the Spanish Golden Age. Memento mori is a similar theme which when translated from Latin means, "remember that you will die."[3] History A group of painters in Leiden began to produce vanitas paintings beginning in the 16th century and they continued into the 17th century. Vanitas art is a type of allegorical art representing a higher ideal or containing hidden meanings.[4] Vanitas are very formulaic and they use literary and traditional symbols to convey mortality. Vanitas often have a message that is rooted in religion or the Christian Bible.[5] In the 17th century the vanitas genre was popular among Dutch painters. The paintings often have symbolic imagery which attempts to convey the message that we will die, and we should think about futility of our earthly pursuits.[2] The well known Spanish vanitas refer to Spain's rulers and the politics of Spain.[3] It was popular to include skulls in vanitas paintings. In the 17th century, a skull symbolized the ephemeral nature of life." (wikipedia.org) "The human skeleton is the internal framework of the human body. It is composed of around 270 bones at birth – this total decreases to around 206 bones by adulthood after some bones get fused together.[1] The bone mass in the skeleton makes up about 14% of the total body weight (ca. 10–11 kg for an average person) and reaches maximum mass between the ages of 25 and 30.[2] The human skeleton can be divided into the axial skeleton and the appendicular skeleton. The axial skeleton is formed by the vertebral column, the rib cage, the skull and other associated bones. The appendicular skeleton, which is attached to the axial skeleton, is formed by the shoulder girdle, the pelvic girdle and the bones of the upper and lower limbs. The human skeleton performs six major functions: support, movement, protection, production of blood cells, storage of minerals, and endocrine regulation. The human skeleton is not as sexually dimorphic as that of many other primate species, but subtle differences between sexes in the morphology of the skull, dentition, long bones, and pelvis exist. In general, female skeletal elements tend to be smaller and less robust than corresponding male elements within a given population.[citation needed] The human female pelvis is also different from that of males in order to facilitate childbirth.[3] Unlike most primates, human males do not have penile bones....Divisions Axial Main article: Axial skeleton The axial skeleton (80 bones) is formed by the vertebral column (32–34 bones; the number of the vertebrae differs from human to human as the lower 2 parts, sacral and coccygeal bone may vary in length), a part of the rib cage (12 pairs of ribs and the sternum), and the skull (22 bones and 7 associated bones). The upright posture of humans is maintained by the axial skeleton, which transmits the weight from the head, the trunk, and the upper extremities down to the lower extremities at the hip joints. The bones of the spine are supported by many ligaments. The erector spinae muscles are also supporting and are useful for balance. Appendicular Main article: Appendicular skeleton The appendicular skeleton (126 bones) is formed by the pectoral girdles, the upper limbs, the pelvic girdle or pelvis, and the lower limbs. Their functions are to make locomotion possible and to protect the major organs of digestion, excretion and reproduction. Functions The skeleton serves six major functions: support, movement, protection, production of blood cells, storage of minerals and endocrine regulation. Support The skeleton provides the framework which supports the body and maintains its shape. The pelvis, associated ligaments and muscles provide a floor for the pelvic structures. Without the rib cages, costal cartilages, and intercostal muscles, the lungs would collapse. Movement The joints between bones allow movement, some allowing a wider range of movement than others, e.g. the ball and socket joint allows a greater range of movement than the pivot joint at the neck. Movement is powered by skeletal muscles, which are attached to the skeleton at various sites on bones. Muscles, bones, and joints provide the principal mechanics for movement, all coordinated by the nervous system. It is believed that the reduction of human bone density in prehistoric times reduced the agility and dexterity of human movement. Shifting from hunting to agriculture has caused human bone density to reduce significantly.[5][6][7] Protection The skeleton helps to protect many vital internal organs from being damaged. The skull protects the brain The vertebrae protect the spinal cord. The rib cage, spine, and sternum protect the lungs, heart and major blood vessels." (wikipedia.org) "The skull is a bone protective cavity for the brain.[1] The skull is composed of four types of bone i.e., cranial bones, facial bones, ear ossicles and hyoid bone. However two parts are more prominent: the cranium and the mandible.[2] In humans, these two parts are the neurocranium and the viscerocranium (facial skeleton) that includes the mandible as its largest bone. The skull forms the anterior-most portion of the skeleton and is a product of cephalisation—housing the brain, and several sensory structures such as the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.[3] In humans these sensory structures are part of the facial skeleton. Functions of the skull include protection of the brain, fixing the distance between the eyes to allow stereoscopic vision, and fixing the position of the ears to enable sound localisation of the direction and distance of sounds. In some animals, such as horned ungulates (mammals with hooves), the skull also has a defensive function by providing the mount (on the frontal bone) for the horns. The English word skull is probably derived from Old Norse skulle,[4] while the Latin word cranium comes from the Greek root κρανίον (kranion). The human skull fully develops two years after birth.The junctions of the skull bones are joined by structures called sutures. The skull is made up of a number of fused flat bones, and contains many foramina, fossae, processes, and several cavities or sinuses. In zoology there are openings in the skull called fenestrae.Structure Humans For details and the constituent bones, see Neurocranium and Facial skeleton. Skull in situ Anatomy of a flat bone – the periosteum of the neurocranium is known as the pericranium Human skull from the front Side bones of skull The human skull is the bone structure that forms the head in the human skeleton. It supports the structures of the face and forms a cavity for the brain. Like the skulls of other vertebrates, it protects the brain from injury.[5] The skull consists of three parts, of different embryological origin—the neurocranium, the sutures, and the facial skeleton (also called the membraneous viscerocranium). The neurocranium (or braincase) forms the protective cranial cavity that surrounds and houses the brain and brainstem.