Autumn festivals across the world honour the living, the dead and the seasons
Halloween is one of many autumn celebrations linking the spirit world with community, family and tradition, and other cultures often honour the dead more gently.
As days shorten and winter approaches, many cultures hold festivals that mark the boundary between light and darkness, from playful and eerie celebrations to rites about good triumphing over evil. Halloween, with its costumes, treats and pumpkins, opens this season in many countries. Its customs combine the Celtic Samhain festival with Christian observances of All Saints' Day and All Hallows' Eve, a mix that took its modern form after the 1700s.
Irish emigrants carried some of these traditions abroad during the Great Hunger of the 1840s. In America, pumpkins eventually replaced the turnips once carved into lanterns. Other festivals, including Día de los Muertos in Latin America, the Hungry Ghost festival in Asia, Obon in Japan and Bhoot Chaturdashi in Bengal, focus on welcoming the dead through prayers and offerings rather than fear.
Folklorist and religious scholar Dr Jenny Butler said that people across cultures share a sense of connection to nature and the passing of seasons, and interpret those ideas in different ways.