I've been reading the HubMob submissions this week, especially those about the history of the Halloween event and related traditions followed throughout a range of international countries. In doing so, I'd not seen a mention of an old and now possibly obscure tradition that was presented several years ago in a history related television series.

It took a lot of searching, but some references emerged that I would like to share. The rudimentary jack-o-lantern type pumpkins shown carved on the image to the right are more like the ones I have been remembering - just eyes and perhaps a mouth opening.

An origins tale about the birth of the jack-o-lantern seems to be present in China and South America, but it is unrelated to any we have heard much about in America. That is, unless we have had access to anthropologists's lectures, nearby research universities, or perhaps the History Channel and National Geographic Channel. Otherwise, we don't hear much about pumpkins used as lanterns or as masks.

I did know a man that once bought an orange suit at the Salvation Army Store, hollowed out a pumpkin head for himself and then went out on Halloween to growl at people, but that's a different story...and I think it's been filmed and playing at the theaters right now.

Inventions of one sort and another have occurred simultaneously or at different times in various spots around the world and the jack-o-lantern is one of them. Certainly the Celts must have been the oldest peoples to have used jack-o-lanterns to date, but others that never met the Celts produced them for other purposes in a different age - in Ancient China, over 6,000 years ago..

Beasts Of the Field: A Narrative History of California Farmworkers, 1769-1913 by Richard Steven Street

This book presents Chinese traditions brought to America with some of the first Chinese immigrants. At a certain California ranch, a Chinese man prepared roast goose many times within his first two weeks on the job as a cook. When asked, he explained that he captured the geese himself. One of the ranch contingent followed him one day soon after in order to find how the cook captured all these geese.

The cook walked to a stand of willows and perhaps cat tails and reeds and went among them into the water. He removed his clothing, places a sort of weighted belt on his body and placed a pumpkin that had eye holes in it over his head. From TV documentaries, I know that he had first spent a little time broadcasting seeds on the river for the birds to eat and floating pumpkins down the stream in order to condition the abundant geese to their presence. Soon, the geese were comfortable with the pumpkins in the water, putting themselves inadvertently in danger.

In his pumpkin disguise, this practical Chinese cook submerged himself after feeding the geese, reached up and dragged them under water by their legs and broke their necks. This was a standard hunting practice passed from generation to generation for 1000s of years.

I have heard stories that this same technique has been in use in Central and South America as well to capture geese (especially in the Amazon River region), but have not found any related references. Imagine feeding man or beast and then suddenly killing them. It's all rather brutal and frightening and will certainly put off those that wish not to kill animals for food.

An old old charm tells a woman interested in a man that she can catch him with a goose wishbone and 4 pumpkin seeds.

She must write the 4 leters of the word LOVE, one on each seed, and place the seeds and the goose wishbone above teh front door on Halloween. The first man that passes the threshold will be her future husband.

Well, either way, poor goose!