[6] The upper areas of the cranial bones form the calvaria (skullcap). The membranous viscerocranium includes the mandible. The sutures are fairly rigid joints between bones of the neurocranium. The facial skeleton is formed by the bones supporting the face. Bones Except for the mandible, all of the bones of the skull are joined by sutures—synarthrodial (immovable) joints formed by bony ossification, with Sharpey's fibres permitting some flexibility. Sometimes there can be extra bone pieces within the suture known as wormian bones or sutural bones. Most commonly these are found in the course of the lambdoid suture. The human skull is generally considered to consist of twenty-two bones—eight cranial bones and fourteen facial skeleton bones. In the neurocranium these are the occipital bone, two temporal bones, two parietal bones, the sphenoid, ethmoid and frontal bones. The bones of the facial skeleton (14) are the vomer, two inferior nasal conchae, two nasal bones, two maxilla, the mandible, two palatine bones, two zygomatic bones, and two lacrimal bones. Some sources count a paired bone as one, or the maxilla as having two bones (as its parts); some sources include the hyoid bone or the three ossicles of the middle ear but the overall general consensus of the number of bones in the human skull is the stated twenty-two. Some of these bones—the occipital, parietal, frontal, in the neurocranium, and the nasal, lacrimal, and vomer, in the facial skeleton are flat bones. Cavities and foramina CT scan of a human skull in 3D The skull also contains sinuses, air-filled cavities known as paranasal sinuses, and numerous foramina. The sinuses are lined with respiratory epithelium. Their known functions are the lessening of the weight of the skull, the aiding of resonance to the voice and the warming and moistening of the air drawn into the nasal cavity. The foramina are openings in the skull. The largest of these is the foramen magnum that allows the passage of the spinal cord as well as nerves and blood vessels. Processes The many processes of the skull include the mastoid process and the zygomatic processes." (wikipedia.org) "Humour (Commonwealth English) or humor (American English) is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids in the human body, known as humours (Latin: humor, "body fluid"), controlled human health and emotion. People of all ages and cultures respond to humour. Most people are able to experience humour—be amused, smile or laugh at something funny (such as a pun or joke)—and thus are considered to have a sense of humour. The hypothetical person lacking a sense of humour would likely find the behaviour to be inexplicable, strange, or even irrational. Though ultimately decided by personal taste, the extent to which a person finds something humorous depends on a host of variables, including geographical location, culture, maturity, level of education, intelligence and context. For example, young children may favour slapstick such as Punch and Judy puppet shows or the Tom and Jerry cartoons, whose physical nature makes it accessible to them. By contrast, more sophisticated forms of humour such as satire require an understanding of its social meaning and context, and thus tend to appeal to a more mature audience. Theories Main article: Theories of humour Many theories exist about what humour is and what social function it serves. The prevailing types of theories attempting to account for the existence of humour include psychological theories, the vast majority of which consider humour-induced behaviour to be very healthy; spiritual theories, which may, for instance, consider humour to be a "gift from God"; and theories which consider humour to be an unexplainable mystery, very much like a mystical experience.[1] The benign-violation theory, endorsed by Peter McGraw, attempts to explain humour's existence. The theory says 'humour only occurs when something seems wrong, unsettling, or threatening, but simultaneously seems okay, acceptable or safe'.[2] Humour can be used as a method to easily engage in social interaction by taking away that awkward, uncomfortable, or uneasy feeling of social interactions. Others believe that 'the appropriate use of humour can facilitate social interactions'....Laughter A man laughing One of the main focuses of modern psychological humour theory and research is to establish and clarify the correlation between humour and laughter. The major empirical findings here are that laughter and humour do not always have a one-to-one association. While most previous theories assumed the connection between the two almost to the point of them being synonymous, psychology has been able to scientifically and empirically investigate the supposed connection, its implications, and significance. In 2009, Diana Szameitat conducted a study to examine the differentiation of emotions in laughter. They hired actors and told them to laugh with one of four different emotional associations by using auto-induction, where they would focus exclusively on the internal emotion and not on the expression of laughter itself. They found an overall recognition rate of 44%, with joy correctly classified at 44%, tickle 45%, schadenfreude 37%, and taunt 50%.[42]: 399 Their second experiment tested the behavioural recognition of laughter during an induced emotional state and they found that different laughter types did differ with respect to emotional dimensions.[42]: 401–402 In addition, the four emotional states displayed a full range of high and low sender arousal and valence.[42]: 403 This study showed that laughter can be correlated with both positive (joy and tickle) and negative (schadenfreude and taunt) emotions with varying degrees of arousal in the subject. This brings into question the definition of humour, then. If it is to be defined by the cognitive processes which display laughter, then humour itself can encompass a variety of negative as well as positive emotions. However, if humour is limited to positive emotions and things which cause positive affect, it must be delimited from laughter and their relationship should be further defined....Ageing Humour has been shown to improve and help the ageing process in three areas. The areas are improving physical health, improving social communications, and helping to achieve a sense of satisfaction in life. Studies have shown that constant humour in the ageing process gives health benefits to individuals. Such benefits as higher self-esteem, lower levels of depression, anxiety, and perceived stress, and a more positive self-concept as well as other health benefits which have been recorded and acknowledged through various studies.[48][49] Even patients with specific diseases have shown improvement with ageing using humour.[50] Overall there is a strong correlation through constant humour in ageing and better health in the individuals. Another way that research indicates that humour helps with the ageing process, is through helping the individual to create and maintain strong social relationship during transitory periods in their lives.[50] One such example is when people are moved into nursing homes or other facilities of care. With this transition certain social interactions with friend and family may be limited forcing the individual to look elsewhere for these social interactions. Humour has been shown to make transitions easier, as humour is shown reduce stress and facilitate socialisation and serves as a social bonding function.