Since the beginning of time, human beings have always tried to find explanations for the events that occur in their daily lives. It is from this need that aspects such as myths appear, which seek an answer to these events. Some of these myths continue to this day through expressions such as "opening Pandora's box", but also through festivities such as Halloween. However, closer to us is the festival of the Deceased or Finaos, celebrated from the night of October 31 to November 2. In this celebration, families gathered to remember the deceased. This task fell to the oldest woman, who told anecdotes while eating the fruits of the season, such as chestnuts for roasting, almonds or other fruits, such as figs and prickly pears, known in Tenerife as Indian figs. But there were also more elaborate dishes, such as almond and fig cheese, frangollo and, even, some animal was sacrificed, which was accompanied to face the autumn cold with anise, honey rum or sweet wine.
Although also, and similar to the current "Trick or treat", boys and girls went out in the morning to ask in the different houses of the municipality: "Are there Saints?". If the answer was affirmative, they were given almonds, nuts, dried figs or chestnuts, which were placed in their bag.
This tradition, so rooted in our culture, was born in the distant 16th century, when numerous parishes, as a result of the Castilian custom of the Brotherhoods of the Souls, which had as their central axis the devotion to the souls of Purgatory. Little by little, this tradition, more related to the religious, became something more festive and a reason for celebration, where the parrandas put a soundtrack to the ventorrillos and taifa dances. In other words, these dates became days not to mourn the dead, but rather to celebrate their lives, a little related to that famous phrase of the Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez: "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened."
Sadly, these customs have gradually withered, falling into oblivion, due to the almost silent acquisition of the Anglo-Saxon tradition of Halloween. For this reason, we have to return to them, not only because they have the strength to bring us closer to our traditions, showing better who we are, but also to those who have left us a long time ago to remember them and, with it, rejoice for having enjoyed their company. Well, as they said in the Disney and Pixar movie, Coco: "You only die when you are forgotten..."
