History and Customs of Halloween
Halloween is celebrated annually. But just how and when 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, (Panati). The Celts believed all laws of space and time
were suspended during this time, allowing the spirit world to intermingle with the living, (Gahagan).
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, (Panati).
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, (Gahagan).
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, (Panati). Other accounts of Celtic
history debunk these stories as myth, (Gahagan).
The Romans adopted the Celtic practices as their own. But in the
first century AD, they abandoned any practice of sacrificing of humans in favor of burning effigies.
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, (Panati).
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, it is only as evil as one cares to make it.
Copyright
1995-2002 by Jerry Wilson
References: Charles Panati, Extraordinary Origins of Everyday
Things, 1987; and Dr. Joseph Gahagan, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Personal letter, 1997
