On November 1st over
2000 years ago, in what is now known as the United Kingdom,
Ireland and northern France, the Celts celebrated their
new year. This date marked the end of the harvest season
and the beginning of the cold, dark winter season, often
associated with death. It was Celtic belief the on the
night before the New Year the veil between the land
of the living and the land of the dead because blurred.
This night they celebrated Samhain. Celts believed ghosts
haunted the land and damaged crops. This night was also
thought to allow the Druids and Priests to possess a
heightened ability to predict the future. For the commoner,
these predictions would be a comfort and an insight
into the coming dark winter that lie ahead.
Druids built large bonfires
where the people would gather to sacrifice crops and
their animals to ancient deities.
The Druids also wore costumes
consisting of animal skins and animal heads to mark
the celebration and to spread their prophecies. When
the celebration subsided the Celts would re-lite their
home fires from the celebration bonfire to protect their
home with the worshipped god help during the coming
dark winter. After the Romans had invaded and conquered
most of Celtic land by 43 A.D. two traditional festivals,
the Celtic Samhain and the Roman, were combined.
Feralia, the first day
of the Roman festival traditionally occurred in late
October and we celebrated to remember the passing of
the dead. The second day, Pomona, was to honor the Roman
goddess of fruit and trees. This may be an explanation
of the traditional Halloween practice of today called
"bobbing for apples". Christianity had become
a part of the Celtic lands and in the 7th century, Pope
Bonfire IV designated Nov 1st as a day to honor Martyrs
and Saints, All Saints Day. This celebration was also
known as All-Hallowmas or All-Hallows and was widely
believed to be the popes attempt to make the dead related
Celtic festival a church-sanctioned holiday. The night
of Samhain, the night before it, started to be called
All-hallows Eve, which soon was named Halloween. Even
later, in A.D. 1000, November 2 was named by the church
as All Souls' Day, a day to honor the dead. Like Samhain,
with big bonfires, parades, and people dressing up in
costumes as saints, angels, and devils. The combined
three celebrations, the eve of All Saints', All Saints',
and All Souls', were then called Hallowmas.
Halloween
Traditions of Trick or Treat and Halloween Costumes
"Trick-or-treating", the American tradition
of celebrating Halloween is very similar to the early
All Souls' Day parades in England. Poor citizens would
beg for food and be given pastries called "soul
cakes" by families and in return they promised
to pray for their dead relatives.
The ancient practice of
leaving wine and food for spirits was replaced by the
soul cakes with blessing of the church. Soon children
adopted the practice of "going a-souling";
visiting the houses in their neighborhoods to collect
money ale and food.
The modern tradition of
dressing up in adult Halloween costumes and kids Halloween
costumes has both Celtic and European roots. Many hundreds
of years ago the winter was an uncertain time. With
people being scared of the dark and low on food the
constant uncertainty of the short winter days would
set in. On Halloween it was believed that ghosts would
come back to the earth plane and would be encountered
if anyone left their home. To avoid being recognized
by these unearthly spirits, people would adorn masks
and Halloween costumes when they ventured out after
dark in the hopes these ghosts would mistake them for
one of their own. To appease these ghosts, people would
also leave food and drink outside their homes to prevent
them from entering.
Evolution
of Halloween
New European
immigrants brought their Halloween costumes and their
customs with them to America. Because early New England
contained a strict Protestant belief system, celebration
of Halloween in colonial times was extremely limited.
A distinctly American
version of Halloween began to emerge as the beliefs
and customs from the different European and American
Indians melded. In Maryland and the southern colonies
this holiday was much more common. During "play
parties", citizens took part in the public celebrations
of the harvest by telling stories of the dead, dancing,
singing and telling each other's fortunes. Colonial
Halloween festivities also featured the telling of ghost
stories and jokes. Halloween was not yet celebrated
everywhere in the middle of the nineteenth century,
but yearly fall festivities were common.
Towards the end of the
nineteenth century the full celebration of Halloween
began. With the new rush of English and millions of
Irish immigrants escaping Ireland's potato famine of
1846 Halloween was celebrated nationally. Along the
same lines of Irish and English traditions, Americans
began to wear Halloween costumes and go house to house
begging for food or money, a practice that is now today's
"trick-or-treat" tradition. Youthful women
believed they could predict the appearance and the name
of their future husbands by doing tricks with apples
parings, string or mirrors.
In the late 1800s, the
tradition gravitated away from pranks, spirits, divination
and witchcraft to a more neighborly holiday. At the
turn of the century, Halloween costume parties for families
became the most common way to celebrate the holiday.
These parties focused on Halloween costumes seasonal
foods and fun Halloween games. Now parents were encouraged
through local media to remove the grotesque and superstitious
overtones that Halloween was typically associated with.
By the beginning of the twentieth century these efforts
came to fruition and once again the Halloween traditions
were altered.
By the 1920s and 1930s,
the October 31st Halloween holiday had become a celebration
with Halloween costume parties, Halloween parades as
the national Halloween entertainment. All that attended
wore Halloween costumes of ghosts, ghouls and goblins.
Despite the best efforts of communities, vandalism began
to ravage the Halloween celebrations during this time.
By the 1950s, community leaders had successfully limited
vandalism and Halloween mainly evolved into a holiday
for the young. Because of the baby boom of that era,
parties were moved from the local centers into the family
home and the local schools to accommodate the numbers.
Also from 1920 to 1950, the ancient practice of trick-or-treating
was also rekindled. Door to door "trick-or-treating"
was a great inexpensive way to bring about the community
to share in the Halloween spirit.
Top costumes worn today
are:
Pirate Costumes
Witch Costumes
Spider-Man Costumes
Superman Costumes
Disney Princess Costumes
Renaissance Costumes
Star Wars Costumes
Vampire Costumes
Today Americans spend
an estimated $6.9 billion every year on the Halloween
tradition, making it the second largest commercial holiday.
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