Where does Halloween come from?
October is my absolute favorite month of the year for one reason: Halloween! From ancient traditions of honoring the dead to modern-day celebrations of all things horror, Halloween is a time to appreciate mortality, the supernatural, and the macabre. Let’s take a look at the origins of this holiday.
Image: “Cuchulainn Rebuked by Emer” by H.R. Miller (c. 1905); a scene from Tochmarc Emire, a 10th-century tale referencing Samhain
Samhain, the Celtic New Year & Harvest Festival
When talking about Samhain (pronounced “saw-win”), many use the terms “Celtic” and “Gaelic” interchangeably. But Celtic and Gaelic are not one and the same. The Celtic people (or Celts) include Indo-European communities spanning from western Europe to Anatolia (located in modern-day Turkey). The pronunciation of the word Celtic matters. If you say Celtic with a “k” sound at the beginning (“kell-tick”), you are referring to Indo-European peoples. If you say Celtics with an “s” sound at the beginning (“sell-ticks”), you are referring to the professional basketball team based in Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States. The specific Celtic community who celebrate the variation of Samhain discussed in this post is the Gaels. The Gaels are an ethnolinguistic group of Celtic people in Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man who speak Gaelic languages. In short, Celts are a people and Gaelic is a language.
Samhain is an annual celebration held by the Celtic peoples of Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man to signal the end of the harvest season and the first day of winter. Similar celebrations are held by many other Celtic peoples in Wales and western mainland Europe. Samhain is referenced in the earliest recorded pieces of Irish literature, dating to the 8th Century, and is identified as one of the most important events in Irish mythology. A version of the tale of Tochmarc Emire (“The Wooing of Emer”) written in the 10th Century identifies Samhain as the first of four festivals to mark the seasons of the year. Celtic peoples who celebrated Samhain would make bonfires, gives sacrifices, and practice divination using apples and nuts to predict the events of the upcoming year.
For the Celts, Samhain was a time when the boundaries between the world of the living and the Otherworld (where spirits and the dead remained) became blurred. This liminal time allowed aos sí (spirits and fairies, pronounced “eess shee”) to cross into the world of the living and move among us. Once crossed over, aos sí would wonder the world of the living, with the spirits of deceased people visiting their living family in search of hospitality. Celtic people would leave food and drink outside their doors as offerings to the wandering aos sí in exchange for good luck and greater chances of surviving the upcoming winter. Not leaving offerings for aos sí could incur their spite and cause bad luck for people and livestock alike.
Allhallowtide, the Christian Season of the Dead
By the 19th Century and early 20th Century, European scholars of anthropology recognized the connection between the Celtic and Christian roots of Halloween. These scholars noted that many cultures in Europe and Southeast Asia combined celebrations for the dead with what those cultures recognized to be the New Year. But there was an undeniably direct line between the Celtic tradition of Samhain and the Christian season of Allhallowtide, both celebrated at the same time of the year to honor the dead.
Christian monks stationed in England in the early 8th Century observed the Celtic tradition that honored the dead and celebrated the New Year at the end of every October. And celebrations that resembled Samhain were observed by Christians as far south as France. By the 9th Century, Pope Gregory IV urged Catholic leaders in western Europe to establish All Saints’ Day on 1 November and All Souls’ Day on 2 November in an apparent (albeit still contested) attempt to erase Samhain and all similar Celtic traditions in the region. The Christian triduum known as Allhallowtide is what came out of these alleged eradication efforts with All Hallows’ Eve (or Halloween) celebrated on 31 October, All Hallows’ Day (or All Saints’ Day) celebrated on 1 November, and All Souls’ Day celebrated on 2 November.
But the deeply rooted Celtic tradition of Samhain would not easily be removed. Up to the 19th Century in Ireland and the Isle of Man, many Gaelic-speaking communities still recognized Samhain as the time to honor the dead and bring in the New Year. Today, many Celtic communities as well as practicing Wiccans continue to keep the tradition of Samhain alive and well. The Mexican tradition of Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is also celebrated during 1-2 November and will be the focus of a separate What in the World post.
Halloween in American Popular Culture
The tradition of celebrating Halloween became widespread in the United States by the 19th Century with the mass immigration of Irish and Scottish populations to the country. By the early 20th Century, Halloween became adopted by Americans of all races and religions and has since spread to countries and communities around the world. Today, Halloween is widely recognized as “spooky season.” It is the time of year when film and literary genres of horror, suspense, and the supernatural are put on full display and enjoyed by their devoted fans around the world.
The traditional Celtic practices of Samhain do not look very different today than they did over a thousand years ago. The Samhain practice of leaving food and drink outside your door for wandering spirits turned into leaving candy for wandering trick-or-treaters. The divination practice of using apples and nuts to predict what the upcoming year had in store turned into bobbing for apples. Irish Catholic folktales like that of Jack-o’-lantern and Stingy Jack became tied to the celebration of Halloween and are signaled by carving faces into hallowed out pumpkins to ward off spirits. And the 16th-century practice of dressing in disguise to either impersonate a wandering spirit or cause mischief if you were unwelcomed turned into wearing costumes and trick-or-treating.
Closing Thoughts
An annual Celtic tradition known as Samhain honoring the dead and celebrating the New Year was practiced by Gaelic-speaking people in Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man at the end of October to the beginning of November. For centuries, the Roman Catholic church allegedly attempted to eradicate this celebration before eventually Christianizing it. The Christianization of this Celtic tradition produced what is now called Halloween. Today, Halloween is widely recognized and celebrated by people of all races and religions.
Dångkulo' na' saina ma'åse'! Thank you so much for reading this What in the World post!
Notes:
Random Thoughts posts are brief summaries of larger histories.
Underlined text are hyperlinked to referenced sources.
Post Date: 18 October 2024