[51] Humour may also help the transition in helping the individual to maintain positive feelings towards those who are enforcing the changes in their lives. These new social interactions can be critical for these transitions in their lives and humour will help these new social interactions to take place making these transitions easier. Humour can also help ageing individuals maintain a sense of satisfaction in their lives. Through the ageing process many changes will occur, such as losing the right to drive a car. This can cause a decrease in satisfaction in the lives of the individual. Humour helps to alleviate this decrease of satisfaction by allowing the humour to release stress and anxiety caused by changes in the individuals life.[50] Laughing and humour can be a substitute for the decrease in satisfaction by allowing individuals to feel better about their situations by alleviating the stress.[48] This, in turn, can help them to maintain a sense of satisfaction towards their new and changing life style. Physiology In an article published in Nature Reviews Neuroscience, it is reported that a study's results indicate that humour is rooted in the frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex. The study states, in part: "Humour seems to engage a core network of cortical and subcortical structures, including temporo-occipito-parietal areas involved in detecting and resolving incongruity (mismatch between expected and presented stimuli); and the mesocorticolimbic dopaminergic system and the amygdala, key structures for reward and salience processing."[52] Formula Surprise is a component of humour. Humour can be verbal, visual, or physical. Non-verbal forms of communication–for example, music or visual art–can also be humorous. Root components Being reflective of or imitative of reality Surprise/misdirection, contradiction/paradox, ambiguity. Methods Farce Hyperbole Metaphor Pun Reframing Timing Behaviour, place and size Rowan Atkinson explains in his lecture in the documentary Funny Business[53] that an object or a person can become funny in three ways: by behaving in an unusual way, by being in an unusual place, by being the wrong size. Most sight gags fit into one or more of these categories. Exaggeration Main article: Exaggeration Some theoreticians of the comic consider exaggeration to be a universal comic device.[54] It may take different forms in different genres, but all rely on the fact that the easiest way to make things laughable is to exaggerate to the point of absurdity their salient traits.[55] Taxonomy There are many taxonomies of humor; the following is used to classify humorous tweets in (Rayz 2012).[56] Anecdotes Fantasy Insult Irony Jokes Observational Quote Role play Self-deprecation Vulgarity Word play Other" (wikipedia.org) "Halloween is a celebration observed on October 31, the day before the feast of All Hallows, also known as Hallowmas or All Saint's Day. The celebrations and observances of this day occur primarily in regions of the Western world, albeit with some traditions varying significantly between geographical areas. Origins Halloween is the eve of vigil before the Western Christian feast of All Hallows (or All Saints) which is observed on November 1. This day begins the triduum of Hallowtide, which culminates with All Souls' Day. In the Middle Ages, many Christians held a folk belief that All Hallows' Eve was the "night where the veil between the material world and the afterlife was at its most transparent".[2] Americas Canada Scottish emigration, primarily to Canada before 1870 and to the United States thereafter, brought the Scottish version of the holiday to each country. The earliest known reference to ritual begging on Halloween in English speaking North America occurs in 1911 when a newspaper in Kingston, Ontario reported that it was normal for the smaller children to go street "guising" on Halloween between 6 and 7 p.m., visiting shops, and neighbours to be rewarded with nuts and candies for their rhymes and songs.[3] Canadians spend more on candy at Halloween than at any time apart from Christmas. Halloween is also a time for charitable contributions. Until 2006 when UNICEF moved to an online donation system, collecting small change was very much a part of Canadian trick-or-treating.[4] Quebec offers themed tours of parts of the old city and historic cemeteries in the area.[5] In 2014 the hamlet of Arviat, Nunavut moved their Halloween festivities to the community hall, cancelling the practice of door-to-door "trick or treating", due to the risk of roaming polar bears.[6][7] In British Columbia it is a tradition to set off fireworks at Halloween.[8] United States Children in Halloween costumes at High Point, Seattle, 1943 Community Halloween party in Frazier Park, California. Children on Halloween, Woody Creek, Colorado In the United States, Halloween did not become a holiday until the 19th century. The transatlantic migration of nearly two million Irish following the Great Irish Famine (1845–1849) brought the holiday to the United States. American librarian and author Ruth Edna Kelley wrote the first book length history of the holiday in the U.S., The Book of Hallowe'en (1919), and references souling in the chapter "Hallowe'en in America": "All Hallowe'en customs in the United States are borrowed directly or adapted from those of other countries. The taste in Hallowe'en festivities now is to study old traditions, and hold a Scotch party, using Robert Burns's poem Halloween as a guide; or to go a-souling as the English used. In short, no custom that was once honored at Hallowe'en is out of fashion now."[9] The main event for children of modern Halloween in the United States and Canada is trick-or-treating, in which children, teenagers, (sometimes) young adults, and parents (accompanying their children) disguise themselves in costumes and go door-to-door in their neighborhoods, ringing each doorbell and yelling "Trick or treat!" to solicit a gift of candy or similar items.[10] Teenagers and adults will more frequently attend Halloween-themed costume parties typically hosted by friends or themed events at nightclubs either on Halloween itself or a weekend close to the holiday. At the turn of the 20th century, Halloween had turned into a night of vandalism, with destruction of property and cruelty to animals and people.[11] Around 1912, the Boy Scouts, Boys Clubs, and other neighborhood organizations came together to encourage a safe celebration that would end the destruction that had become so common on this night. The commercialization of Halloween in the United States did not start until the 20th century, beginning perhaps with Halloween postcards (featuring hundreds of designs), which were most popular between 1905 and 1915.[12] Dennison Manufacturing Company (which published its first Halloween catalog in 1909) and the Beistle Company were pioneers in commercially made Halloween decorations, particularly die-cut paper items.[13][14] German manufacturers specialised in Halloween figurines that were exported to the United States in the period between the two World Wars. Halloween is now the United States' second most popular holiday (after Christmas) for decorating; the sale of candy and costumes is also extremely common during the holiday, which is marketed to children and adults alike. The National Confectioners Association (NCA) reported in 2005 that 80% of American adults planned to give out candy to trick-or-treaters.