Where did Halloween actually come from?
We all know Halloween for being the spooky season, full of candy, costumes, pumpkin, trick-or-treat, parties and ghosts. But have you ever actually thought where all of that came from?
Halloween is celebrated on October 31, the name comes from All Hallow's Eve, which is the evening before All Saint's Day. It developed through a mixture of ancient traditions such as Celtic and Christian traditions. One of its main influences was the Celtic festival of Samhain, which marked an important seasonal transition marking the shift from fall to the beginning of winter and people often associated this period with the boundary between the living and the dead, and people believed that the souls of the dead were able to return to their homes. Besides the Samhain festival, some ancient Christian traditions were also responsible for shaping Halloween as we know today, by helping blend the ancient Celtic customs into the religious ritual of All Hallow's Eve, which later evolved to the name Halloween.
So, if all of it came from religious practices, how did it all turn into costumes, trick-or-treat, carving pumpkins and all other practices we do to celebrate Halloween? In medieval Britain and Ireland during the middle ages, children and poorer adults went from door-to-door asking for food or money, and in return offered prayers for the dead. This habit was known as souling, and in return for the prayers those people would often receive "soul cakes” sometimes marked with a cross. This tradition contributes to the development of trick-or-treating which is very common nowadays. The origin of wearing costumes in Halloween comes from a tradition known as "guising” which involved disguises. Wearing costumes and masks had a connection to beliefs about spirits, people believed they would ward off and prevent them from being recognized by the spirits. Some common disguises were animals' heads or skin. Moreover, did you know that pumpkins were not originally used for jack-o'-lanterns? In ancient Britain and Ireland people used to carve frightening faces in beetroot or potatoes and place them in windows or doorways. This tradition was connected to the legend of “Irish Jack” who was a clever but evil man who tricked the devil to escape hell and was cursed to roam earth forever. The lanterns were used as a way to protect the houses from Jack. When immigrants brought the tradition to the United States in the 19th century, people discovered that pumpkins were much easier to carve, which made them eventually become the standard Jack-o'-lanterns.
Therefore, after Irish immigrants brought and helped popularize Halloween traditions among the Americans, they eventually began adapting them. By the late 1800s, people cared more about celebrations and parties than actually about witchcraft, ghosts or superstition. The celebrations included games, seasonal foods, costumes, carving pumpkins, tricks, etc. With time Halloween had lost almost all of its original meaning in the United States. During the 1900s, Halloween became hugely associated with pranks and mischief, especially among young people, for that reason trick-or-treat became even more popular, since it was a more controlled way to perform Halloween pranks; furthermore, by the 1950s, trick-or-treating was already typical among the children during Halloween. Costumes also were modified with time, during the mid-20th century, they were much more similar to what is known today, instead of only spooky clothes, people started dressing up as movie characters and figures in popular culture.
Ultimately, we can see that the Halloween traditions we practice today are very different from the habits people followed in ancient times. It all evolved from Samhain and the Christian influence in the All Hallows’ Eve. Which led to soiling and guising that spread to America through migration and, with time, evolved to the modern Halloween we know today.
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