Halloween: A frightfully un-Australian tradition

My grandsons, Eddie and Bowie, are preparing for Halloween. This involves dressing up as something dreadful, wandering around the neighbourhood and demanding lollies from complete strangers.

In my day, our parents specifically warned us against doing all three.

Nevertheless, the boys are enthusiastic, and I have been informed that Halloween is now an important event on the family calendar. Apparently, this is what passes for cultural progress.

Not everybody agrees.

Every October, as reliably as the appearance of Christmas decorations in September, someone complains that Halloween is an American custom and therefore thoroughly un-Australian.

I understand the sentiment. We Australians pride ourselves on our independence, our distinctive culture and our determination not to imitate everything the Americans do. We demonstrate this by watching American television, wearing American fashions, eating American fast food and enthusiastically adopting American slang.

Halloween, however, is apparently where we draw the line.

The trouble is, Halloween isn't really American. Its roots reach back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, when people believed the boundary between the living and the dead became rather less secure than usual.

Christianity subsequently contributed All Hallows' Eve, and eventually the whole business crossed the Atlantic, where Americans added costumes, confectionery and a remarkably efficient marketing department.

Now they've exported it back to us.

It's a bit like buying your own second-hand car at an inflated price.

But cultural borrowing is hardly new.

The Romans were particularly good at it. They borrowed large chunks of Greek mythology, renamed the gods and presented the whole collection as their own. Zeus became Jupiter, Aphrodite became Venus, and generations of schoolchildren have been thoroughly confused ever since.

Even our religious celebrations have complicated family trees.

Easter, the central Christian celebration of the Resurrection, acquired an English name traditionally associated with Eostre, an Anglo-Saxon spring goddess. The historical details remain disputed, but somewhere along the way rabbits became responsible for distributing chocolate eggs. This suggests a degree of biological confusion that nobody seems anxious to resolve.

Christmas has similarly accumulated traditions from numerous cultures. The Romans celebrated Saturnalia, a midwinter festival involving feasting and merriment. The precise relationship with Christmas is debated, but our modern celebrations certainly owe more than a little to customs gathered over centuries.

We've even borrowed celebrations from television.

Thanks to Seinfeld, we have Festivus, a fictional holiday featuring an aluminium pole and the ceremonial Airing of Grievances.

Frankly, that last tradition sounds particularly Australian. We could hold it every day.

Of course, cultural exchange is not always straightforward. Sometimes traditions merge, sometimes they remain distinct, and sometimes borrowing creates something entirely new.

But cultures have been influencing one another for millennia. It's part of how societies develop. We exchange food, language, music, stories, beliefs and customs. Occasionally we even remember to acknowledge where they came from.

Australia itself is a magnificent example. Our culture has been enriched by generations of people bringing their traditions to these shores. Imagine our culinary landscape without Italian pasta, Greek souvlaki, Indian curries or Chinese cooking.

We'd still be boiling vegetables until they surrendered.

So, back to Halloween.

Eddie and Bowie won't be contemplating Celtic mythology, religious history or the finer points of cultural appropriation. They'll be dressed as something frightening, visiting neighbours and collecting enough sugar to sustain a small army.

And perhaps there's something rather nice about that.

For one evening, children become adventurers, neighbours open their doors, and a community shares a little harmless silliness.

I'm not particularly concerned whether Halloween is American, Irish, Scottish or the invention of a confectionery company.

If it brings a little joy to two small boys, I'm happy to embrace it.

Besides, after decades of cultural borrowing, surely Australia is entitled to pinch something back.

Preferably the chocolate.