[15] The NCA reported in 2005 that 93% of children planned to go trick-or-treating.[16] According to the National Retail Federation, the most popular Halloween costume themes for adults are, in order: witch, pirate, vampire, cat, and clown.[17][when?] Each year, popular costumes are dictated by various current events and pop culture icons. On many college campuses, Halloween is a major celebration, with the Friday and Saturday nearest 31 October hosting many costume parties. Other popular activities are watching horror movies and visiting haunted houses. Total spending on Halloween is estimated to be $8.4 billion.[18] Events Four contestants in the Halloween Slick Chick beauty contest in Anaheim, California, 1947 Many theme parks stage Halloween events annually, such as Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood and Universal Orlando, Mickey's Halloween Party and Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party at Disneyland Resort and Magic Kingdom respectively, and Knott's Scary Farm at Knott's Berry Farm. One of the more notable parades is New York's Village Halloween Parade. Each year approximately 50,000 costumed marchers parade up Sixth Avenue.[19] Salem, Massachusetts, site of the Salem witch trials, celebrates Halloween throughout the month of October with tours, plays, concerts, and other activities.[20] A number of venues in New York's lower Hudson Valley host various events to showcase a connection with Washington Irving's Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Van Cortlandt Manor stages the "Great Jack o' Lantern Blaze" featuring thousands of lighted carved pumpkins.[21] Some locales have had to modify their celebrations due to disruptive behavior on the part of young adults. Madison, Wisconsin hosts an annual Halloween celebration. In 2002, due to the large crowds in the State Street area, a riot broke out, necessitating the use of mounted police and tear gas to disperse the crowds.[22] Likewise, Chapel Hill, site of the University of North Carolina, has a downtown street party which in 2007 drew a crowd estimated at 80,000 on downtown Franklin Street, in a town with a population of just 54,000. In 2008, in an effort to curb the influx of out-of-towners, mayor Kevin Foy put measures in place to make commuting downtown more difficult on Halloween.[23] In 2014, large crowds of college students rioted at the Keene, New Hampshire Pumpkin Fest, whereupon the City Council voted not to grant a permit for the following year's festival,[24] and organizers moved the event to Laconia for 2015.[25] Dominican Republic In the Dominican Republic it has been gaining popularity, largely due to many Dominicans living in the United States and then bringing the custom to the island. In the larger cities of Santiago or Santo Domingo it has become more common to see children trick-or-treating, but in smaller towns and villages it is almost entirely absent, partly due to religious opposition. Tourist areas such as Sosua and Punta Cana feature many venues with Halloween celebrations, predominantly geared towards adults.[26] Mexico (Día de los Muertos) Mexican Tomb on the 2019 Day of the Dead, adorned with the cempasúchil, the traditional flower of the Day of the Dead, and a Halloween ghost balloon, at the historic cemetery of San Luis Potosí City Observed in Mexico and Mexican communities abroad, Day of the Dead (Spanish: Día de los Muertos) celebrations arose from the syncretism of indigenous Aztec traditions with the Christian Hallowtide of the Spanish colonizers. Flower decorations, altars and candies are part of this holiday season. The holiday is distinct from Halloween in its origins and observances, but the two have become associated because of cross-border connections between Mexico and the United States through popular culture and migration, as the two celebrations occur at the same time of year and may involve similar imagery, such as skeletons. Halloween and Día de Muertos have influenced each other in some areas of the United States and Mexico, with Halloween traditions such as costumes and face-painting becoming increasingly common features of the Mexican festival.[27][28] Asia China The Chinese celebrate the "Hungry Ghost Festival" in mid-July, when it is customary to float river lanterns to remember those who have died. By contrast, Halloween is often called "All Saints' Festival" (Wànshèngjié, 萬聖節), or (less commonly) "All Saints' Eve" (Wànshèngyè, 萬聖夜) or "Eve of All Saints' Day" (Wànshèngjié Qiányè, 萬聖節前夕), stemming from the term "All Hallows Eve" (hallow referring to the souls of holy saints). Chinese Christian churches hold religious celebrations. Non-religious celebrations are dominated by expatriate Americans or Canadians, but costume parties are also popular for Chinese young adults, especially in large cities. Hong Kong Disneyland and Ocean Park (Halloween Bash) host annual Halloween shows. Mainland China has been less influenced by Anglo traditions than Hong Kong and Halloween is generally considered "foreign". As Halloween has become more popular globally it has also become more popular in China, however, particularly amongst children attending private or international schools with many foreign teachers from North America.[29] Hong Kong Traditional "door-to-door" trick or treating is not commonly practiced in Hong Kong due to the vast majority of Hong Kong residents living in high-rise apartment blocks. However, in many buildings catering to expatriates, Halloween parties and limited trick or treating is arranged by the management. Instances of street-level trick or treating in Hong Kong occur in ultra-exclusive gated housing communities such as The Beverly Hills populated by Hong Kong's super-rich and in expatriate areas like Discovery Bay and the Red Hill Peninsula. For the general public, there are events at Tsim Sha Tsui's Avenue of the Stars that try to mimic the celebration.[30] In the Lan Kwai Fong area of Hong Kong, known as a major entertainment district for the international community, a Halloween celebration and parade has taken place for over 20 years, with many people dressing in costume and making their way around the streets to various drinking establishments.[31] Many international schools also celebrate Halloween with costumes, and some put an academic twist on the celebrations such as the "Book-o-ween" celebrations at Hong Kong International School where students dress as favorite literary characters. Japan A Halloween display in a local bank window, in Saitama, Japan. Halloween arrived in Japan mainly as a result of American pop culture. In 2009 it was celebrated only by expats.[32] The wearing of elaborate costumes by young adults at night has since become popular in areas such as Amerikamura in Osaka and Shibuya in Tokyo, where, in October 2012, about 1700 people dressed in costumes to take part in the Halloween Festival.[33] Celebrations have become popular with young adults as a costume party and club event.[34] Trick-or-treating for Japanese children has taken hold in some areas. By the mid-2010s, Yakuza were giving snacks and sweets to children.