| Halloween's origins
date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in).
The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland,
the United Kingdom, and northern France, celebrated their new year
on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and
the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often
associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before
the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the
dead became blurred. On the night of October 31, they celebrated Samhain,
when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth.
In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that
the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids,
or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people
entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies
were an important source of comfort and direction during the long,
dark winter.
To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where
the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the
Celtic deities. During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes,
typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to
tell each other's fortunes. When the celebration was over, they
re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that
evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the
coming winter.
By A.D. 43, Romans had conquered the majority of Celtic territory.
In the course of the four hundred years that they ruled the Celtic
lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional
Celtic celebration of Samhain. The first was Feralia, a day in late
October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of
the dead. The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess
of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple and the incorporation
of this celebration into Samhain probably explains the tradition
of "bobbing" for apples that is practiced today on Halloween.
By the 800s, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic
lands. In the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV designated November
1 All Saints' Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs. It is widely
believed today that the pope was attempting to replace the Celtic
festival of the dead with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday.
The celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from
Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints' Day) and the night
before it, the night of Samhain, began to be called All-hallows
Eve and, eventually, Halloween. Even later, in A.D. 1000, the church
would make November 2 All Souls' Day, a day to honor the dead. It
was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades,
and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels, and devils. Together,
the three celebrations, the eve of All Saints', All Saints', and
All Souls', were called Hallowmas.
The American tradition of "trick-or-treating" probably
dates back to the early All Souls' Day parades in England. During
the festivities, poor citizens would beg for food and families would
give them pastries called "soul cakes" in return for their
promise to pray for the family's dead relatives. The distribution
of soul cakes was encouraged by the church as a way to replace the
ancient practice of leaving food and wine for roaming spirits. The
practice, which was referred to as "going a-souling" was
eventually taken up by children who would visit the houses in their
neighborhood and be given ale, food, and money.
The tradition of dressing in costume for Halloween has both European
and Celtic roots. Hundreds of years ago, winter was an uncertain
and frightening time. Food supplies often ran low and, for the many
people afraid of the dark, the short days of winter were full of
constant worry. On Halloween, when it was believed that ghosts came
back to the earthly world, people thought that they would encounter
ghosts if they left their homes. To avoid being recognized by these
ghosts, people would wear masks when they left their homes after
dark so that the ghosts would mistake them for fellow spirits. On
Halloween, to keep ghosts away from their houses, people would place
bowls of food outside their homes to appease the ghosts and prevent
them from attempting to enter.
As European immigrants came to America, they brought their varied
Halloween customs with them. Because of the rigid Protestant belief
systems that characterized early New England, celebration of Halloween
in colonial times was extremely limited there. It was much more
common in Maryland and the southern colonies. As the beliefs and
customs of different European ethnic groups, as well as the American
Indians, meshed, a distinctly American version of Halloween began
to emerge. The first celebrations included "play parties,"
public events held to celebrate the harvest, where neighbors would
share stories of the dead, tell each other's fortunes, dance, and
sing. Colonial Halloween festivities also featured the telling of
ghost stories and mischief-making of all kinds. By the middle of
the nineteenth century, annual autumn festivities were common, but
Halloween was not yet celebrated everywhere in the country.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, America was flooded
with new immigrants. These new immigrants, especially the millions
of Irish fleeing Ireland's potato famine of 1846, helped to popularize
the celebration of Halloween nationally. Taking from Irish and English
traditions, Americans began to dress up in costumes and go house
to house asking for food or money, a practice that eventually became
today's "trick-or-treat" tradition. 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.
In the late 1800s, there was a move in America to mold Halloween
into a holiday more about community and neighborly get-togethers,
than about ghosts, pranks, and witchcraft. At the turn of the century,
Halloween parties for both children and adults became the most common
way to celebrate the day. Parties focused on games, foods of the
season, and festive costumes. Parents were encouraged by newspapers
and community leaders to take anything "frightening" or
"grotesque" out of Halloween celebrations. Because of
their efforts, Halloween lost most of its superstitious and religious
overtones by the beginning of the twentieth century.
By the 1920s and 1930s, Halloween had become a secular, but community-centered
holiday, with parades and town-wide parties as the featured entertainment.
Despite the best efforts of many schools and communities, vandalism
began to plague Halloween celebrations in many communities during
this time. By the 1950s, town leaders had successfully limited vandalism
and Halloween had evolved into a holiday directed mainly at the
young. Due to the high numbers of young children during the fifties
baby boom, parties moved from town civic centers into the classroom
or home, where they could be more easily accommodated.
Between 1920 and 1950, the centuries-old practice of trick-or-treating
was also revived. Trick-or-treating was a relatively inexpensive
way for an entire community to share the Halloween celebration.
In theory, families could also prevent tricks being played on them
by providing the neighborhood children with small treats. A new
American tradition was born, and it has continued to grow. Today,
Americans spend an estimated $6.9 billion annually on Halloween,
making it the country's second largest commercial holiday.
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