Author: Francesca Lughi

It is undeniable that Halloween is, every year, becoming more and more popular in Italy, so much so that today, especially for the new generations, it is one of the most heartfelt and anticipated events of the year. Children in costumes go around the houses to propose their "trick or treat?", themed parties in small and large towns and in public places, carved pumpkins, etc.: all the elements of this celebration are increasingly familiar to us and are, for many young people, becoming indispensable. As Eraldo Baldini and Giuseppe Bellosi wrote in their Halloween: «If it is true that today's boom is undoubtedly due to cinematic, television and literary suggestions from overseas, it is equally true that in the folklore of all the Italian regions, in the days that go from the eve of All Saints, that is from October 31st, to the day of Saint Martin, November 11th, linked […] in a celebratory continuum, all the constituent elements of the feast have been present since time immemorial, or at least they were until a few decades ago, based on the celebration of an important calendar watershed open to the "return of the dead".» In the second part of their documented essay the authors analyze these traditions in depth region by region, discovering suggestive analogies with the current Feast and other traditional practices that have been partly completely forgotten. Almost everywhere the habit of offering food to the dead or the poor and the custom of begging, often done house by house by children, reappears. The volume also contains some references to ancient customs that were widespread in Istria and Dalmatia at the time. For example, the authors refer to the so-called "processions of the dead" already attested throughout Friuli as well as in nearby Istria, even at the beginning of the 1949th century. In particular in the area of ​​Portole, today Oprtalj in Croatia, to appease the souls of the deceased - who in the guise of white ghosts would wander in pairs on the night of All Saints, silent and slow, along the villages, headed towards the cemeteries or churches located on the outskirts of the towns - it was customary to leave a light lit on the hearth and a little food in the houses. In particular, the number of candles was equal to that of the recently deceased to be remembered. However, the same practice appears to be attested throughout the region, together with the very widespread practice of preparing containers full of water so that the dead could quench their thirst during their journey. Those who were on the street, then, during the night, would have taken the precaution of walking on the sides of the road, so as not to hinder the souls during their journey. In any case, as Andreina Nicoloso Ciceri, who has been involved in certifying the memories of the entire Friulian territory and the surrounding area, recalls, the inhabitants mostly preferred to return home "before darkness fell, because [...] this circulation of spirits, as in other beginnings of cycles, brought into being in the living an ambiguous process of veneration and rejection, although resolved (or exorcised?) in religious practices". In the Caporetta area, still in XNUMX, Gianfranco D'Aronco recalled how families, on the evening of the first of November, before going to bed, kept the doors open so that the deceased understood that they were welcome and could freely enter the house. A bread [bread] and two keys placed in the shape of a cross. In the Natisone Valleys it was believed that the dead, returning to their homes on the occasion of their appointed celebrations, kept themselves «Hidden in some corner, listening to the living who pray for them» - wrote Mario Ettore Specogna in 1959, adding - «In some places women go around the village on the evening of November XNUMXst and sing, elsewhere instead they recite a song». Even from these few ideas linked to the recent past, in Istria and Dalmatia, it can easily be concluded that the Halloween celebration has been «continuously reinvented - as Baldini and Bellosi write - in relation to the socio-cultural changes that occurred between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and, despite becoming one of the most popular, it has never been included among the official ones and has maintained some transgressive and carnivalesque elements of pre-modern celebrations, loading them with new meanings in new social and cultural contexts. Elements that have contributed to ensuring that Halloween has always retained its vitality.» Essential bibliography E. Baldini - G. Bellosi, Halloween, Turin, Einaudi, 2006. F. Cardini, The Days of the Sacred. The Book of Feasts, Milan, New Publishing House, 1983. G. D'Aronco, Old folk customs of Caporetta, in «Lares», XV, 1949, pp. 183-195. A. Nicoloso Ciceri, Popular Traditions in Friuli, Reana del Rojale (Udine), Chiandetti Publisher, 1983. G. Radole, Istrian folklore. In the cycles of human life and the seasons, Trieste, MGS Press, 1997. M. E Specogna, Distribution of bread for the feast of the dead, in «Ce fastu?», XXXIII-XXXV, 1957-1959, pp. 209-213. G. Vesnaver, Customs, habits and beliefs of the people of Portole, Pola, Type-Lithograph E. Sambo, 1901.