The history of Halloween goes back more than 2,000 years. The earliest
celebrations of Halloween were among the Celtic who lived in the areas which
are now Ireland, Great Britain and Northern France.
The Celts were people who worshiped the beauty of nature. They worshiped
the Sun God and believed that without him, they would not live. They also
worshipped Samhain (pronounced sow-in)
who was the lord of the dead and of the cold, dark winter season. They
believed that on October 31 Samhain would call together all of the dead and
these souls would take on the shape of an animal. They believed that all
creatures wandered the Earth on that night. This was called the Vigil of
Samhain.
The Celts 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. As already mentioned
the 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 the festival of Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned
to earth.
The Druids,
or Celtic priests, would build fires on the hilltops in belief that the
large fires would help to strengthen the Sun God, and give him power enough to
overcome the lord of darkness so that the sun season could continue. They
believed that the fires were sacred, therefore they burned dried crops and
sacrificed animals to help strengthen the Sun God. At midnight they stop
worshipping the Sun God and start to worship Samhain because he will be the
ruler for the next six months. This is the starting of the new year (1st
November). They would perform ceremonies through the night to ask the spirits
to tell the future of the upcoming year. For
clans entirely
dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important
source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter. In the
morning each household receives an ember from the fire, this ember is used to
start fires in their own homes with the belief that it will ward off evil
spirits in the new year. The Celts continued with their ceremonies until they
were conquered by the Roman Catholics.
By A.D. 43, Romans had conquered the
majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the four hundred 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.
By the 800s, the influence of
Christianity had spread into Celtic lands. In the seventh century, Pope
Boniface IV designated November 1 All Saints' Day, a time to honor saints and
martyrs. It is widely believed today that the pope was attempting to replace
the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday.
The celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas
(from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints' Day) and the
night before it, the night of Samhain, began to be called All-hallows Eve and,
eventually, Halloween. Even later, in A.D. 1000, the church would make
November 2 All Souls' Day, a day to honor the dead. It was celebrated
similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes
as saints, angels, and devils. Together, the three celebrations, the eve of
All Saints', All Saints', and All Souls', were called Hallowmas.
Thus the Christian church
tried to eliminate the Druid celebration by offering All Saint's Day as a
substitute. As Christianity spread over Europe and the British Isles, it
attempted to replace the pre-existing pagan cult worship of Apollo, Diana or
Ymir, but to no avail. Although the outward forms of such worship disappeared,
the belief in these deities did not. They found an outlet during the Middle
Ages in the open practice of witchcraft which is presently enjoying a revival
in many countries, including the U.S. In Germany the occult is considered more
prevalent than in the Middle Ages. The deistic cults held periodic meetings
known as witches sabbaths, and it is the same today with October 31st being of
more importance.
The Halloween traditions have
transpired through the ages from one generation to another. We follow them
mostly as did our dads and grandpas. And as this process goes on, much of
their originality get distorted with newer additions and alterations. It
happens so gradually, spanning over so many ages, that we hardly come to know
about these distortions. But most of them whether it be "Trick or
Treat", Halloween Costumes, Jack O Lantern and most of them can be traced
back to the prevailing myths and practices of 2000 years back.