Halloween is an annual celebration, but just what is it actually a
celebration of? And how did this peculiar custom originate? Is it,
as some claim, a kind of demon worship? Or is it just a harmless
vestige of some ancient pagan ritual?
The word itself, "Halloween," actually has its origins in the
Catholic Church. It comes from a contracted corruption of All
Hallows Eve. November 1, "All Hollows Day" (or "All Saints Day" ),
is a Catholic day of observance in honor of saints. But, in the 5th
century BC, in Celtic Ireland, summer officially ended on
October 31. The holiday was called Samhain
(sow-en), the Celtic New year.
One story says that, on that day, the disembodied spirits of all
those who had died throughout the preceding year would come back in
search of living bodies to possess for the next year. It was
believed to be their only hope for the afterlife. The Celts
believed all laws of space and time were suspended during this
time, allowing the spirit world to intermingle with the
living.
Naturally, the still-living did not want to be possessed. So on the
night of October 31, villagers would extinguish the fires in their
homes, to make them cold and undesirable. They would then dress up
in all manner of ghoulish costumes and noisily paraded around the
neighborhood, being as destructive as possible in order to frighten
away spirits looking for bodies to possess.
Probably a better explanation of why the Celts extinguished their
fires was not to discourage spirit possession, but so that all the
Celtic tribes could relight their fires from a common source, the
Druidic fire that was kept burning in the Middle of Ireland, at
Usinach.
Some accounts tell of how the Celts would burn someone at the stake
who was thought to have already been possessed, as sort of a lesson
to the spirits. Other accounts of Celtic history debunk these
stories as myth.
The Romans adopted the Celtic practices as their own. But in the
first century AD, Samhain was assimilated into celebrations of some
of the other Roman traditions that took place in October, such as
their day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees.
The symbol of Pomona is the apple, which might explain the origin
of our modern tradition of bobbing for apples on Halloween.
The thrust of the practices also changed over time to become more
ritualized. As belief in spirit possession waned, the practice of
dressing up like hobgoblins, ghosts, and witches took on a more
ceremonial role.
The custom of Halloween was brought to America in the 1840's by
Irish immigrants fleeing their country's potato famine. At that
time, the favorite pranks in New England included tipping over
outhouses and unhinging fence gates.
The custom of trick-or-treating is thought to have originated not
with the Irish Celts, but with a ninth-century European custom
called souling. On November 2, All Souls Day, early Christians
would walk from village to village begging for "soul cakes," made
out of square pieces of bread with currants. The more soul cakes
the beggars would receive, the more prayers they would promise to
say on behalf of the dead relatives of the donors. At the time, it
was believed that the dead remained in limbo for a time after
death, and that prayer, even by strangers, could expedite a soul's
passage to heaven.
The Jack-o-lantern custom probably comes from Irish folklore. As
the tale is told, a man named Jack, who was notorious as a drunkard
and trickster, tricked Satan into climbing a tree. Jack then carved
an image of a cross in the tree's trunk, trapping the devil up the
tree. Jack made a deal with the devil that, if he would never tempt
him again, he would promise to let him down the tree.
According to the folk tale, after Jack died, he was denied entrance
to Heaven because of his evil ways, but he was also denied access
to Hell because he had tricked the devil. Instead, the devil gave
him a single ember to light his way through the frigid darkness.
The ember was placed inside a hollowed-out turnip to keep it
glowing longer.
The Irish used turnips as their "Jack's lanterns" originally. But
when the immigrants came to America, they found that pumpkins were
far more plentiful than turnips. So the Jack-O-Lantern in America
was a hollowed-out pumpkin, lit with an ember.
So, although some cults may have adopted Halloween as their
favorite "holiday," the day itself did not grow out of evil
practices. It grew out of the rituals of Celts celebrating a new
year, and out of Medieval prayer rituals of Europeans. And today,
even many churches have Halloween parties or pumpkin carving events
for the kids. After all, the day itself is only as evil as one
cares to make it.
