We all look forward to Halloween, but waiting a whole year to celebrate is kind of a drag. Fortunately, the whole calendar is haunted if you know where to look.<\/p>\n
Festivals that honor the ancestors or propitiate unhappy ghosts are common in many cultures. If you’re looking for off-season excuses to get a little spooky, here are a few other dates that might interest you.<\/p>\n
(Note: Holidays marked with an asterisk are based on a lunar calendar and move around from year to year. The dates given below are the next occurrence of each holiday.)<\/p>\n
May 22, 24, and 26 – Lemuria<\/a><\/b> May 31* – Semik\/Rusalii<\/a><\/b> August 15 – Obon<\/a><\/b> September 2* – Ghost Festival<\/a><\/b> September 18-20* – Pchum Ben<\/a><\/b> October 26 – Dziady<\/a><\/b> October 31 – Halloween<\/a><\/b> November 1 – All Saints Day\/All Hallows Day\/Hallowmas<\/a><\/b> November 2 – All Souls Day<\/a><\/b> November 2 – Dia de Muertos<\/a><\/b> Jan 20* – Vasant Panchami<\/a><\/b> Jan 30* – Chytroi<\/a><\/b> Jan 31 – Me-Dam-Me-Phi<\/a><\/b> February 21 – Feralia<\/a><\/b> April 5* – Qingming<\/a><\/b> April 6* – Dziady<\/a><\/b>
\nThis Roman holiday took place on three non-successive days and was intended to frighten away evil spirits and placate the souls of those who had not been properly buried.<\/p>\n
\nThis is a movable holiday which falls 50 days after Easter. It’s a week-long Slavic holiday when the dead return to Earth and evil forces are particularly active.<\/p>\n
\nAn important Japanese Buddhist celebration, honoring the deceased.<\/p>\n
\nThe Chinese “Festival of the Hungry Ghosts” has one of the best names for any festival, ever. On the first day of the seventh month the Gates of Hell open and spirits come back to spend a month in the world of the living.<\/p>\n
\nA Cambodian Buddhist celebration to commemorate deceased ancestors.<\/p>\n
\nAnother Slavic celebration, to honor the ancestors. Women sing funeral dirges and feasts are held at family gravesites. There are two of these a year, in spring and autumn. The dates apparently differ by locality, but the common autumn one appears to be St. Dimitrios’ Eve and the spring one the Tuesday after Easter.<\/p>\n
\nI’m sure I don’t have to tell you what this is all about.<\/p>\n
\nA Catholic holiday to honor all of the saints who don’t have a feast day of their own. It rolled around in enough pagan traditions to absorb a lot of interesting celebratory ideas.<\/p>\n
\nA followup to All Saints Day, this one to commemorate all of the non-saint departed. An interesting custom was “soul cakes,” wherein each cake eaten was supposed to release a soul from Purgatory.<\/p>\n
\nThe famed Day of the Dead, where death is everywhere and dinner is eaten in the graveyard.<\/p>\n
\nA Hindu festival celebrating Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge, music, and art. Ancestor propitiation is part of the tradition.<\/p>\n
\nThe third day of the Athenian Anthesteria festival, Chytroi, was devoted to expelling unwanted ghosts.<\/p>\n
\nA festival in Assam which features offerings to departed ancestors.<\/p>\n
\nA Roman feast honoring the “infernal powers”. It’s the last day of the week-long Parentalia which honored the dead.<\/p>\n
\nThe Chinese have a number of holidays which honor the ancestors. Qingming is Tomb Sweeping Day, and families clean up the graves of family members. Between this and the Hungry Ghosts thing, I think the Chinese totally win at evocative holiday names.<\/p>\n
\n(See the description for October 26, above)<\/p>\n