Halloween is one of the oldest holidays still celebrated today.
Halloween is celebrated on October 31st, the last day on the Celtic calendar and the tradition of the Druids. A festival was held to mark the end of one Celtic year and beginning of a new one, much the way we celebrate New Year’s today.
The Druids had a summer’s end celebration known as Samhain. This was a harvest festival that included bonfires. Many of the practices involved were fed on superstitions.
Some cultures even set a place at the table for their deceased loved one to join them.
The holiday was originally a pagan holiday to honor the dead. The celebration dates back more than 2000 years and was originally referred to as All Hallows Eve. They believed on this night the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred.
The Celts believed the souls of the dead roamed the streets and villages at night. Since not all spirits were thought to be friendly, gifts and treats were left out to pacify the evil and ensure next year’s crops would be plentiful. This custom evolved into trick-or-treating.
Other beliefs included believing the Celtic Priests {known as Druids} could make predictions of the future, ghosts of the dead returned to earth, no walking under ladders and avoided crossing paths with a black cat. Other beliefs of avoidance included breaking mirrors, spilling salt and stepping on cracks.
To mark the holiday the people built large bonfires, burned crop and animal sacrifices, wore costumes {often animal heads and furs}, parades, share stories of the dead, dance, sing, and told one another fortunes.
At the end of the festival they would light their individual hearth fires, which had been extinguished earlier in the day, from the sacred bonfire.
Poor citizens would beg for food. Families would give them “soul cakes” in exchange for a promise to pray for dead relatives.
Individuals began dressing up or wearing masks during this time so that the dead would not recognize them when they left home on this night. They also placed bowls of food outside their home to appease the ghosts and keep them from entering.
After the Romans conquered the Celts their celebrations of honoring the dead were interwoven with Samhain.
In the 8th Century, Pope Gregory III and the Catholic Church created All Saints Day on the following day of November 1st to honor the saints. The church also hoped this holiday would convert the pagans.
The evening before All Saints Day became known as All Hallow’s Eve which eventually became Halloween. The word Halloween dates to about 1745.
The church used soul cakes to replace the practice of leaving wine and food for roaming spirits.
Scottish poets John Mayne 1780 works and Robert Burns 1785 “Halloween” note of pranks being played on Halloween. Other elements they mention relating to the autumn season include corn husks and scarecrows.
By the end of the 19th Century annual autumn festivals were common at the end of harvesting season.
New immigrants flooded the United States in the later 19th Century. They brought their traditions of the fall festival. Americans began to incorporate dress in costume and going from house to house to ask for money or food. Often the person would recite poetry in exchange for a treat. This tradition eventually became known as trick-or-treat.
The tradition of carving a turnip was brought over from Ireland and Scotland. The belief was that the carvings would either frighten or trap the evil
spirits and represent a “soul who has been denied entry into both heaven and hell.”
Immigrants to North America discovered that the Native American pumpkins were easier to carve. The tradition of carving pumpkins is recorded as early as 1837 and the harvest festivals.
Young women believed that on Halloween they could divine the name or appearance of their future husband by doing tricks with yarn, apple parings or mirrors.
Around the turn of the 20th Century, Halloween parties for all ages became more popular. These parties focused on food, costumes and games. Halloween began to lose both the superstitious and religious overtones that had followed it for centuries.
During the following decades the holiday became more family oriented, became less scary and frightening, more community centered and trick-or-treat was revised.
While our culture has maintained many of these traditions and beliefs others have fallen by the wayside. some of these include burying a ring in mashed potatoes to bring about love {Ireland}, tossing a nut into the fireplace to represent the girl’s husband {Scotland}, tossing apple peels over shoulder, peering at egg yolks floating in water, standing in a darkened room to see husband’s face in mirror and many more rituals. Most of these were in the belief of discerning who the girl would marry.
One thing remains the same today, as it did centuries ago, we all want the good will of the spirits to prevail.
Pictures courtesy of MorgueFile