Americans usually enjoy a good scare on Halloween, but the Sept. 11 terrorist onslaught and the subsequent anthrax attacks in the US have left people looking for treats, not tricks.
The nation is on edge, and that fact is reflected in the sense of fear pervading the normal good-time cheer leading up to the Oct. 31 holiday, when children in costume go from house-to-house in search of Halloween sweets.
PHOTO: AP
"Everybody is very uptight this year. People are very nervous," said Al Cohen, owner of Al's Magic Shop in downtown Washington. Cohen noted that sales of fright masks were lower than usual.
T.J. Pekin, who owns Costumes Creative in Silver Spring, Maryland, just outside Washington, said the feeling of national pride sparked by the Sept. 11 attacks had led partygoers to buy or rent costumes with a patriotic theme.
"With the tragedy of the 11th, we've seen more of a rallying around as a red, white and blue kind of theme," Pekin said.
"We still do the witches, Frankenstein and Dracula and things like that, but costumes related to `Americana' are very popular -- things like Uncle Sam, Statue of Liberty, colonial costumes."
Firemen or policemen costumes were also popular, he added.
According to a recent Gallup poll, two-thirds of Americans said they would continue to give out candy to trick-or-treaters on Oct. 31 -- the same level of participation as last year.
But nearly a third of parents said they would keep their children at home, and 12 percent said they would not answer their doors at all that night, citing fears stemming from the terror attacks.
Rumors circulating on the Internet, quickly refuted by the FBI, have warned US citizens to stay away from shopping malls and other crowded public places on Oct. 31.
In some counties, malls have called off candy distribution, for fear of sweets being "tainted" with white powder meant to look like anthrax.
Many parents are trying to find ways to let their children enjoy the holiday while addressing their own concerns about safety.
"Cultural anxiety is an engine for creative expression to make meaning of it -- picking out costumes may be a part of that," explained Dacher Keltner, psychology professor at the University of California at Berkeley.
"Taking aggression and oppression and transforming it into something we understand -- it's the first time we have to do this as Americans."
The costume question has taken on additional weight this year: can Halloween revelers dress as suspected terror mastermind Osama bin Laden, or as a Taliban fighter? Where does good taste end?
Most costume vendors say they are not even stocking such items.
"We're getting a lot of calls about them but we don't carry them," said Cohen. "None of our suppliers has them anyway. Even if they were available, I would not sell them. I don't think it's very humorous."
"As far as I know, there are no bin Laden masks available. Maybe they have not had the time to produce them," said Pekin.
"It's an outrage. I don't know which store would want to put that in a window," said WABC radio talk show host Steve Malzberg.
"We are at war with this man. To make him the subject of a joke, to wear his mask, to glorify [him] in any way is an outrage."
But KGO radio host Bernie Ward disagreed.
"This is a way of making fun of Osama bin Laden. The idea is to take the terror out of him and to satirize him -- there's nothing wrong with that. This is Halloween. People want to have fun," he said.
In New York, the annual Halloween parade will take place, but the theme has been changed: instead of the Russian legend of the witch Baba Yaga the parade will celebrate the phoenix, the mythical bird that rises from the ashes of its own fiery death and is reborn.
In Ireland in pre-Christian times, Halloween was known as Samhain Eve. This enthusiastically celebrated harvest festival also marked the mysterious passage of one year to the next and was an enchanted time, when barriers to other realms dissolved, allowing ghosts and spirits to rise and walk the earth.
The church tried to eclipse Samhain Eve by introducing All Hallows Day to be held annually on Nov. 1, which was a celebration of Christian martyrs and saints.
When this strategy failed, church leaders turned to demonization of the holiday and eventually succeeded in turning magical Samhain Eve into an evil Sabbath during which Satan in the form of a gigantic cat with lustrous black fur was worshipped by witches.
Thus Halloween came into being several hundred years ago.
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