Halloween and Festivals of the Dead

Introduction

Festivals in honor of the dead are celebrated in countries throughout the world and are called by various names. In the United States and many other countries, the festival is called Halloween and is quite a popular holiday. Occurring at the end of October, Halloween was originally a harvest festival, a time for gathering the last of the crops from the fields and returning cattle to the barns in preparation for winter. Over time, it has developed into a boisterous celebration that includes parties, Halloween parades, and dressing in costume to go door to door for treats.

The Chinese Ching Ming Festival is a spring festival honoring the dead. During this festival, people thoroughly clean their houses and family shrines. The shrines include statues of Buddha and special items that remind the family of relatives who have died. To celebrate Ching Ming, people in China also visit cemeteries and participate in candlelight vigils, fairs, and parades.

The ancient Japanese festival known as Obon is celebrated in honor of deceased family members and ancestors, much like El Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, in Mexico. Mexico's Day of the Dead, celebrated at the beginning of November, is one of the most popular holidays in Mexico. People visit and clean graves and prepare food for the dead. Children parade through the streets shouting "Calaveras!" ("Skulls!") and are given money and candy, similar to trick-or-treating in other countries.

History

Some scholars believe that Halloween began with the Celtic (pronounced KEL-tick) peoples who lived in Ireland, Scotland, England, Wales, and northern France before the birth of Jesus Christ, more than two thousand years ago. They held an annual festival called Samhain (pronounced SOW-en) that marked the end of the fall harvest and the beginning of winter. It was a time for harvesting the last of the grains, fruits, and vegetables and for herding cattle down from hilly summer pastures. Some animals were slaughtered to provide families with food for the long, cold winter.

Samhain: The eve of wandering spirits

Because the Celts were farmers and herdsmen, the end of harvest marked the end of their year, and so Samhain was also regarded as the beginning of the Celtic New Year. To the Celts, turning points in nature, such as the point where land meets sky, sea meets shore, day meets night, and season meets season, were times when unusual things might happen. Because Samhain represented the turning of summer into winter and the old year into the new, it was considered the strangest time of year—a time when the boundary between the world of the dead and the world of the living became very thin and the spirits of the dead could return to earth.

To commemorate the return of spirits from the world of the dead—or perhaps to ward off witches and other unwelcome forces—Celtic priests, called Druids, lit sacred bonfires on this night. People burned crops and animals in the bonfires as sacrifices to the Celtic gods. It is also thought that on Samhain the Celts dressed in costumes made of animal heads and skins, either to imitate the spirits of the dead or to keep from being recognized by wandering spirits that might try to possess their bodies.

Because Samhain was such a powerful time for spirits, the Celts believed the future could be foretold on this evening, and they engaged in many forms of divination, or fortune-telling. Celtic legends also tell of heroic deeds accomplished by great warriors on the eve of Samhain.

A brew of Celtic and Christian beliefs

As Christianity arrived in the British Isles about fifteen hundred years ago, Church leaders tried to stop the Celts' pagan religious practices and festival customs, but the people held on to their traditions. In about A.D. 834, Pope Gregory IV declared November 1 All Saints' Day to honor the saints and martyrs who had no special feast days of their own. The holiday was also called Hallowmas (All Saints' Mass), and the night before Hallowmas came to be known as All Hallows' Eve. During the Middle Ages (c. A.D. 500 to 1500), All Hallows' Eve became known as a powerful time for witches and sorcerers.

In about A.D. 1000, the Church made November 2 All Souls' Day, a day for honoring the faithful Christian dead. These Church celebrations to honor the spirits of the dead and the souls of the saints fit in well with the traditional Celtic practices.

Halloween comes to North America

Irish and Scottish immigrants first introduced Halloween customs to the United States during the 1700s. Settlers in the southern colonies were especially drawn to the divination, or fortune-telling, practices of All Hallows' Eve. English settlers of the New England colonies were more inclined to celebrate the church holiday All Saints' Day rather than tell ghost stories and try to predict the future.

During the middle 1800s, thousands of Irish and Scots immigrated to the United States and Canada. The Irish introduced more divination games, the lighting of jack-o'-lanterns, the popular game bobbing for apples, and the playing of Halloween pranks. Scottish immigrants introduced the Halloween custom of "guising" (pronounced GUY-zing), or dressing in costume and collecting treats. The Scots also introduced Americans to the poetry of Robert Burns (1750–1796), their national poet, who described Scottish Halloween games in his poem "Halloween."

