HALLOWEEN

Halloween is an annual holiday celebrated each year on

October 31, and Halloween 2019 occurs on Thursday,
October 31. It originated with the ancient Celtic festival
of Samhain, when people would light bonfires and
wear costumes to ward off ghosts. In the eighth
century, Pope Gregory III designated November 1 as a
time to honor all saints; soon, All Saints Day
incorporated some of the traditions of Samhain. The evening before was known as All Hallows
Eve, and later Halloween. Over time, Halloween evolved into a day of activities like trick-or-
treating, carving jack-o-lanterns, festive gatherings, donning costumes and eating sweet treats.
Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in).
The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago, mostly in the area that is now Ireland, the United
Kingdom and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1.
This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold
winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the
night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead
became blurred. On the night of October 31 they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed
that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth.
In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the
otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about
the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies
were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.
To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to
burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities. During the celebration, the Celts wore
costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other’s
fortunes.
When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished
earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.
Did you know? One quarter of all the candy sold annually in the U.S. is purchased for
Halloween.
By 43 A.D., the Roman Empire had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of
the 400 years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined
with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain.
The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the
passing of the dead. The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and
trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple, and the incorporation of this celebration into
Samhain probably explains the tradition of bobbing for apples that is practiced today on
Halloween.

All Saints' Day

On May 13, 609 A.D., Pope Boniface IV dedicated the Pantheon in Rome in honor of all
Christian martyrs, and the Catholic feast of All Martyrs Day was established in the Western
church. Pope Gregory III later expanded the festival to include all saints as well as all martyrs,
and moved the observance from May 13 to November 1.
By the 9th century, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands, where it gradually
blended with and supplanted older Celtic rites. In 1000 A.D., the church made November 2 All
Souls’ Day, a day to honor the dead. It’s widely believed today that the church was attempting
to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, church-sanctioned holiday.
All Souls’ Day was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades and dressing up
in costumes as saints, angels and devils. The All Saints’ Day celebration was also called All-
hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints’ Day) and the
night before it, the traditional night of Samhain in the Celtic religion, began to be called All-
Hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween.
Halloween Comes to America
The celebration of Halloween was extremely limited in colonial New England because of the
rigid Protestant belief systems there. Halloween was much more common in Maryland and the
southern colonies.
As the beliefs and customs of different European ethnic groups and the American Indians
meshed, a distinctly American version of Halloween began to emerge. The first celebrations
included “play parties,” which were public events held to celebrate the harvest. Neighbors
would share stories of the dead, tell each other’s fortunes, dance and sing.
Colonial Halloween festivities also featured the telling of ghost stories and mischief-making of
all kinds. By the middle of the nineteenth century, annual autumn festivities were common,
but Halloween was not yet celebrated everywhere in the country.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, America was flooded with new immigrants. These
new immigrants, especially the millions of Irish fleeing the Irish Potato Famine, helped to
popularize the celebration of Halloween nationally.
History of Trick-or-Treating
Borrowing from European traditions, Americans began to dress up in costumes and go house
to house asking for food or money, a practice that eventually became today’s “trick-or-treat”
tradition. Young women believed that on Halloween they could divine the name or appearance
of their future husband by doing tricks with yarn, apple parings or mirrors.
In the late 1800s, there was a move in America to mold Halloween into a holiday more about
community and neighborly get-togethers than about ghosts, pranks and witchcraft. At the turn
of the century, Halloween parties for both children and adults became the most common way
to celebrate the day. Parties focused on games, foods of the season and festive costumes.
Parents were encouraged by newspapers and community leaders to take anything
“frightening” or “grotesque” out of Halloween celebrations. Because of these efforts,
Halloween lost most of its superstitious and religious overtones by the beginning of the
twentieth century.
All Souls Day and Soul Cakes
The American Halloween tradition of “trick-or-treating” probably dates back to the early All
Souls’ Day parades in England. During the festivities, poor citizens would beg for food and
families would give them pastries called “soul cakes” in return for their promise to pray for the
family’s dead relatives.
The distribution of soul cakes was encouraged by the church as a way to replace the ancient
practice of leaving food and wine for roaming spirits. The practice, which was referred to as
“going a-souling,” was eventually taken up by children who would visit the houses in their
neighborhood and be given ale, food and money.
The tradition of dressing in costume for Halloween has both European and Celtic roots.
Hundreds of years ago, winter was an uncertain and frightening time. Food supplies often ran
low and, for the many people afraid of the dark, the short days of winter were full of constant
worry.
On Halloween, when it was believed that ghosts came back to the earthly world, people
thought that they would encounter ghosts if they left their homes. To avoid being recognized
by these ghosts, people would wear masks when they left their homes after dark so that the
ghosts would mistake them for fellow spirits.
On Halloween, to keep ghosts away from their houses, people would place bowls of food
outside their homes to appease the ghosts and prevent them from attempting to enter.