THE CELEBRATION OF DEATH THROUGH LIFE
By La Rédaction · Port-au-Prince · · 3 min read · Updated 24 April 2026
Translated from French — AI-assisted and reviewed by the editorial team. The French version is authoritative. Read the original · About our translation policy
Parallel between the Guédés in Haiti and Halloween in the West
By Evans Paul
Introduction: Death, a mirror of life
Life and death remain the two inseparable poles of existence. One only has meaning through the other. Since the dawn of time, human beings have sought to tame death, to understand it, and to ritualize it to better celebrate life. This universal dialectic between end and beginning, between absence and memory, constitutes the very foundation of human consciousness.
The Guédés: life dancing with death
In Haiti, the Guédés brilliantly embody this alliance between life and death. They represent both the spirits of the dead and the guardians of vitality.
Each year, on November 1st and 2nd, Haitians gather in cemeteries, to the sound of drums and Vodou prayers, to honor the memory of the departed. This moment of remembrance also becomes a celebration of communion, laughter, and trances, where death loses its power of terror. The Guédés remind us that death is not an erasure, but a transfer of energy: our ancestors live through us, and we will continue to live through those who come after. Halloween: the tamed shadow of death In the West, Halloween, celebrated every October 31st, finds its roots in the Celtic festival of Samhain, marking the end of the harvest and the beginning of the dark season. It was once the time when the boundaries between the living and the dead thinned. Over time, this celebration transformed into a popular and theatrical festival, where fear is ridiculed. Children, disguised as ghosts, skeletons, or witches, go from door to door, warding off death with laughter, light, and sharing. Halloween thus remains a symbolic way to defuse fatality, to turn death into a game that can be understood, imitated, or even mastered. Two cultures, one common quest In different forms, the Guédés and Halloween express the same spiritual quest: to give meaning to finitude, to maintain the link between worlds, to preserve the memory of ancestors, and to remind us that life, however fragile, is a gift to be celebrated. Where the West stages fear to tame it, Haiti laughs and dances to transcend it. The laughter of the Guédés, their irreverence, and their sensuality express a deep popular wisdom: death does not have the last word. Philosophy of Continuity We are the living continuity of our ancestors, bearers of their struggles, their prayers, and their dreams. Each generation extends the great cycle of life, like a river that changes course without ever ceasing to flow. To celebrate death is to recognize life in its totality, with its fragility and beauty. The strength of life lies precisely in the awareness of its finitude. Conclusion: Death as a Passage Death is not the negation of life, but its other face.
The Guédés, through their humor and vitality, remind us that to die is also to return differently, in memory, in breath, in progeny.
And Halloween, through its theater of masks and lights, teaches us that the fear of nothingness can be tamed. Finitude is the limit that makes life conscious of itself. To live is to humanize death without ceasing to love. To die is to prolong life in the memory of love. CENTRE ABC – ATIZAN BON CHANJMAN
Delmas, Haiti
Saturday, November 1, 2025
Each year, on November 1st and 2nd, Haitians gather in cemeteries, to the sound of drums and Vodou prayers, to honor the memory of the departed. This moment of remembrance also becomes a celebration of communion, laughter, and trances, where death loses its power of terror. The Guédés remind us that death is not an erasure, but a transfer of energy: our ancestors live through us, and we will continue to live through those who come after. Halloween: the tamed shadow of death In the West, Halloween, celebrated every October 31st, finds its roots in the Celtic festival of Samhain, marking the end of the harvest and the beginning of the dark season. It was once the time when the boundaries between the living and the dead thinned. Over time, this celebration transformed into a popular and theatrical festival, where fear is ridiculed. Children, disguised as ghosts, skeletons, or witches, go from door to door, warding off death with laughter, light, and sharing. Halloween thus remains a symbolic way to defuse fatality, to turn death into a game that can be understood, imitated, or even mastered. Two cultures, one common quest In different forms, the Guédés and Halloween express the same spiritual quest: to give meaning to finitude, to maintain the link between worlds, to preserve the memory of ancestors, and to remind us that life, however fragile, is a gift to be celebrated. Where the West stages fear to tame it, Haiti laughs and dances to transcend it. The laughter of the Guédés, their irreverence, and their sensuality express a deep popular wisdom: death does not have the last word. Philosophy of Continuity We are the living continuity of our ancestors, bearers of their struggles, their prayers, and their dreams. Each generation extends the great cycle of life, like a river that changes course without ever ceasing to flow. To celebrate death is to recognize life in its totality, with its fragility and beauty. The strength of life lies precisely in the awareness of its finitude. Conclusion: Death as a Passage Death is not the negation of life, but its other face.
The Guédés, through their humor and vitality, remind us that to die is also to return differently, in memory, in breath, in progeny.
And Halloween, through its theater of masks and lights, teaches us that the fear of nothingness can be tamed. Finitude is the limit that makes life conscious of itself. To live is to humanize death without ceasing to love. To die is to prolong life in the memory of love. CENTRE ABC – ATIZAN BON CHANJMAN
Delmas, Haiti
Saturday, November 1, 2025