During the late 1800s, these Irish and Scottish customs blended with North American fall harvest celebrations. Halloween became a time for parties, often given by young ladies and featuring food, music and dancing, games like bobbing for apples, and divination games to predict a future sweetheart or spouse. In the countryside, young men played boisterous pranks at Halloween just as their fathers had done in Ireland.

Halloween trick-or-treating became increasingly popular and widespread in the United States and Canada between the 1920s and the 1950s, and Halloween became primarily a children's holiday. Children at first dressed in simple, homemade costumes, but store-bought costumes imitating popular television, movie, and story-book characters became available by the mid-1900s.

Since that time, trick-or-treating has continued in the United States and Canada, and Halloween has grown into a popular celebration that also features parades, costume contests with extravagant prizes, and "haunted" houses that draw crowds of thrill seekers.

Festivals of the dead in Asia

Holidays for honoring the dead are celebrated throughout Asia. The Ching Ming Festival in China probably began as early as 200 B.C. It was at first a time to enjoy the beginning of spring with outdoor activities such as kite flying, picnics, festivals, and hunts. The festival gradually became associated with honoring the dead, an ancient Chinese practice that was further encouraged by the revered Chinese philosopher Confucius (551–479 B.C.). Ching Ming grew into a festival that includes visiting graves, planting trees in cemeteries, and making offerings to the spirits of the dead.

Japan's Obon Festival, a Buddhist holiday for honoring the dead, has been celebrated since seventh-century Buddhist priests began offering a share of their food to the ancestors at this time of year. At first, only the Japanese noblemen joined the priests in their celebration, but as the years passed, all Buddhist families joined in honoring their ancestors. Today, the Obon Festival is a major holiday throughout Japan.

The Day of the Dead in Mexico

In Mexico, festivals to honor the dead have been celebrated for hundreds of years, beginning in the fifteenth century when the Aztec Indians controlled the region. These early festivals honored the Aztec god of death, and were held during harvest time. When the Spanish began to explore Mexico in the 1500s, they introduced the Roman Catholic religion and brought with them the traditions and customs of Christianity. The rituals connected with All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day combined with the native festivals to eventually become the important holiday El Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead.

Folklore, Legends, Stories

Many Western Halloween folktales, as well as classic stories and poems, are about ghosts, witches, goblins, elves, or fairies. American poet and short-story writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) and American author Washington Irving (1783–1859) wrote on these themes, as did Scottish poet Robert Burns (1750–1796) and English poet and dramatist William Shakespeare (1564–1616). Thousands of others have written ghost stories, both modern and classic, and ghost tales have been told by ordinary folk since storytelling began.

Asian stories and beliefs about the dead

In most Asian countries, people believe that the spirits of the dead are still with the living and must be honored so they will remain peaceful and helpful instead of becoming angry and destructive. Chinese folklore is filled with legends about spirits of the dead who did not receive proper burial and come back to earth to seek revenge upon the living. There are also many folktales that explain some of the customs of Ching Ming. A well-known tale is about Chu, the loyal Chinese administrator who was smothered by fire in a cave in ancient China. In honor of Chu, no hot food is eaten on Cold Food Day.

The Japanese believe that the souls of the dead return to the land of the living during the Obon Festival, and that those souls combine to form one entity called O Shorai Sama, who is said to come riding a white horse on the first evening of the festival. Japanese and other Asian Buddhists believe that each family's ancestors continue to love living family members, and that the living should pray for and make offerings to the dead to prevent their souls from suffering.

A look at the lighter side of death in Mexico

Much Latin American folklore and literature is based on the idea that the spirits of the dead still act in the world of the living, especially during the Day of the Dead. Some of these beliefs probably originated with the Aztec and other Indians who were native to Mexico before Spanish colonization began in the 1500s. Others were introduced by Spanish authors and playwrights like José Zorrilla y Moral (1817–1893), who immigrated to Mexico as head of the national theater during the mid-1800s. At the end of his play Don Juan Tenorio, the main character wrestles with spirits in a cemetery. The play is still one of the most popular in Mexico, and is performed throughout Day of the Dead festivities.

