Halloween is traditionally celebrated on the 31st October and can be traced back for more than two thousand years to the Celts. Halloween was therefore, originally, a traditional Celtic feast marking the end of the harvest season and the beginning of a period of darkness (winter). The celebrations as we know them today, though, demonstrate an influence by other cultures and religions - from the Roman Pomona festival to the Christian All Souls' Day which is celebrated at the same time of the year.
The Celts lived in England, Wales, Ireland and Northern Europe (Brittany) and worshipped various gods, including the Sun God. Their new year started on the first day of November and on the eve (31st October), the end of the season of the sun was celebrated, together with the beginning of the season of darkness. The crops having been harvested and stored for the long winter, the Celts set about celebrating. Fires in the homes were put out and large communal fires ignited round which the Druids (Celtic priests) would dance. There would be sacrifices of crops and animals and as they danced around the fires the season of the sun would slowly melt into the season of darkness. The priest gave out embers to each household to enable them to ignite new fires inside the respective household. Nuts and apples were also roasted during the celebrations.
The day after this was known as Samhain (1st November), and the Samhain festival lasted for three days, with people parading around wearing animal heads and skins. This is presumably what gave rise to the tradition of dressing up in various costumes, as is done in today’s Halloween. The Celts believed, that during the winter, the sun god was taken prisoner by Samhain, the Lord of the Dead and Prince of Darkness. On the eve before their new year (October 31), it was believed that Samhain called together all the dead people.
In the first century AD, the Romans occupied England, conquered the Celts and brought their own customs along with them, including Pomona, a festival which was traditionally held at around the same time in the year as Samhain. Pomona (note the similarity to the French word for apple pomme) was the Roman goddess of fruits and orchards and harvests, and the Festival of Pompona was held in her honour - presumably another harvest-end celebration by a different people, at the same time of the year. Through the hundreds of years of Roman occupation, Samhain and Pomona merged to become one big harvest festival.
The next major religion which took over during Emperor Constantine's reign was Christianity, and Christianity was destined to leave a large effect on the festivals of Samhain/ Pomona. In the year 835 AD, the Roman Catholic Church would make November 1st a church holiday to honour all the saints. This day was called All Saints' Day - or Hallowmas, or All Hallows. Years later ,the Church would also make November 2nd a holy day. They called this All Souls' Day and it was established to honour all souls which had passed away to a better life. It was celebrated with big bonfires, parades, and people dressing up as saints, angels and devils.
As happened with Christmas and other feasts like St. Valentine's Day, the spread of Christianity did not make people entirely forget their earlier, much older, pagan customs. On All Hallows Eve (October 31st) people continued to celebrate the festivals of Samhain and Pomona Day. Over the years the customs belonging to all these individual celebrations merged into one and we are left with a charming mixture of traditions which we group together as Halloween celebrations - Samhain and Pomona Day's apples, nuts and harvest, Samhain's black cats, magic, spirits and dressing up traditions (also a Christian tradition for All Souls' Day apparently) ... and the ghosts, skeletons and skulls from the Christian tradition of All Souls' and All Saints' Days and from the festival of Samhain, who traditionally called together all the dead on the 1st of November.
The name Halloween, though, finds its origin in the Christian tradition. All Hallow's Even (Hallow meaning holy and probably of Saxon derivation - refering to the holy souls of the saints), which preceded Hallowmas (All Saints' Day), slowly became Hallow Even and finally Halloween.
So what about Jack o' Lanterns, and how did they come to be such significant emblems of Halloween?
Although it is certain that Halloween started off as a festival in England, Ireland, Wales and possibly Brittany, it was then carried to other parts of the World, including North America, the actual tradition of pumpkin carving is, in fact an American one. In America, the carved lantern became an emblem of a good harvest long before any association with Halloween. In 1850, John Greenleaf Whittier, who was born in 1807, wrote in "The Pumpkin" (1850):
Oh!—fruit loved of boyhood!—the old days recalling,
When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling!
When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin,
Glaring out through the dark with a candle within!
When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling!
When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin,
Glaring out through the dark with a candle within!
The British and Irish did indeed have a long tradition of carving vegetables into lanterns, but they traditionally chose turnips and swedes to do the job, and there is no indication at all that these lanterns were used during Halloween celebrations or tied in any way to Halloween. The carved pumpkin lantern became associated with Halloween for the first time in 1866, and this famously happened in the USA, rather than in Britain (or Ireland), where Halloween tradition was born.
It is thought that the large influx of Irish immigrants into the US in the middle of the 19th century is mainly responsible for carrying the tradition of Halloween to America. The tradition of trick-or-treating is thought to come from Ireland. In times of hardship, Irish farmers would go round door to door begging for what were called soul cakes (pastries). Prayers were promised if pastries were forthcoming, but a curse was cast upon the houses whose owners where not generous enough to oblige.
Americans seem to have taken the Irish traditions to heart, with a move during the late 19th century to remove unpleasantness and excessive goriness and superstitions out of the traditions, whilst turning Halloween into a fun social event which people, especially children, look forward to year after year.
http://www.history.com/content/halloween/real-story-of-halloween
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween
http://www.holidays.net/halloween/story.htm
http://www.jeremiahproject.com/culture/halloween.html
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