[35] Philippines The period from 31 October through 2 November is a time for remembering dead family members and friends. Many Filipinos travel back to their hometowns for family gatherings of festive remembrance.[36] Trick-or-treating is gradually replacing the dying tradition of Pangangaluluwâ, a local analogue of the old English custom of souling. People in the provinces still observe Pangangaluluwâ by going in groups to every house and offering a song in exchange for money or food. The participants, usually children, would sing carols about the souls in Purgatory, with the abúloy (alms for the dead) used to pay for Masses for these souls. Along with the requested alms, householders sometimes gave the children suman (rice cakes). During the night, various small items, such as clothing, plants, etc., would "mysteriously" disappear, only to be discovered the next morning in the yard or in the middle of the street. In older times, it was believed that the spirits of ancestors and loved ones visited the living on this night, manifesting their presence by taking an item.[37] As the observation of Christmas traditions in the Philippines begins as early as September, it is a common sight to see Halloween decorations next to Christmas decorations in urban settings.[citation needed] Saudi Arabia Starting 2022, Saudi Arabia began to celebrate Halloween in the public in Riyadh under its Saudi Vision 2030.[38] Singapore Around mid-July Singapore Chinese celebrate "Zhong Yuan Jie / Yu Lan Jie" (Hungry Ghosts Festival), a time when it is believed that the spirits of the dead come back to visit their families.[39] In recent years, Halloween celebrations are becoming more popular, with influence from the west.[40] In 2012, there were over 19 major Halloween celebration events around Singapore.[41] SCAPE's Museum of Horrors held its fourth scare fest in 2014.[42] Universal Studios Singapore hosts "Halloween Horror Nights".[43] South Korea The popularity of the holiday among young people in South Korea comes from English academies and corporate marketing strategies, and was influenced by Halloween celebrations in Japan and America.[44] Despite not being a public holiday, it is celebrated in different areas around Seoul, especially Itaewon and Hondae.[45] Taiwan Children dressed up in Halloween costume in Songshan District, Taipei, Taiwan Traditionally, Taiwanese people celebrate "Zhong Yuan Pudu Festival", where spirits that do not have any surviving family members to pay respects to them, are able to roam the Earth during the seventh lunar month. It is known as Ghost Month.[46] While some have compared it to Halloween, it has no relations and the overall meaning is different. In recent years, mainly as a result of American pop culture, Halloween is becoming more widespread amongst young Taiwanese people. Halloween events are held in many areas across Taipei, such as Xinyi Special District and Shilin District where there are many international schools and expats.[47] Halloween parties are celebrated differently based on different age groups. One of the most popular Halloween event is the Tianmu Halloween Festival, which started in 2009 and is organised by the Taipei City Office of Commerce.[48] The 2-day annual festivity has attracted more than 240,000 visitors in 2019. During this festival, stores and businesses in Tianmu place pumpkin lanterns outside their stores to identify themselves as trick-or-treat destinations for children.[49] Australia and New Zealand Halloween display in Sydney, Australia. Non-religious celebrations of Halloween modelled on North American festivities are growing increasingly popular in Australia despite not being traditionally part of the culture.[50] Some Australians criticise this intrusion into their culture.[51][52] Many dislike the commercialisation and American pop-culture influence.[52][53] Some supporters of the event place it alongside other cultural traditions such as Saint Patrick's Day.[54] Halloween historian and author of Halloween: Pagan Festival to Trick or Treat, Mark Oxbrow says while Halloween may have been popularised by depictions of it in US movies and TV shows, it is not a new entry into Australian culture.[55] His research shows Halloween was first celebrated in Australia in Castlemaine, Victoria, in 1858, which was 43 years before Federation. His research shows Halloween traditions were brought to the country by Scottish and Irish miners who settled in Victoria during the Gold Rush. Because of the polarised opinions about Halloween, growing numbers of people are decorating their letter boxes to indicate that children are welcome to come knocking. In the past decade, the popularity of Halloween in Australia has grown.[56] In 2020, the first magazine dedicated solely to celebrating Halloween in Australia was launched, called Hallozween,[57] and in 2021, sales of costumes, decorations and carving pumpkins soared to an all-time high[58] despite the effect of the global COVID-19 pandemic limiting celebrations. In New Zealand, Halloween is not celebrated to the same extent as in North America, although in recent years non-religious celebrations have become more common.[59][60] Trick-or-treat has become increasingly popular with minors in New Zealand, despite being not a "British or Kiwi event" and the influence of American globalisation.[61] One criticism of Halloween in New Zealand is that it is overly commercialised - by The Warehouse, for example.[61] Europe A jack-o'-lantern in Finland Over the years, Halloween has become more popular in Europe and has been partially ousting some older customs like the Rübengeistern [de] (English: turnip ghosts, beet spirit), Martinisingen, and others.[62] France Halloween was introduced to most of France in the 1990s.[citation needed] In Brittany, Halloween had been celebrated for centuries and is known as Kala Goanv (Night of Spirits). During this time it is believed that the spirits of the dead return to the world of the living lead by the Ankou, the collector of souls. Also during this time, Bretons bake Kornigou, a pastry shaped like the antlers of a stag.[citation needed] Germany "Don't drink and fly" Halloween decoration in Germany Halloween was not generally observed in Germany prior to the 1990s, but has been increasing in popularity. It has been associated with the influence of United States culture, and "Trick or Treating" (German: Süßes sonst gibt's Saures) has been occurring in various German cities, especially in areas such as the Dahlem neighborhood in Berlin, which was part of the American zone during the Cold War. Today, Halloween in Germany brings in 200 million euros a year, through multiple industries.[63] Halloween is celebrated by both children and adults. Adults celebrate at themed costume parties and clubs, while children go trick or treating. Complaints of vandalism associated with Halloween "Tricks" are increasing, particularly from many elderly Germans unfamiliar with "Trick or Treating".