Customs, Traditions, Ceremonies

In the West, the activity most associated with Halloween is trick-or-treating. The practice of begging for sweets at Halloween may have roots in the Middle Ages when the poor begged for "sweet soul cakes" on All Souls' Day. In exchange for the cakes, they promised to say prayers for the souls of the dead. The Church encouraged the handing out of soul cakes to counter the ancient Celtic practice of leaving food and drink for roaming spirits. This practice was called "going a-souling." Over time, children began to go from house to house and were given food, ale, and money.

Dressing in costume on Halloween also began in the Middle Ages. On Halloween, when ghosts were thought to roam the earth, people sometimes wore masks if they left home after dark so the ghosts would think they were spirits and let them pass unharmed.

Halloween trick-or-treating began in the United States in the middle 1800s with the arrival of many people from Ireland, who came because of food shortages in their country. They brought their Halloween customs with them, and by the early twentieth century American children were dressing in costumes and going door to door asking for sweets or money.

Over the years, trick-or-treating gained in popularity, and by the 1950s, most children in the United States participated. The practice spread to Canada, the United Kingdom (where Halloween had been losing popularity), and recently to Mexico, Japan, France, Germany, and other countries.

Today on Halloween, children dress in costumes and go from door to door shouting "trick or treat!" and are given candy or other treats. "Trick or treat!" is meant as a mild threat, meaning a trick might be played on those who do not give treats. Few children play pranks on their neighbors, however, and the majority of adults look forward to handing out candy to children on Halloween.

Other Halloween activities

Many teens and adults in the West love Halloween as much as children do. They attend costume parties, hold parades, or decorate their homes with spider webs, eerie lighting, and figures of ghosts, witches, or bats swinging from trees to thrill children who come knocking on Halloween night. The jack-o'-lantern, a pumpkin carved with a scary face and lit with a candle placed inside, is an enduring holiday symbol that sits on nearly every porch at Halloween. Communities often design a "haunted" house for an extra scare on this night of spirits. Hayrides are also popular for Halloween get-togethers.

Asian celebrations to honor the dead

During Asian festivals of the dead, people visit cemeteries and clean and decorate the graves of family ancestors. Special items and foods are placed on home or cemetery altars so that they may be enjoyed by the dead, and many families welcome the spirits of deceased relatives to the dinner table.

People burn paper clothes, cars, houses, and money as offerings to the dead, believing their essence reaches the spirits through smoke. A separate Asian festival of the dead is held in summer. Called the Hungry Ghosts Festival, it is a time when people burn these items as offerings to the spirits of those who died by violence or far from their families. The living care for these spirits so they will go calmly back to the land of the dead and not harm the living.

Japanese families leave lights and lanterns burning on the eve of the Obon Festival so that the spirits of the dead can find their way. On the final day of the festival, many Japanese participate in a ceremony in which paper lanterns fastened to a small straw boat are set out on a river to guide the spirits back to the land of the dead.

Mexico's Day of the Dead customs

During Mexico's Day of the Dead, families welcome the spirits of relatives who have died by preparing special altars in their homes. They decorate them with flowers, candles, incense, photographs, and items the relatives liked while they were alive. They also clean, weed, and decorate graves and repaint crypts in pastel colors. They prepare many foods, including those favored by the dead, and bake or buy breads and pastries in the shape of skulls and skeletons.

Family members visit cemeteries for an all-night candlelight vigil on November 1, when the spirits of deceased adults are said to return home. Cemeteries become beautiful scenes of celebration as hundreds come with candles, flowers, and baskets of food. On October 31, Mexican people visit homes where children have died. They bring toys and candy for the spirits of the dead children.

Other Day of the Dead celebrations include street plays and performances, dances, and feasting. Halloween trick-or-treating customs have also reached Mexico and other parts of Latin America from the United States. Many children put on Halloween costumes and go out to get treats during the Day of the Dead. Young people often go to Halloween parties and dances. Because they are afraid that the Mexican traditions will be overshadowed, and perhaps forgotten, many adults do not like it that these customs have become part of the Day of the Dead.

