October 31st in the United States, marks Halloween where children take to the streets dressed in an array of costumes, some spooky some cute, ringing doorbells and getting candy from the homeowners. Upon the homeowners opening the door to the young faces, the kids shout "trick-or-treat," and a piece of candy or sometimes a small toy is put in their candy receptacles. These can be anything from cute plastic pumpkins with a handle to just straight pillow cases. I know when I was young, the pumpkin didn't last long in the neighborhood I lived in, I had to upgrade to the pillowcase so I could stop making trips home to drop off candy! But how did a holiday like this even come to be? It seems totally random that anything would evolve into this, but somehow it did.
It turns out that Halloween actually has roots in an ancient Pagan, Celtic festival called Samhain (a Gaelic word pronounced "Sahwin") which is a festival for welcoming the harvest at the end of the summer. As Celts often attributed the coming winter with human death; during Samhain Druids, Celtic Priests, lit bonfires and people dressed in costumes to keep ghosts at bay. They believe that on the night before November 1st, the boundary between the dead and the living become intertwined therefore allowing ghosts to roam the living world.
The Roman Empire, after conquering the majority of Celtic territory in 43AD, brought with it 2 new celebrations that wound up melding with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain. The first of which was called "Feralia," a day celebrated in late October that commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a celebration that honored the Roman goddess of fruit and trees, Pomona, whose symbol is an apple. It is theorized that the Halloween tradition of bobbing for apples might have originated from this Roman celebration of Pomona.
Later on, in the 8th century, Pope Gregory III coined the term and created "All Saints Day" because he wanted a day to honor the saints. November 1st became the designated day and eventually it evolved to include elements and traditions of Samhain. The day before became known as All Hollow's Eve which then became Halloween. Upon Halloween's introduction to America, Protestant belief systems were rigid in colonial New England and therefore celebrations were limited. However in more southern colonies, where things were a little more lax, Halloween was more common. Some of these first celebrations included something called "play parties" in order to celebrate the harvest. During these play parties, neighbors would come together to share ghost stories, tell one another's fortunes, sing, dance, and cause mischief.
By the middle of the 19th century, Halloween wasn't yet nationwide, but fall festivals were abundant. In the second half of the 19th century, the Potato Famine in Ireland caused an uptick in Irish immigrants to the United States, which then caused the popularity of Halloween to increase across the nation. Nowadays Halloween celebrations come in all shapes and sizes and are so prevalent in our culture that its even celebrated at work and in schools, many TV shows have Halloween specials, houses have decorating contests, there are haunted houses, haunted hayrides, kids parties, adult parties, costume contests, and a ton of other things. The main one that kiddos are crazy for is trick-or-treating! I mean, who doesn't love free candy right? If I could still trick or treat, you bet your bippy that I certainly would. But, where does this Halloween staple get its roots?
Well you can likely thank All Souls Day for this tradition as well as it probably comes from early parades held on the day where the poor citizens would use this as an opportunity to beg for food and they would receive something called "soul cakes." In return for these cakes, the receivers would promise to pray for the givers' dead relatives. Later on, this exchange came to be known as "going a-souling" and children ended up taking it over; visiting their neighbors to be given ale, food, and money. There was also the Scottish practice of "guising" which is a secularized version of "a-souling" but instead of prayers, they would pull tricks. Along with this, the costumes evolved into scary ones after Scottish and Irish youngsters decided to scare their neighbors. In the mid-1900's, so fairly recently, candy was added as an offering to the children to not pull any tricks, hence the term "trick-or-treat." Trunk-or-treats have become popular recently, which is where people deck out their vehicles in spooky decor, park in a parking lot with other decorated cars, and kids go from trunk to trunk getting candy.
Do you celebrate Halloween? If so, do you have any fun or unique traditions?
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