A few years ago, I avoided Halloween and all of its' festivities. Because I was misinformed, I developed a negative attitude overtime towards Halloween, so in part, this blog post was to educate myself on it's origins and then share what I learned with the community.
After a couple days of research, this is what I found -- and by no means did I become an expert historian on the topic. At the bottom of the post, I added a couple of resources for anyone interested in finding out more information.
[ -- LET'S START! -- ]
The history of Halloween isn't as destructive as I originally thought. I was always under the impression that the 31st was a history of gore and constant pandemonium; a time where the so-called witches, ghouls, demons, and ghosts come out from the other realms to roam the world of the living and cause havoc on the innocent. In part, some of that is true, but to the level of how much chaos and destruction they caused? Well, that may have been slightly exaggerated over time.
Historians date and connect Halloween back to one of the Celts' holiday, Samhain (sounds like sow-in, but the sow rhymes with pow, cow). Samhain was a celebration to welcome the winter from the summer and in between, the harvest. In addition, the Celts celebrated new years on November 1st -- and they believed that during the transition to the new year, the line between the living realm and the afterlife meshed together; as a result, the dead came into the world of the living to cause trouble and destroy crops for reason's unknown to me.
The Celts' also believed that the dead, in addition to causing damage to farms, crops, and properties, saw bodies as potential homes, and for the night, they would make themselves comfortable in a body. According to the Celts, one way to avoid the possession of rogue spirits was by putting on a costume to confuse and frighten them away.
But more importantly, the Celts believed that the power of prophecy for the Druids and Celtic Priests drastically increased on the 31st. The Druids and Priest would wear costumes made out of animal skin, and they would forecast all matters relating to the harvest around bonfires while burning crops and sacrificing animals to the Celtic deities.
[ -- RELIGION GETS' INVOLVED -- ]
During the 5th century B.C, the Romans Catholics infiltrated Ireland but they were not too happy about a holiday that was aligned with a story of destruction, possession of men, false (according to their beliefs) prophets and deities. Thus, the Catholic church wanted to completely erase and replace the Samhain celebration. But…. did they succeed?
In the attempt to replace Samhain, Pope Boniface IV moved the observance of Christian Martyrs, All Saints Day or All Hallows Day, to November 1st. This now made the 31st of October All Hallow's Eve, eventually translated to the word Halloween. Originally, the holy holiday was observed on the 13th of every May.
The tradition of trick-or-treating is believed to be closely connected with another Catholic tradition, the giving of Soul Cakes. During All Souls Day, a day that honors the souls of men and women of faith who passed away, the poor citizens would pray for peoples' family member(s) who were stuck in limbo in exchange for food. Traditionally, the people gave the praying beggars pastries, and the most common pastries given to them was cakes or…."soul" cakes.
On the other hand, other historians also argue that the tradition of trick-or-treating actually comes from the people giving away sweets to fight off the pranksters. But, some others go on to argue that both theories are true (there is enough evidence for both reasons being valid).
[ -- FOR MORE INFO -- ]
1 https://www.history.com/topics/halloween/history-of-halloween 2 https://carm.org/halloween
[-- MY PICTURES FROM RHODE ISLANDS' HALLOWEEN SPECTACULAR--]