[64] Greece In Greece, Halloween is not celebrated widely and it is a working day, with little public interest, since the early 2000s. Recently, it has somewhat increased in popularity as both a secular celebration; although Carnival is vastly more popular among Greeks. For very few, Halloween is[when?] considered the fourth most popular festival in the country after Christmas, Easter, and Carnival. Retail businesses, bars, nightclubs, and certain theme parks might organize Halloween parties. This boost in popularity has been attributed to the influence of western consumerism. Since it is a working day, Halloween is not celebrated on 31 October unless the date falls on a weekend, in which case it is celebrated by some during the last weekend before All Hallow's Eve, usually in the form of themed house parties and retail business decorations. Trick-or-treating is not widely popular because similar activities are already undertaken during Carnival. The slight rise in popularity of Halloween in Greece has led to some increase in its popularity throughout nearby countries in the Balkans and Cyprus. In the latter, there has been an increase in Greek-Cypriot retailers selling Halloween merchandise every year.[65] Ireland A plaster cast of a traditional Irish turnip (rutabaga) jack-o'-lantern, c. early 20th century, on display in the Museum of Country Life, Ireland. On Halloween night, adults and children dress up as various monsters and creatures, light bonfires, and enjoy fireworks displays; Derry in Northern Ireland is home to the largest organized Halloween celebration on the island, in the form of a street carnival and fireworks display.[66] Snap-Apple Night (1832) by Daniel Maclise depicts apple bobbing and divination games at a Halloween party in Ireland Games are often played, such as bobbing for apples, in which apples, peanuts, other nuts and fruits, and some small coins are placed in a basin of water.[67] Everyone takes turns catching as many items possible using only their mouths. Another common game involves the hands-free eating of an apple hung on a string attached to the ceiling. Games of divination are also played at Halloween.[68] Colcannon is traditionally served on Halloween.[67] 31 October is the busiest day of the year for the Emergency Services.[69] Bangers and fireworks are illegal in the Republic of Ireland; however, they are commonly smuggled in from Northern Ireland where they are legal.[70] Bonfires are frequently built around Halloween.[71] Trick-or-treating is popular amongst children on 31 October and Halloween parties and events are commonplace. A carved pumpkin in Sardinia Italy In Italy All Saints' Day is a public holiday. On 2 November, Tutti i Morti or All Souls' Day, families remember loved ones who have died. These are still the main holidays.[72] In some Italian tradition, children would awake on the morning of All Saints or All Souls to find small gifts from their deceased ancestors. In Sardinia, Concas de Mortu (Head of the deads), carved pumpkins that look like skulls, with candles inside are displayed.[73][74][75] Halloween is, however, gaining in popularity, and involves costume parties for young adults.[76] The traditions to carve pumpkins in a skull figure, lighting candles inside, or to beg for small gifts for the deads e.g. sweets or nuts, also belong to North Italy.[77] In Veneto these carved pumpkins were called lumère (lanterns) or suche dei morti (deads' pumpkins).[78] Poland Since the fall of Communism in 1989, Halloween has become increasingly popular in Poland. Particularly, it is celebrated among younger people. The influx of Western tourists and expats throughout the 1990s introduced the costume party aspect of Hallowe'en celebrations, particularly in clubs and at private house parties. Door-to-door trick or treating is not common. Pumpkin carving is becoming more evident, following a strong North American version of the tradition. Romania Romanians observe the Feast of St. Andrew, patron saint of Romania, on 30 November. On St. Andrew's Eve ghosts are said to be about. A number of customs related to divination, in other places connected to Halloween, are associated with this night.[79] However, with the popularity of Dracula in western Europe, around Halloween the Romanian tourist industry promotes trips to locations connected to the historical Vlad Tepeș and the more fanciful Dracula of Bram Stoker. One of the most successful Halloween Parties in Transylvania takes place in Sighișoara, the citadel where Vlad the Impaler was born. This party include magician shows, ballet show and The Ritual Killing of a Living Dead[80] The biggest Halloween party in Transylvania take place at Bran Castle, aka Dracula's Castle from Transylvania.[81] Both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches in Romania discourage Halloween celebrations, advising their parishioners to focus rather on the "Day of the Dead" on 1 November, when special religious observances are held for the souls of the deceased.[82] Opposition by religious and nationalist groups, including calls to ban costumes and decorations in schools in 2015, have been met with criticism.[83][84][85] Halloween parties are popular in bars and nightclubs.[86] Russia In Russia most Christians are Orthodox, and in the Orthodox Church Halloween is on the Saturday after Pentecost and therefore 4 to 5 months before western Halloween. Celebration of western Halloween began in the 1990s around the downfall of the Soviet regime, when costume and ghoulish parties spread throughout night clubs throughout Russia. Halloween is generally celebrated by younger generations and is not widely celebrated in civic society (e.g. theaters or libraries). In fact, Halloween is among the Western celebrations that the Russian government and politicians—which have grown increasingly anti-Western in the early 2010s—are trying to eliminate from public celebration.[87][88][89] Serbia Halloween (Serbian Cyrillic: Ноћ вештица, lit. "Night of Witches") has not been celebrated until recently. The main reason for that is because of Halloween being against the Serbian traditions and that it encourages “feeding the devil”. Halloween is a work day in Serbia. Nowadays, it is very popular among younger generations. Many schools (mostly elementary schools) in Serbia throw special Halloween parties, full of children and teenagers wearing costumes and masks. Bars, nightclubs and fun parks organise Halloween parties for adults and young adults. Spain In Spain, celebrations involve eating castanyes (roasted chestnuts), panellets (special almond balls covered in pine nuts), moniatos (roast or baked sweet potato), Ossos de Sant cake and preserved fruit (candied or glazed fruit). Moscatell (Muscat) is drunk from porrons.[90] Around the time of this celebration, it is common for street vendors to sell hot toasted chestnuts wrapped in newspaper. In many places, confectioners often organise raffles of chestnuts and preserved fruit. The tradition of eating these foods comes from the fact that during All Saints' night, on the eve of All Souls' Day in the Christian tradition, bell ringers would ring bells in commemoration of the dead into the early morning. Friends and relatives would help with this task, and everyone would eat these foods for sustenance.[91] Other versions of the story state that the Castanyada originates at the end of the 18th century and comes from the old funeral meals, where other foods, such as vegetables and dried fruit were not served. The meal had the symbolic significance of a communion with the souls of the departed: while the chestnuts were roasting, prayers would be said for the person who had just died.