Clothing, Costumes

When it comes to Halloween costumes, almost anything goes. Children dress in traditional witch and ghost costumes, but they also create elaborate outfits to look like foods, such as slices of pizza and jars of jelly beans, unpopular politicians, or characters in the year's biggest movie hits. Whatever people can imagine is what they can become, provided they can either create it or find it in a costume shop. Materials for a Halloween costume can range from items as simple as a cardboard box, construction paper, pipe cleaners, and old clothes to designer costumes and Hollywood movie makeup.

Many adults like to dress up as much as children do on Halloween. Costumes are becoming more sophisticated, more authentic looking, and much more of a commercial success for shops that sell or rent elaborate Halloween disguises. Such disguises may help wearers win cash prizes in costume contests.

Even pets have begun to celebrate Halloween. Stores are beginning to stock a whole new category of costumes just for them. Some popular pet disguises include fairy costumes for cats and cat costumes for dogs.

People who celebrate the Ching Ming and Obon festivals do not dress in costumes, but special clothes do feature in some of the festivities. Many people in China and other Asian countries make or buy paper clothes for the dead, which are sometimes wrapped neatly in parcels, addressed to deceased family members, and then burned in offering to the spirits. In Japan, everyone wears new clothes for the Obon Festival. A special summer kimono is worn for the traditional folk dance, the Bon-Odori, held during the festival.

Western-style Halloween costumes are becoming more and more popular for children to wear during Mexico's Day of the Dead, even though some parents protest. Traditional costumes are worn by "mummers," people in disguise who parade through town each night of the festival, performing skits and playing music. The mummers wear masks that resemble characters from Mexican folklore. Another very popular Day of the Dead costume is the skeleton, which consists of white bones drawn against a black background. Contests are held to reward the person with the best skeleton costume.

Foods, Recipes

In Western countries, foods that are harvested in the fall are popular at Halloween, especially apples, pumpkins, and corn. Apples are baked, coated with caramel or candy coating, or served as hot apple cider. Many desserts are made from pumpkin, the most recognized symbol of the harvest, including pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, and pumpkin cookies. Corn is popped and is enjoyed on chilly fall evenings. Popcorn balls are a favorite treat for Halloween parties and are sometimes given to trick-or-treaters.

Asian families prepare special foods for the spirits of the dead during the Ching Ming Festival and the Obon Festival. In China, some families still observe the Cold Food Feast on the day before Ching Ming, a day when household fires were once forbidden. This custom calls for placing uncooked rice and noodles and raw, unpeeled fruit and vegetables on graves as offerings to the dead.

Japanese families prepare favorite foods for their deceased loved ones and set plates for them at the table. Only vegetarian foods are placed near the family's altar for the dead on the first night of Obon, because tradition forbids the taking of life on this day. Special rice dumplings are prepared on the final day of the Obon Festival to help send the spirits on their way back to the land of the dead.

During the Day of the Dead in Mexico, families prepare their deceased loved ones' favorite foods so that the visiting spirits can enjoy the essence, or aroma, of the foods. On November 3, after the spirits have returned to the land of the dead, the living enjoy the food, since the dead have already taken their share. The Day of the Dead is also an important time of year for bakeries, which fill their shop windows with ghoulish-looking pastries in the shape of skulls, skeletons, and coffins.

Arts, Crafts, Games

Halloween decorations and art in Western countries usually feature fantasy characters on a supernatural theme. Familiar subjects include a witch riding a broom with a black cat nearby, bats, grinning jack-o'-lanterns, ghosts and goblins, fairies and elves, skeletons, and vampires with bloody fangs. Many of these characters came from Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, where folk beliefs in fairies, witches, and goblins date back hundreds of years. Fall harvest symbols such as pumpkins, corn shocks, and scarecrows are also featured in Halloween arts and crafts.

Glowing pumpkins by the door

One of the most popular activities for Halloween is carving a jack-o'-lantern, a custom that came from the British Isles, where children once carved lanterns from large turnips, gourds, and beets. Jack-o'-lanterns are made from pumpkins of any size. After a small circle is cut from the top and the seeds are scooped out, a frightening face or a design such as a haunted house or ghost is carved through the rind and flesh of the pumpkin. Then a candle is placed inside to make the design glow. Jack-o'-lanterns are usually set on porches or in windows on Halloween night.

Paper luxuries, kites, and vegetable carvings

In China and other Asian countries, making paper models of fine cars, mansions, sedan chairs fit for a king, jewelry, and expensive clothing has become an art. These items are intricately designed in rich colors for those who want their ancestors to have the very best in death, even if they were poor in life. Some of the models are five or six feet high and are created in great detail, even though they will soon be burned so that the dead may enjoy them in the afterworld.

