(Originally posted as a comment to Jenni’s LJ, here)
Halloween is a great example of how culture and tradition works.
Definitely Halloween as it’s known here is driven by US influences. As I understand it, it was kinda dead here until the movie E.T. came out and made a big deal out of trick or treating. The commercial influences are a big driver but we’re slowly working out a way of integrating it into our culture – and it seems the main way we do it is by ignoring it except for holding costumed/spooky events at the time.
Halloween is indeed timed with the harvest, but it’s more than just a harvest festival – Samhain marks the end of summer and the beginning of winter, and is a way of talking about the deep psychological effects of the seasons (which are far more ‘real’ in the northern hemisphere than here in the southern). This is why Halloween is a spooky night – the ghosts and ghouls and spirits are connected with night time, and the long nights begin now.
Except here in NZ, they don’t. Rightly speaking, our spooky festival should be linked in time with our harvest festival, and we don’t have either. I firmly believe that our culture would benefit from a spooky festival, because I think one of the fundamental human experiences is to be afraid of the dark and the unknown and celebrating fear and mystery allows us to process and tame that fundamental experience.
One of the signs that New Zealand is such a young culture is the fact that our festivals are nascent and clearly still settling down.
Our family-bonding-event is Christmas (in the US this role is taken by Thanksgiving). It is slowly losing its midwinter associations and gaining associations with the beginning of summer. I think our Christmas is well on the way to becoming a quite distinct celebration attuned to our cultural needs; here it means the beginning of reliable good weather, the time of rest and family holidays and getaways, and also the bonding of family ties – all these strands fit well together, so I think our Christmas is gonna keep getting more and more distinctive as it goes along.
Our Festival-Of-National-Myth is currently being fought out between ANZAC day and Waitangi Day, with ANZAC day a clear winner for the moment but neither really winning in the grand scheme of things. Eventually we will become able to celebrate ourselves, and one of these two days will be when we choose to do it. Unless we end up a republic, and Republic Day will win out.
Our social-structural-justification day is Labour Day, and like such days all around the world (except for places where the social structure is heavily contested) is low-key but not going anywhere.
I’m still unsure what Easter is in our scheme. I’m not sure we as a culture have any particular need for a chocolate festival, and despite the best efforts of Christianity this most sacred event is becoming just that. I believe that unless it fulfills some deep cultural need its status will keep eroding until it becomes entirely incidental to our cultural landscape. Again, the lack of clearly-defined seasons stops this from really working as a beginning-of-winter celebration – there’s nothing in it at all that relates to those ideas. I think Easter is our most incoherent festival and will be the one to change in character the most in our lifetimes.