[92] The festival is usually depicted with the figure of a castanyera: an old lady, dressed in peasant's clothing and wearing a headscarf, sitting behind a table, roasting chestnuts for street sale. In recent years, the Castanyada has become a revetlla of All Saints and is celebrated in the home and community. It is the first of the four main school festivals, alongside Christmas, Carnestoltes and St George's Day, without reference to ritual or commemoration of the dead.[93] Galicia is known two have the second largest Halloween or Samain festivals in Europe and during this time, a drink called Queimada is often served. Sweden On All Hallow's Eve, a Requiem Mass is widely attended every year at Uppsala Cathedral, part of the Lutheran Church of Sweden.[94] Throughout the period of Allhallowtide, starting with All Hallow's Eve, Swedish families visit churchyards and adorn the graves of their family members with lit candles and wreaths fashioned from pine branches.[94] Among children, the practice of dressing in costume and collecting candy gained popularity beginning around 2005.[95] The American traditions of Halloween have however been met with skepticism among the older generations, in part due to conflicting with the Swedish traditions on All Hallow's Eve and in part due to their commercialism.[96] Switzerland In Switzerland, Halloween, after first becoming popular in 1999, is on the wane, and is most popular with young adults who attend parties. Switzerland already has a "festival overload" and even though Swiss people like to dress up for any occasion, they do prefer a traditional element, such as in the Fasnacht tradition of chasing away winter using noise and masks.[97][98] United Kingdom and Crown dependencies England See also: Mischief Night See also: Allantide In the past, on All Souls' Eve families would stay up late, and little "soul cakes" were eaten. At the stroke of midnight, there was solemn silence among households, which had candles burning in every room to guide the souls back to visit their earthly homes and a glass of wine on the table to refresh them. The tradition of giving soul cakes that originated in Great Britain and Ireland was known as souling, often seen as the origin of modern trick or treating in North America, and souling continued in parts of England as late as the 1930s, with children going from door to door singing songs and saying prayers for the dead in return for cakes or money.[99] Trick or treating and other Halloween celebrations are extremely popular, with shops decorated with witches and pumpkins, and young people attending costume parties.[100] Scotland The name Halloween is first attested in the 16th century as a Scottish shortening of the fuller All-Hallow-Even, that is, the night before All Hallows' Day.[101] Dumfries poet John Mayne's 1780 poem made note of pranks at Halloween "What fearfu' pranks ensue!". Scottish poet Robert Burns was influenced by Mayne's composition, and portrayed some of the customs in his poem Halloween (1785).[102] According to Burns, Halloween is "thought to be a night when witches, devils, and other mischief-making beings are all abroad on their baneful midnight errands".[103] Among the earliest record of Guising at Halloween in Scotland is in 1895, where masqueraders in disguise carrying lanterns made out of scooped out turnips, visit homes to be rewarded with cakes, fruit and money.[104] If children approached the door of a house, they were given offerings of food. The children's practice of "guising", going from door to door in costumes for food or coins, is a traditional Halloween custom in Scotland.[3] These days children who knock on their neighbours doors have to sing a song or tell stories for a gift of sweets or money.[105] A traditional Halloween game includes apple "dooking",[106] or "dunking" or (i.e., retrieving one from a bucket of water using only one's mouth), and attempting to eat, while blindfolded, a treacle/jam-coated scone hanging on a piece of string. Traditional customs and lore include divination practices, ways of trying to predict the future. A traditional Scottish form of divining one's future spouse is to carve an apple in one long strip, then toss the peel over one's shoulder. The peel is believed to land in the shape of the first letter of the future spouse's name.[107] In Kilmarnock, Halloween is also celebrated on the last Friday of the month, and is known colloquially as "Killieween".[108] Isle of Man See also: Hop-tu-Naa Halloween is a popular traditional occasion on the Isle of Man, where it is known as Hop-tu-Naa. Elsewhere The children of the largest town in Bonaire gather together on Halloween day. Saint Helena In Saint Helena, Halloween is actively celebrated, largely along the American model, with ghosts, skeletons, devils, vampires, witches and the like. Imitation pumpkins are used instead of real pumpkins because the pumpkin harvesting season in Saint Helena's hemisphere is not near Halloween. Trick-or-treating is widespread. Party venues provide entertainment for adults." (wikipedia.org) "A costume party (American English) or fancy dress party (other varieties of English) is a type of party, common in contemporary Western culture, in which many of the guests are dressed in costume, usually depicting a fictional or stock character, or historical figure. Such parties are popular in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand, especially during Halloween. By country Australia Australian fancy dress parties typically follow the style of the United States, and Halloween costume parties have been common since the early 1990s, even though Halloween has not historically been a celebrated event in Australia. Typical events for Australians that involve dressing up are the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, the staff Christmas party and cricket matches. One of the oldest examples of fancy dress being worn in Australia is on display at the Western Australia Museum. It was a child's fancy dress costume worn by Rita Lloyd, aged nine, to the ‘Lord Mayor’s Juvenile Fancy Dress Ball’ at Mansion House in Perth on 8 January 1909. Iraq It is a tradition to have a costume party at a university graduation.[1] United Kingdom Nineteenth century Manchester fancy dress ball of 1828, painting by Arthur Perigal The origins of fancy dress parties in the United Kingdom can in some respects be traced to masked balls of the 18th century period. In the period to 1850, fancy dress balls were a typical part of the social life of music festivals.[2] Common costumes of the period were specific historical characters, generic historical or regional clothing, abstract concepts (such as "winter", "starlight" or "night"), and objects (such as "champagne bottle" or "aquarium"). Popular characters included Marie Antoinette and Elizabeth I for women and Napoleon and Robin Hood for men.[3] Twentieth century Notable amongst early events in the 20th century was the Chelsea Arts Club ball. Such events were often elaborate affairs and for the most part confined to those with considerable means.