Halloween. Pumpkins. Skeletons. Jack ‘o Lanterns (with or without brilliant forms of lighting internally, shooting out). Ghoulish Ghost or Goblin decorations. "Spooky Films" and any other like-minded nostalgia.
When we’re children, we look forward to dressing up in some outlandish costume or other decortive ensemble in order to reach a goal of attaining an abundance of candy to munch on as we see fit for weeks to come. As teenagers, we go through an awkward stage of determining whether to (1) dress up and proceed to go door-to-door and repeat the three same one-syllable words, Trick or Treat, or (2) hang out with the rougher friends and older kids while fantasizing about ‘bag snatching’ or simply knocking over those annoying, younger kids in order to steal their candy — if not actually doing so, or (3) whether to act even older and declare the holiday a reason to party, like the older kids or even the adults.
Of course, once reaching adulthood, Halloween becomes a matter of whether to go out of our way to set up an elaborate party just to create a mess to clean up the next morning; or go to someone else’s party; or simply stay at home, maybe just drink lightly if at all, and provide candy to the kids walking door-to-door.
But then parties, of course, begin to seem mundane; year after year, the same thing, roughly the same people, same choice of alcoholic drinks, same resented mess, similar broken items to be discovered throughout the first week of November– pretty much like a more creative version of the upcoming New Year’s celebration, only two months earlier, where we get to dress up in a peculiar or unusual fashion as opposed to the formal yet conventional fashion expected at the end of the year.
Aside from the religious premise that many ascribe to this celebration, how did this holiday with the silly costumes – Halloween, technically Hallowe’en, or Hallowmas, or All Hallows’ Evening, or the Celtic Holy Day of All Saints originate?
Of the dominant belief in most historical accounts discovered, Romans of Ireland began this celebration. They thought of Halloween as the end of the summer. Therefore, it was New Years eve, as November first was the first day of the New Year; they believed that "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. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred," (History.com).
Accordingly, people dressed up as the dead to confuse the dead–an effort to blend-in so as to bewilder those coming to take away the living. That’s right–the benevolent dressed up as more of the malevolent; the decent and moral dressed up as the corrupt and immoral; the pure dressed up as the impure; the edible dressed up as the inedible, purely in order to go on through the remainder of the night untouched. Costumes that are celebrated and meant to inspire sudden excitement, stimulate enthusiasm, and gain attention, now, are based upon a ritual that was once intended to blend-in so as to ward-off offenders.
Also accrding to History.com, 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."
As reported by History and Customs of Halloween: "Some accounts tell of how the Celts would burn someone at the stake who was thought to have already been possessed, as sort of a lesson to the spirits. Other accounts of Celtic history debunk these stories as myth."
MLA
"Encyclopedia: Ancient origins of Haloween." 2004. History.com. 09 May 2006, 19:13 http://www.history.com/content/halloween/real-story-of-halloween
History and Customs of Haloween. Charles Panati, Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things, 1987; and Dr. Joseph Gahagan, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Personal letter, 1997
