Halloween- Where Did It Come From?

Hi friends!

I had hoped to post this before Halloween, but I got distracted by schoolwork so a few days late will have to do! With the spooks and superstitions of Halloween still in the air, I thought it would be interesting to learn where this tradition actually came from. If you think about it, a bunch of little kids dressing up in costumes and knocking on doors around the neighbourhood for candy could seem like a pretty odd concept for those who are unfamiliar with it. For Halloween here in Australia, college students dress up and go out to party, but I'm pretty sure the idea of trick-or-treating as a little kid is a pretty foreign idea to their version of this holiday. Of course in America, Halloween just wouldn't be the same if little kids didn't dress up in the most adorable little costumes and trick-or-treat until their pillowcases are bursting with enough candy to give them a perpetual sugar rush! So where did this unusual holiday come from?

"Halloween," or All-Hallows Eve, is a Celtic tradition that is believed to have started around 2,000 years ago. The Celts originated in the area that is now Ireland, the UK, and Northern France. The Celtic New Year was celebrated on November 1 and marked the end of summer and the coming of the dark, cold winter- a time of year often associated with human death. The festival of Samhain (meaning 'Summer's-End' in Gaelic and pronounced Sow-in) was celebrated on October 31, the night before the New Year when the Celts believed the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On All-Hallows Eve, Celtic Druids (priests) built huge bonfires to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities. People also dressed up in costume, typically wearing animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other's fortunes while the otherworldly spirits were in the air.

The Celtic territories were conquered by the Roman Empire in 43 A.D. Over the four centuries that the Roman Empire had dominion over the lands, two Roman traditions mixed with the Celtic celebration of Samhain. The first was the Feralia festival, a day in late October used to commemorate the passing of the dead. The second was to honour goddess Pomono, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees, most commonly associated with the apple- hence apple bobbing as a Halloween tradition.

In the eighth century, Pope Gregory III declared November 1 as All Saints Day. By the ninth century, Christian influences had spread into the Celtic lands and once again blended with the older Celtic rites. In 1000 A.D., the Church declared November 2 All Souls Day to honor the dead (many believe this was an attempt to replace the pagan All-Hallows Eve with a church-sanctioned holiday.) Like Samhain, All Souls Day was celebrated with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes. All Saints Day was called Alholowmesse (All-hallowmas) in Middle English and the night before it (the traditional night of Samhain in Celtic religion) was referred to as All-Hallows Eve, and eventually Halloween. 


In colonial New England, celebrating "Halloween" wasn't particularly popular due to the strong Protestant beliefs of the colonies, but seemed to be more widely-accepted in Maryland and the southern colonies. "American" Halloween arose from the mixing of beliefs and customs from different European ethnic groups with traditional Native America ideas. The first celebrations included public parties which celebrated the harvest and neighbours sharing stories of the dead, telling each other's fortunes, dancing and singing. Still, "Halloween" wasn't truly celebrated until the second half of the nineteenth century when a flood of new immigrants from Ireland during the Irish Potato Famine helped to popularize the celebration of Halloween across America.

Early Halloween celebrations borrowed from Irish and English traditions- Americans dressed up in costumes and went house to house asking for food or money, the practice that eventually became the modern "trick-or-treating (so this portion of the tradition is really only about 100 years old.) In the late 1800s, Halloween was more about community and neighbourly get-togethers than about ghosts and superstitions, and at the turn of the century, parties- with games, food, and festive costumes included- became the focus for both children and adults to celebrate the festivities. With this turn of events, modern Halloween lost most of its religious and superstitious ties and became the fun family holiday we know and love today.

Perhaps this post offered you some more historical information than you were looking for, but I hope you enjoyed learning about the origins of our beloved Halloween holiday!

Learn. Think. Engage. Reflect. Wander. Wonder. Repeat.

"Double Double, Toil & Trouble. Fire Burn & Cauldron Bubble." ~William Shakespeare

"Where there is no imagination, there is no horror." ~Arthur Conan Doyle

http://www.history.com/topics/halloween/history-of-halloween
http://www.history.com/topics/halloween/history-of-trick-or-treating