[4] Amongst the general population, costume parties also occurred with increasing frequency from the late 1940s onward; for the most part the costumes were simple affairs until the mid-1970s. Prior to the late 1990s, most costumes were either hired or constructed at home. Although 'accessory' items had been available for some time, retail purchased costumes are, in respect of the U.K., largely since in the late 1990s. Many materials and costumes being imported from the Far East (with cost savings in labour and bulk orders) had increased in volume at that time. This has seen the price of purchased costumes becoming more and more affordable. Coupled with the modern trend in costume parties, 'retro' fashion as a costume theme (such as a 1970s or 1980s fancy dress) is also popular, the costumes to some extent parodying or pastiching the fashions of earlier decades. Amongst the most popular parodied costumes are: Audrey Hepburn (as Holly Golightly), Madonna in her classic stage outfits, and more recently Lady Gaga. Fancy dress parties are popular year round in the United Kingdom. The 1996 novel Bridget Jones's Diary features the classic British costume party theme "Tarts and Vicars" at which the women wear sexually provocative ("tart") costumes, while the men dress as Anglican priests ("vicars"). Fancy dress parties have been held by the British Royal Family. Prince William, heir to the British Throne, celebrated his 21st birthday with an "Out of Africa" theme, Princess Beatrice of York chose an 1888 themed party for her 18th birthday, and Lord Frederick ("Freddie") Windsor and his sister Lady Gabriella Windsor, celebrated a joint birthday party with a pre-French Revolution courtly theme.[5] United States Contestants line up for a "best costume" competition at a Halloween party in the United States. Nineteenth century In late nineteenth century New York, costume parties were popular amongst the affluent. Costumes were typically historical European aristocracy. Authenticity was important, even extending to using actual period elements. For example, Cornelia Bradley-Martin attended her own party, the notorious Bradley-Martin Ball, dressed as Marie Antoinette, wearing jewellery actually owned and worn by Antoinette herself. The choice of aristocratic costume allowed rich Americans, with relatively limited family history, to assume some element of history and legitimacy.[6] This coincides with the celebration of Halloween in the United States during the late nineteenth century. As a reaction to Halloween pranks and vandalism brought to the country by Celtic immigrants, women's magazines introduced a new, middle-class rendition of the holiday that would come to assert women as the dominant celebrants of Halloween throughout the coming decades. It sought to enforce the ideals of white Anglo-Saxon Protestants by encouraging young people to partake in tame, preferably indoor, activities instead, often with a focus on romance. While the middle and upper classes shifted their Halloween celebrations toward these new actives, including costume parties, the poor and immigrant populations of the United States continued to celebrate in the ways that they always had, demonstrating the effect that class differences had on costume parties during this time.[7] Twentieth century Costume parties are especially popular in the United States around Halloween, when teenagers and adults who may be considered too old for trick-or-treating attend a costume party instead. Costume parties are also popular during the carnival season, such as at Mardi Gras. Attendees occasionally dress in costume for popular science fiction and fantasy events, movie openings and book releases. Web site theonering.net held a The Lord of the Rings dress Oscar party that was attended by Peter Jackson. Star Wars parties were held to celebrate the opening of Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. Many bookstores have held Harry Potter themed parties to celebrate the releases of the series' later novels, and some movie theaters have had Potter-themed celebrations as the movie adaptations have been released. Larger scale 'parties' are often related to organised societies or conventions.[8] Fan costuming The hobby of fan costuming and modern cosplay largely developed from the World Science Fiction Conventions (Worldcons), starting with the first in New York in 1939 when two attendees, Forrest J Ackerman and Myrtle R. Douglas, wore "futuristicostumes".[9] From the 2nd World Science Fiction Convention (1940) in Chicago, masquerade balls were a traditional feature of the convention.[9] Conventions Fan conventions, often abbreviated to "cons", of various descriptions have followed the example of the Worldcons with many attendees wearing costumes representing fictional characters. Some conventions feature costume competitions and other scheduled costuming events. Several well-known conventions that feature costuming include the San Diego Comic-Con International, New York Comic Con, and Atlanta's Dragon Con. Cosplay Cosplay (a blend of "costume" and "play" via the Japanese kosupure (コスプレ)) was coined by Nobuyuki Takahashi in reporting on the 42nd World Science Fiction Convention for Japanese magazine My Anime.[10][11] It is a performance art in which participants called cosplayers wear costumes, wigs and fashion accessories to represent a specific character. Cosplay is popular at conventions across the world. An example of a major cosplay convention in the United States would be Anime Expo, held annually in Los Angeles, California.[12] Events and themes There are many annual events that generate the chance to dress up in fancy dress costumes; Christmas, New Year, birthdays, Hen and Stag parties, and Book Day, amongst others. Halloween is the most popular costume or fancy dress event of the year in western society. Halloween originated centuries ago, the Celts believed that on 31 October the line between the living and the dead became distorted, condemned souls would come back to wreak havoc for the night. In defense, the Celts would dress up in ghoulish costumes to scare evil spirits away. Within many fancy dress events, a theme is usually present, and with fancy dress outfits often from Hollywood films such as Star Wars, Grease, James Bond, and Spider-Man. Themes are also extremely popular with fundraising events, such as the Great Gorilla Run, where 1,000 people dressed as gorillas in London in aid for Great Gorillas, a charity that focuses on the endangered species.[citation needed] Some costume parties are themed around 80s fashion. The most popular costumes researched for such fancy dress are the Madonna Look, punk fashion and neon-colored clothing. Some of the easiest and cheapest 1980s costumes include Rambo, Samantha Fox, and Tom Cruise from Risky Business or Top Gun. Alternative eighties costumes include dresses, prom dresses and denim from the period, including high waisted pants and stone wash denim. Fans sometimes attend sporting events in a costume as a sign of support of their favored team. Some sporting events have large numbers of fans attending in fancy dress costume. Examples include Wellington Rugby Sevens, where almost every fan who attends wears some sort of costume, and San Jose Bike Party, where each month's ride has a different theme encouraging riders to come in costume. " (wikipedia.org)
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