Halloween Changes from Celtic Festival to Neighborly Celebrations

Commentary Editor

   Halloween is the night of ghost, goblins, witches, haunted houses and children dressed to collect sweets and treats. Where did some of the ideals of Halloween come from?

   According to History Channel.com, Halloween is a mixture of traditions starting with the Celtic festival of Samhain, pronounced Sow-in. The Celts believed on the night before the new year, Nov. 1, the boundary between the living and the dead became blurred. They believed the ghost of the dead returned to earth during Samhian, celebrated Oct. 31.

   The Celts also believed the presence of other worldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, Celtic priest, to make predictions about the future.

   The Celts wore costumes typically made of animal heads and skins and attempted to tell each other’s fortunes during the celebration. When the celebration ended, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they extinguished earlier in the evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them in coming winter.

   The Romans, by A. D. 43, and Christianity, by the 800s, also influenced the tradition of Samhain and added and changed parts of the festival.

   The name “Halloween” comes from the celebrations of All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints' Day) and the night before it began to be called All-hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween..

    How did Halloween come to America? It came with European immigrants, the immigrants brought along costumes and traditions from their homelands. Like the combining of traditions of the Celts, Romans and Christians, the customs and beliefs of different European ethnic groups, as well as Native Americans, blended to create a distinctly American version of Halloween.

   The first celebrations included “play parties,” public events held to celebrate the harvest, neighbors sharing stories of the dead and other events. People did not celebrate Halloween everywhere, but annual festivities were common by the middle of the 19th century.

   Halloween became more popularized with the influx of immigrants in the second half of the 19th century. The new immigrants entering the United States, especially Irish immigrants fleeing the potato famine of 1846, helped to make the holiday popular nationally.

   The Halloween tradition moved in a different direction in the late 1800s. The holiday became more about community and neighborly get-togethers, than about ghost pranks and witchcraft.

   Halloween lost some of its effect of the superstitious and religious overtones, when newspapers and community leaders encouraged parents to take out anything "frightening" or "grotesque" out of Halloween celebrations at the beginning of the 20th century.

   I don’t think this removal of superstitions and religious overtones may not have worked so well, when looking at the kinds of decorations, television shows and movies available to the public over the years.

   How Halloween started, who influenced the holiday, how it traveled from one place to another and how it developed into the holiday we now see for children young and old to dress up and trick or treat is an interesting story developed over time.

   My favorite parts of Halloween would have to be the candy and dressing-up, when I am able to. I love chocolate and other candies throughout the year, but during Halloween, my candies of choice are candy corn and mellocreme pumpkins. I remember dressing up and my mother driving my brother and I to neighbor's houses to Trick or Treat. I still dress up to go to Halloween parties even today, even if I make a costume out of pieces of my own wardrobe.

   Besides, what other holiday allows people the freedom to dress in a manner that would look strange any other time of the year and go door-to-door collecting treats?

   If you would like to know more about Halloween superstitions and how the Jack-o-Lantern came to be, the links will provide information on the topics.

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