A recent survey at Northeast with 65 students showed that 95% of people enjoy the Halloween season, but 83% of these same students know nothing of where Halloween truly began. After discovering this, it was decided that the students of Northeast could benefit from a little history on one of America’s most beloved holidays.
Halloween is now known as a time for candy, costumes, haunted houses, etc.; however, Halloween wasn’t always seen like this. It all dates back 2,000 years ago in what is now Ireland with a Celtic festival called Samhain, which in Gaelic is translated to “summer’s end”. It was celebrated the day before the Celts new year, which was November 1 and was called, All Saints’ Day. Their new year symbolized the end of the summer and the beginning of the winter, which was the time of year associated with human death because of the cold, dark winters they had.
Samhain was celebrated the night before All Saints’ Day and later turned into All Hallows’ Eve. Now this night is known as Halloween. Many of the same practices celebrated during Samhain were carried over to All Hallows’ Eve. For example, on this day it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to Earth, and they would cause trouble and damage crops. People would dress up in “costumes” made out of animal skins and animal heads, doing this around large bonfires, believing it would scare off these spirits. Celtic priests, Druids, also thought that the presence of these spirits would allow them to make predictions about the future, especially about their natural world, which was imperative to their survival. These prophecies were an important source of comfort during the long, dark winter.
When looking at when Halloween was first introduced into the Colonies, one will find that it was not readily accepted mostly because the Protestant religion was still so prominent in many places. The first people to start celebrating it were in Maryland and the southern colonies. It was more seen as a party where dancing, dressing up, and singing would occur more than anything else. In the middle of the nineteenth century when a large group of Irish immigrants came, they introduced a new activity. Like the Celts did, Americans would dress up and go door to door and ask for money or food, which is now known as trick-or-treating. In the late 1800s, Halloween became molded into a holiday more about community and neighborhood get-togethers than about ghosts, death and witchcraft. After a long period of this, all frightening things were reintroduced into today’s Halloween traditions. Now when people think of Halloween they think of spider webs, vampires, and jack-o-lanterns.
Halloween is one of the oldest celebrated holidays in history; therefore, it is important to know where it came from. Yes, it has ventured away from the original meaning of All Hallows’ Eve, but a lot of what society does now is based on what they did those 2,000 years ago. Just think, once upon a time people had very strong reason to believe this was all real… Happy Halloween kids!