Evening star., 1934-10-31
MAYA HALLOWEEN
LASTS SEVEN DAYS
Souls of Dead Are Offered
F00d-CandIes Used to
Light Graves.
BY THOMAS r. HENRY.


There is a week-long Halloween
among the descendants of America
most civilized prehistoric inhabl-
tants, the present-day Mayas OF Yuca-
tan.
A curious mixture of European folk
lore introduced by the Spaniards and
the age-old legendry of their remote
ancestors is revealed by DR.. Robert
Redfield. ethnologist of the Carnegie
Institution of Washington, who has
been studying their present-day be-
liefs and habits.
On October 81 and November l all
the souls of the dead, according to
the Mayan belief still strongly held,
return to earth for an annual visit and
depart again one week later. On these
days food is set out for them and they
are hidden to eat. The festival is
known as dinner of the souls 1t
is a domestic ritual in which each
family recalls and propitiates its own
departed members.
Souls Are Made Welcome.
Preparations, DR.. Redfield found,
begin on October 80. The foods and
flowers to be used in the festival are
gathered and made ready. At mid
night, when the souls are supposed
to begin to arrive, the people of the
house get up and arrange the table.
1t is decorated with blossoms of the
silk cotton tree or flowers of st. Juan.
Bunches of these flowers are fastened
on the doorway, as an invitation for
the souls to enter.
On the table are placed chocolate,
bread and several lighted candles.
After appropriate prayers, all present
eat of this food and the souls of the
dead have been given breakfast" :"
Later the same sort of preparations
are gone through for their dinner.
Place Flowers on Graves.
The following day is the festival
of ninoh kuhanal nucuch piXanob-
the great day of the dinner of the
big souls The day after the people
of the households go to the cemetery
carrying half of the candle ends that
have been used in the ceremony.
These they set aight on the graves,
where also they place the flowers
which have been used to decorate
the tables. Later in the week is the
time for taking from the graves the
bones of relatives who died two or
three years before, to make room for
new interments.
The people live in a world thickly
populated with spirits and witches
most of the time where the alux,
small goblin people known to their
ancestor, throng in the woods. There
one is likely at any time to meet
the most dangerous of demons, the
x-tabai, who appears as a beautiful
girl with long hair At other times
she is a tree or a dreaded variety of
green-yellow snake. Many of the
people of the village are popularity
supposed to be witches, able to change
themselves into certain animals at
will
Souls Of the very bad go directly
to metnal, which is the home of the
demons and lies directly beneath the
earth. All sorcerers go there because
they have made pact with the devil
and sold him their souls Suicides
go straight to metnal. Therefore 1t
is a common practise to bury them
face downward, so that they can get
started in the right direction.
Sinful Take Aweful Shapes.
Some sinful souls are turned into
frogs and are condemned to live as
such for long years, shut up in stones
or in trees. until some one opens their
prison. Some are transformed into
the whirlwinds that quicken the fires
at the time of the burning of the
fields. One who dies leaving money
buried, without telling any one about
it, cannot go to Heaven until, on some
holy cross day, he communicates the
fact to some one on earth. Those
who die with unpaid debts may be
changed into deer or turkeys. The
creditor then encounters the animal
in the woods, shoots it and RECEIVERS
his debt by selling the meat.
After long periods all souls return
to earth again, reincarnated in new
born children. If child is born with
teeth, much hair or with unusually
clear or alert eyes it is because it has
been born with the soul of one who
has lived on earth before. The same
is said of person whose hair turns
prematurely grey.
The time of death, in the Maya be-
lief, is one OF struggle, the soul seek
ing to leave and yet remain, and the
forces of evil contending with Heaven
for it. Nothing must be done to him
der its passage. for the unfortunate
dead remain about the place where