Trick or treating, Halloween parties and costumes, carving pumpkins, and haunted houses—if you grew up celebrating Halloween this is how you would envision October 31, Halloween Day. It has always been like this but the holiday has changed much over the years.
As it exists today, Halloween is a holiday when we can all indulge in the darker, creepier side of life and eat loads of candy. It’s a lot of fun, a little spooky, and anything but serious. Historically, however in fact, if you were able to time travel back and watch the Halloween origin you probably wouldn’t even recognise it.
The Halloween origin traces back to Gaelic and Celtic rituals dating back at least 2,000 years and it is from these that we get the date and many of the ways in which we celebrate it.
Big party
The Celts had a big party. It was all about scaring away the ghosts and spirits. Later, with Christianity , the day became known as All Hallows’ Eve - the day before All Saints’ Day on November 1.
The Gaelic festival of Samhain was traditionally held on November 1 to mark the official end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter. The celebrations always began the evening before, on October 31, about halfway between the Autumn equinox and the Winter solstice, says Sterling-Vete.
It also draws from the three-day pagan religious festival celebrated by the Celts around October 31 to honour the harvest and prepare for ‘the dark half of the year’.
The ancients believed that on this day, the line between the living and the spiritual realm was blurred—meaning that ghosts from beyond could visit the living and monsters could find their way into people’s houses. Those celebrating aimed to ward off as much evil as possible.
Special rites
They held special rites to keep monsters, witches, and evil fairies at bay. They told tales about mythological heroes and the underworld. And they dressed up as monsters to ward off evil and to disguise themselves so they wouldn’t be kidnapped or consumed by actual monsters.
As Christianity became more popular, it added some of the Catholic holidays that fall right around Halloween, mixing the religious and pagan traditions to help further the transition from paganism to Catholicism. And it worked. All Souls’ Day embraced many of Samhain’s celebrations, including bonfires, parades, and costumes—though now people mainly dressed up as saints, angels, and devils.
Starting to sound familiar? Many of us aren’t afraid of being eaten by monsters nor do we feel the need to celebrate the harvest so why has Halloween stuck around?
Halloween was a tough sell in early colonial America because of the Puritan’s strict religious beliefs, says Sterling-Vete. However, the holiday remained popular in the less-religious circles and as more and more Europeans arrived and mingled with the Native Americans, traditions evolved even further.
Halloween festivities have meshed with Autumn festivals and featured celebratory public events, singing and dancing, ghost stories, and pranks. In this new whimsical context, the Celtic tradition of dressing up and transformed it into what we now know as trick-or-treating.
All Saints’ Day
By the 1930s, Halloween became almost completely secularised, while All Saints’ Day became more of a religious holiday. To this day, some devout people are strictly against celebrating October 31 as anything other than a religious day. Roaming bands of costumed children going door-to-door begging for candy is probably the most time-honoured Halloween tradition.
This custom is directly related to what is called guising, because of the disguises or costumes worn to hide from evil spirits and can trace its origins back to 16th century Scotland, says Sterling-Vete.
The phrase ‘trick or treat’is meant to jokingly scare the home owners into giving treats or small toys.
What’s more essential to a holiday celebration than a party? Halloween parties’ range in size from a family at home, to school-wide bashes with parades, to community extravaganzas. Parties are typically decorated in the Halloween colours of black, orange, and purple along with silly or spooky decor.
Then it’s all about the entertainment. Put on a scary movie, dance, sing karaoke. Halloween,The much awaited in the month of October.
Mckyle Karunaratne
Grade 9
S. Thomas’ College, Mount Lavinia