Kite making is another popular craft in China, and the Ching Ming Festival is one of the favorite times of the year for flying kites. The kites are often hand painted with beautiful scenes from Chinese legends. Some are also designed to perform stunts or to emit special sounds in the wind.

Japanese Buddhists enjoy carving vegetables into animal shapes to decorate their home altars for the Obon Festival. Many of these are adorned with noodles, grasses, leaves, and stems to add extra detail.

Skeletons, arcos, and banners

During the Day of the Dead, one of the most familiar sights in Mexico is the calacas (pronounced kah-LOCK-uhs), funny little skeleton figurines dressed as cab drivers and schoolteachers, farmers and doctors, entertainers and secretaries. Every type of occupation is represented, perhaps to show that death comes to everyone, no matter what their profession. Children also love the little skeleton toys with movable parts that bounce up and down on springs.

Among other Mexican arts and crafts for the Day of the Dead are the lovely arcos, made by the men and boys of Janitzio Island in northwestern Mexico. These frames made from sticks are covered with every imaginable Day of the Dead decoration—flowers, fruits, sugar skulls, animal figures, and calacas.

In other cities and towns, artisans create tissue banners using finely cut designs of birds, angels, crosses and skeletons. These are displayed in color for the angelitos (spirits of children who have died), and in black and white for the spirits of adults.

Party games and contests

Some favorite traditional Western Halloween games and party pastimes are bobbing for apples and telling ghost stories. Many jack-o'-lantern carving contests are also held.

To play bobbing for apples, players kneel around a tub of water that has several apples floating on top. They try to see who can be the first to grab an apple, using only their teeth. This often involves forcing an apple to the bottom of the tub of water in order to grab it. Today in Scotland, younger children play "forking for apples," in which each player stands on a chair over the tub of apples with a fork held in his mouth, pointing downward. When the players release their forks, they hope to skewer an apple.

In China, kite-flying contests and exhibits are often held during the Ching Ming Festival, after the tombs have been cleaned and offerings have been made to the ancestors. Most kites are handmade and range from the simplest diamond-shaped paper kites to elaborate stunt kites.

In Mexico, children enjoy the large family and community gatherings during the Day of the Dead and often play together outside the cemetery gates while adults keep a graveside vigil. Children also love to dress in costume and follow bands of mummers from street to street, making up stories about spirits of the dead and collecting money and treats.

Symbols

Festivals that honor the dead include symbols that may seem somewhat ghoulish. During El Día de los Muertos in Mexico, shop windows are filled with bread formed into skeleton shapes. A typical sweet is the sugar skull. The skeleton and the skull are both symbols of the dead, but in Mexico they are presented in a light-hearted, even whimsical way. By embracing death with fun and humor, instead of fear and horror, the people of Mexico show a different attitude toward death and the dead.

In Mexico and in Asian countries, the dead are honored and welcomed during certain times of the year, when their spirits are believed to actually return to walk among the living. In Japan, families speak to the dead at the dinner table and in the home as if they were still alive. In China and other Asian countries, the dead are believed to continue to need food, houses, money, and clothing, which they can receive through smoke when paper models of these items are burned. Asian peoples have honored their ancestors for thousands of years, and they believe that the spirits of those who have died continue to watch over and care for the living, just as the living continue to care for the dead during the Ching Ming and Obon Festivals.

Because Halloween has its roots in ancient Celtic festivals that involved ghosts and spirits, symbols associated with Halloween in the West also tend to be supernatural in nature. Most of these symbols, including witches, black cats, and bats, can be traced to these early beginnings. Because Halloween was also considered a harvest festival, other symbols associated with Halloween are pumpkins, scarecrows, and corn shocks.

The witch

The witch is one of the most popular Halloween symbols. She is often portrayed as an ugly, old woman wearing a black robe and pointed black hat. She may be riding a broomstick or stirring a cauldron of witch's brew, and is usually accompanied by her faithful assistant, a black cat.

The term "witch" comes from the Saxon witega, meaning a wise person, prophet, or sorcerer. Witches were later associated with mischievous fairies in the folklore of Scotland and Ireland. They were blamed for all sorts of unexplained occurrences, from things as simple as spoiling milk to such deeds as stealing babies and children.

