Today's Halloween is a cultural mashup
Halloween, as we've come to know and enjoy it, is a mash-up of numerous distinct festivals from various nations and faiths at various points throughout history. Samhain was a Celtic harvest festival that marked the end of the harvest season and a time when the line between the living and the dead blurred and spirits visited the earth. Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans celebrated the passage of the dead, and a day to commemorate Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees, were merged with Samhain after the Roman Empire subjugated the Celtic peoples.
The Catholic feast of All Saints' Day, also known as All Hallows' Mass, falls on November 1st and commemorates all those who have died and gone to paradise. The next day, All Souls' Day, celebrates all those who have died but have not yet entered paradise.
Dressing up in costumes was once a way to hide from ghosts.
The custom began as a method for Celtic and other European people to conceal themselves from the ghosts that returned at this time of year. When people left their houses after dark, they wore masks to fool the ghosts into thinking they were fellow spirits. People would leave bowls of food outside their dwellings to make the ghosts happy and keep them away from their homes.
Jack-o-lanterns were originally carved into turnips
According to legend, a man named Jack deceived the Devil, and after he died, the Devil sent him out into the night with only a burning coal to guide him. Jack became known as Jack of the Lantern after putting the bit of coal in a carved-out turnip, a common produce in the area. To frighten away Jack or other evil spirits, Irish and Scottish people would carve their own replicas of Jack's lantern with terrifying faces and set them near windows or doorways. When the custom was brought to America by immigrants, the local pumpkin was more readily accessible than turnips, and jack-o-lanterns were born.
Trick-or-treating likely evolved from the medieval custom of "souling" in England.
Poor individuals would knock on doors on All Souls' Day, begging for food in return for offering prayers for the home's deceased relatives.
The history of Halloween includes a lot of romance
On the festival, cottish girls placed damp blankets in front of the fire to glimpse visions of their future husbands. Young ladies would also peel an apple in one strip and hurl it over their shoulder, typically around midnight. The strip was meant to land in the shape of her future husband's first letter. Bobbing for apples on Halloween was a fortune-telling game in colonial America: the first person to obtain the fruit without using his or her hands would be the first to marry.
Halloween cakes with a ring and a thimble inside were very popular. You'd be married in a year if you got the slice with the ring. What about the thimble? In love, you'd be unfortunate.
Comments