[TUHS] Re: Test, test

[John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org>]

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On Fri, Nov 24, 2023 at 12:12 AM Peter Yardley <
peter.martin.yardley@gmail.com> wrote:

All hallows eve, when the dead are allowed to walk the Earth. Other
> European cultures have it too, the day of the dead.


The *Day* of the Dead is the 1st of November, All Hallows' Day or All
Saints' Day, or the Feast of All Saints, which memorializes all the saints
unknown and uncanonized.  (The 2nd of November is All Souls' Day or
Soulmas, or the Feast of All the Faithful Departed.)    The name
"Hallowe'en" applies to the night before All Hallows, just like Christmas
Eve and Christmas: a hangover from the Jewish calendar, where all holidays
begin at sunset on the day before.  A friend of mine said to me once "On
erev [the day before] Hallowe'en ..." and I interrupted him:  "No, no,
Hallowe'en is already an erev!"

All Saints picked up a lot of energy in Mexico from vaguely similar Aztec
traditions.  It was then copied to the Philippines, which used to be
administered out of Mexico.  (Hence the riddle: What happened in the
Philippines on December 31st, 1845?"  The answer is "Absolutely nothing",
because it was skipped when the Philippines transitioned from Mexico time,
GMT-6, to its current time zone, GMT+8.)  It is even observed as a secular
holiday in thoroughly Muslim Indonesia!

On Fri, Nov 24, 2023 at 12:42 AM Grant Taylor via TUHS <tuhs@tuhs.org>
wrote:

There's also Christmas in July, or something like that.


Yes, Ymas (as in "the middle of [austral] winter, six months before Xmas".

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