The Church believed that witches worshiped Satan and cast spells to help him do evil deeds. These beliefs became common in about the ninth and tenth centuries, and by the end of the Middle Ages, about 1500, the Church began condemning people to death for practicing witchcraft. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, thousands of people were executed as witches in Europe.

The fear of witchcraft took hold in the American colonies as well, and some fifty people were hung as witches in New England. Most of the hangings took place near the town of Salem, Massachusetts, following witchcraft trials held in 1692.

Halloween was said to be the most important day of the year for witches. Halloween marked the occasion of a great witches' sabbat (midnight gathering), when covens (organized groups of witches) met to perform special rituals and welcome new members to the clan. Witches, like spirits of the dead, were believed to roam about on Halloween night, seeking to harm whomever crossed their path.

The misunderstood bat

Artificial bats are one of the most popular Halloween decorations. They are usually hung from trees or in doorways, where they swoop in the wind and can tap unsuspecting trick-or-treaters on the head. The bat is connected to Halloween for several reasons. One reason is that people believe bats are bloodthirsty. In reality, only three of the world's nearly one thousand species of bats, the vampire bats of Central and South America, feed on fresh blood. These bats bite animals with their sharp teeth and drink their blood, like Count Dracula and other vampires of horror films and novels.

Because most bats live in caves, where they sleep during the day and hibernate all winter, they are further associated with fictional vampires, who cannot bear the light of day. Also, bats have large wings that fold over their bodies with an eerie similarity to Count Dracula's long black cloak.

"Wool of bat" is one of the ingredients used by the three witches to make their brew in the play Macbeth, written by English playwright William Shakespeare (1564–1616). According to superstition, witches are said to rub bats' blood on their skin before casting a spell.

Shape-shifters and tempest raisers

Superstition and fear have surrounded the cat—particularly the black cat—for probably two thousand years. A god in the form of a cat was worshiped in ancient Egypt, and many royal families kept cats as honored pets. But in early Greece and Rome, people thought witches could transform women into cats and keep them as helpers, or "familiars," in working their magic. In Celtic Europe, cats were often thrown into bonfires on Samhain because they were thought to be witches in disguise.

In early Ireland, superstitions about cats were always connected with evil and witches. In the 1500s and 1600s, sailors feared storms at sea, which people thought witches created by using black cats to cast spells. Today, some people still believe it is bad luck if a black cat crosses their path.

The jack-o'-lantern

A pumpkin carved with spooky eyes, a triangle nose, and big crooked teeth that has a candle flickering inside it is called a jack-o'-lantern, and it is one of the most well-known Halloween symbols. Jack-o'-lanterns were first made in Great Britain and Ireland, where they were carved from large turnips, gourds, and beets.

When Scotch-Irish immigrants landed in America, they found the native pumpkin made a better jack-o'-lantern than the vegetables they had carved in Great Britain. By the turn of the twentieth century, children in some parts of the United States had begun to dress in costumes on Halloween and carry jack-o'-lanterns from house to house, holding the grinning, candlelit faces to greet anyone opening the door.

The jack-o'-lantern has remained the foremost Halloween symbol, and today some pumpkin carvers compete for prizes with their elaborate jack-o'-lantern designs made with special pumpkin-carving patterns and tools. As a Halloween decoration, jack-o'-lanterns of different sizes are sometimes stacked to make "totem poles." Some children even dress in jack-o'-lantern costumes on Halloween.

Music, Dance

In Western countries, Halloween has been considered a children's holiday since the early 1900s, and dozens of children's Halloween songs have been written. Many are about witches and goblins, while others are about autumn and the harvest. Music is a popular part of the the Day of the Dead in Mexico, where mummers in costume play and sing as they stroll through town and present humorous skits.

In Japan, a highlight of the Obon Festival is the Japanese folk dance festival called the Bon-Odori, or "Dance of Rejoicing." These festivals are lit by lanterns, and are held throughout Japan in public parks and town squares. The dances are also held in Buddhist temples. Some of the Japanese dances resemble Western-style folk dances, but others are very traditional Japanese, featuring graceful and intricate movements and postures and a lot of spinning and hand clapping. The dancers are accompanied by music played mainly on drums and flutes.