5 Interesting Origins of Halloween
Halloween has been a widely celebrated holiday for many years, but how many years exactly? Its origins have been tracked to more than 2,000 years ago. Back in the lands inhabited by the Celtics, the celebration of Samhain, which is pronounced (“Sa-Win”). This was a festival to mark the end of the harvest and the start of winter. Winter has mostly been known to be dark, cold, and full of death, which is no surprise that Halloween is very much known for its SPoOoOkiness.
The Ancient Roots of Halloween
All Hallows Eve dates back to the Celtic civilization, with the culture spanning from as far as Ireland to Spain, during the Bronze Age. Celebrations marking the end of Summer and the coming of harvest would commence, where the Celts would hold festivals for their New Year, Samhain. At the beginning of the cold dark winter, it was believed that the veil of two worlds would come to its thinnest point, the merge of those still alive and the world of the dead. On the night of October 31st, they would begin their festival, as the ghosts of the dead would come back to creep around the land of the living.
Large bonfires were set ablaze, and costumes were worn by the Celts during Samhain to ward off the ghoulish ghosts. During this time the belief of other worldly spirits roaming was the cause of the death of the crops, but also in contrary it was believed that the druids held a stronger power at this time. This would allow for predictions of the coming winter. Most of the costumes were made up of animal skins and heads, which would allow them to hide from ghosts causing malevolent things to happen to them. The bonfires were sacred and were used to light their hearths, from this, also gave them the protection from the cold of the winter ahead.
The Roman Influence
The Romans had all but conquered a large majority of Europe by 43 A.D and this included most of the Celtic territory. Over the course of time, roughly 400 years, two of the Roman’s festivals were combined with Samhain. First being Feralia, a day in February to honor the deceased, which was a marker for the end of a nine-day festival dubbed Parentalia, which honored their dead ancestors. The other was held on November 1st to honor the goddess Pomona, goddess of abundance, gardens and the orchard fruit. She was often portrayed with a cornucopia of apples, which of course, would make perfect sense for in today’s time represented with bobbing for apples, or even the popularity of apple cider!
The Christianization of Halloween
On November 1st 731 A.D. Pope Georgy III dedicated a place of worship for the holy apostles and all saints, martyrs and confessors. This was to be known as All Saints Day, and the day prior October 31st was to be known as All Hallows Eve, Halloween.
Halloween In The States
In early America, Halloween wasn’t a celebrated holiday due to the settler’s protestant beliefs and the very real fear of witches in those times. It was more common to be celebrated in New York, Maryland, Pennsylvania and the southern colonies. More diverse European ethnicities migrated to America over time, such as, the Irish, French, Germans and Spanish. The American Indians also meshed well with the holiday due to already having a celebration for honoring their dead, prior to Spanish conquest. Also, adding to the celebration train were the Aztecs, who had their festival ritual moved to All Saints Day by the catholic church in the 16th century, where they would commemorate their dead on November 1st and the 2nd which is widely known and celebrated as The Day of The Dead or more commonly spoken as “Dia De Los Muertos”.
The Evolution of Halloween Traditions
In the early 1800’s Halloween had grown exponentially in popularity. It became a holiday about community and neighborly get-togethers, not so much about spookiness. Although there are a lot of aspects from that period where the dark and eerie comes from, all the stories we know as myths, legends and tall tales. From the late 18th century to the early 19th century, the holiday grew into something far more playful, something more for children and adults to both enjoy. A large focus on costumes, food, decorations, games and pranks, became the entire idea of the Halloween that majority of us have grown up knowing and loving.
Another fun aspect of the spooky season, Scary Movies. Most can agree that Horror Films and Halloween go together like peanut butter & jelly! A vast amount of people wait strictly for the right time of year to watch these types of movies, naturally when Halloween rolls around. With the evolution of cameras and technology, we see the influence it holds on how the holiday is perceived. ‘’Seeing is Believing” as they say, and the Horror genre has been able to capture this idea, possibly since the first Horror film debuted, “Le Manoir Du Diable” in 1896. Back in those days, the classification for Horror didn’t even exist until the release of the infamous “Dracula” in 1931. The popularity of such films has increased exponentially since the 1970’s further instilling our love for Halloween.