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ARCHIVED - Cartagena police prepare for Halloween vandalism and All Saints’ traffic jams
Halloween has been marked by egg-throwing incidents in Cartagena in recent years
As very few people will have failed to notice, Halloween is fast approaching on Thursday, followed by the national holiday of All Saints’ Day on Friday, and in Cartagena as in many other towns and cities in the Region of Murcia the local police force is preparing for both events in a number of ways.
Unfortunately, in recent years Halloween has been celebrated by some young people in Cartagena in a manner which has very little to do with the traditional games of bobbing for apples, or even trick-or-treating. Instead, it has become the fashion for groups of youngsters to set off firecrackers and fireworks with no safety precautions and to throw eggs at private houses, public buildings and each other, and as a result extra officers will be on duty on Thursday evening to deter such behaviour.
On 1st November, meanwhile, it is a widely observed tradition in Spain for people to visit cemeteries to pay their respects to their departed loved ones, and as a result traffic can be very heavy on certain roads near burial grounds. In anticipation of this the police will be martialling traffic on access roads to cemeteries and special bus services will be laid on, while on the Paseo de Alfonso XIII numerous flower sellers will be setting up their stalls for the day to attract custom as people make their way to the cemeteries.
The cemeteries in the large municipality of Cartagena are located in the urban districts of Santa Lucía and San Antón, and in the towns and villages of Canteras, Alumbres, Perín, Tallante, Los Puertos, San Isidro/La Magdalena, La Aljorra, Pozo Estrecho, La Palma, El Algar, San Ginés de la Jara and Los Belones.
All Saints’ traditions in Murcia
Halloween has only become an important date in Spain over the last 30 years or so, but the traditions of All Saints’ Day on 1st November and All Souls’ Day on 2nd November date back so far that their roots are lost in the mists of time.
All Saints’ Day, or Todos Los Santos as it is known in Spain, has its roots in the beginning of the Celtic New Year, Samhain, which takes place on the 31st October. The Celts divided the year into two parts, and this celebration is a time of transition from the end of the harvest to the dark of winter and the festival of the dead, in which the souls of the departed are said to return to their homes. When the Romans invaded the British Isles in 46 BC they gathered the festival into their own annual calendar and it was celebrated throughout the Roman Empire.
By the 4th century it had evolved into a festival commemorating Christian martyrs and in 615 Pope Bonifacio converted a Roman Pantheon to a Christian church and dedicated it to "All the Saints." From here on an annual day was dedicated to All the Saints, and in 741 the date was changed to coincide with the Celtic festival of Samhain, hijacking a date of pagan significance and making it a Christian celebration.
In 998, the French added a date of the 2nd November as a commemoration for the souls of the faithful who had departed and the 2 dates have been celebrated together since.
In Spain All Saints’ is a day of great significance in which relatives visit the graves of the dead, honouring them with flowers and the lighting of candles, often staying for many hours as family members visit and share the occasion. Cleaning and repainting is done weeks in advance, with municipalities laying on extra bus services, staff and spending large sums of money on plants and decorations to honour the occasion: despite the increased popularity of Valentine’s Day, All Saints’ is still the biggest occasion of the year for florists!
The flowers of the season, such as dahlias, chrysanthemums and carnations, can be seen in special temporary flower markets which spring up in every town, including the Plaza de las Flores in Murcia and the Paseo Alfonso XIII in Cartagena. At the same time, candles are stacked up high in supermarkets, usually red outer casings containing white candles to be lit in the cemeteries.
Spain wouldn't be Spain without food coming into the equation somewhere, and true to form, sweet little cakes and pastries are made to be shared with visiting family. Sweet huesos de santo, literally saint´s bones, which look like little ribbed tubes, are a calorific combination of marzipan, egg yolks and cream, cooked with sugar syrup and there are “buñuelos de viento”, or “puffs of wind”, sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar, like small sugary doughnuts but lighter.
A speciality in Murcia speciality is a dish known as Arropes y Calabazate, which has been made for centuries. It is a sweet dish obtained by reducing grape juice to achieve a sticky conserve, adding peel and certain types of squashes and quinces to the mix to produce a result which is often eaten with rice or cake bases. Sometimes figs are simmered in the Arrope.
In some areas, particularly the north-west of the Region of Murcia, it’s traditional to light bonfires on the night of the 31st and bake sweet potatoes in their jackets.
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