Halloween Cakes
"Halloween and the Day of the Dead share a common origin in the Christian commemoration of the dead on All Saints' and All Souls' Day. In the case of Halloween, the Celtic celebration of Samhain is critical to its pagan legacy...In the case of the Day of the Dead, commentors routinely emphasize its pre-Columbian origins in the cults of the dead that abounded among the Nahuatl-sepaking peoples of central Mexico. The anthropologist Hugo Nuntini...has...noted those occasions, such as during the festivities of Tepeihuital, when images of the dead were placed on family altars and food was offered to them, much in the manner of ofrendas so centrao to the Day of the Dead. Other authors have stressed the peculiarly culinary aspects of the Aztec mortuary ritual in which wooden images of the god Huitzilopoochti, the solar diety who emerged every morning form the earth goddess Coaticue, were covered with a dough made of amaranth seed that was subsequently eaten by the celebrants." ---Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night, Nicholas Rogers [Oxford University Press:New York] 2002
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