ALL SAINTS’ DAY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3712, 3 November 1927, Page 1

ALL SAINTS’ DAY.

Now that we are on the eve of All Saints’ Day it will be interesting to note a few facts about the origin of this festival. It is one of the Very earliest traditions going back ' beyond even the earliest records of i the human race, and comes down to us primarily from Egypt. The very early Egyptians had their New Year’s Day on the Ist November, and commenced sowing their seed from that date. At the time of Dynasty XII, the celebration of the feast took the form of lighting lamps for the dead, on the last day 7 of the old year and the first day of the New Year. “This custom,” remarks Dr. Fraser, “is referred to by Herodotus, as prevailing in the sth Century B.C. On All Saints' Day now, the shops and streets of Abruzzi are filled with candles which people buy ami kindle on the graves of their dead, for they believe that the souls of all the dead come to visit their homes on that night and need the lights to show them the way. The Miztees of Mexico believed the same, and on All Saints’ Day the houses were decked to welcome them. The origin of this ' feast was in memory of those who were drowned in the Great Deluge when Noah was saved in the Ark. These Miztees regulated their feast by the appearance of the Constellation of Pleiades. The Aborigines of Australia also had a celebration in November when Pleiades was most distinct, and worshipped that constellation as the giver of rain. In Persia the month of November was formerly called “The Month of the Angel of’Death.” From all calculations historians and archaeologists believe that it was between the Ist and 17th of November that the flood came upon the eaith.