The Halloween

Halloween, celebrated each year on october 31st, is a time of celebration and superstition. Though not an oficial holiday, Halloween is the second most popular holiday in the US right after Christmas.

Halloween culture can be traced back to over 2000 years ago to the druids, a Celtic culture in ireland, Britain and Northern Europe which celebrated the feast of Samhain, annually on October 31st, to honer the dead. Halloween was referred to as All Hallows Eve, which is the evening before All Saints Day, which is celebrated the 1st of November and the day of the  Faithful Deceased, celebrated the 2nd of November, that consisted in praise for those faithful who have finished, recently, their earthly life, but they haven’t arrived to God’s presence yet. First these deceased are on the purgatory to purific the effects of their sins. This threee days are collectively named Allhallotide. This time of the year, is the moment for the occidental cristinist to praise for the souls of the deceased who haven’t reached heaven yet.  

Samhain is one of the four seasonals festivities of the medieval Gaelic calendar and it is celebrated from October 31st to November 1st, in Irland, Scothish and Isle of Man. Samhaim means the end of harvest time and the beginning of Winter or “the darkest half”, because Winter was a extremely bad period in the past for people. With no electricity, the days were really short, moreover there was no heating, so it was freezing. In adition there was practically no food, beacause they couldn’t harvest in Winter, since the vegetables and fruits wouldn’t survive the weather condition.  It was considered as a liminal time, in which the border between our world and the “other world” was diluted. This produces that the “Aos Si”, the spirits or fairis, could  easily enter in our world. Most of the experts considered that this creatures were “degradaded versions of ancient gods”, whose power remained active in people's minds even after being officially replaced by later religious beliefs. They were completly respected and also feared. That’s why the people summoner the protection of God, when this freak of natural were near to their houses. To protect themselves and the livestock, the people gave gifys and treats or parts of the crops, outside the homes to pacify the evil and to assure abundant crops in the future. Moreover, it was said that the souls of the deceased cameback to their home seeking hospitality. A place was reserved for them between the fire. In ireland and Britain, specially in Celtics speaking places, the practices of the domestic festivals involved in this celebration, were  rituals and games of guessing, about the future, in particular about the death and the marriage. Another practices was “Apple bobbing”, which consisted in catch the apples using only your mouth. Nowadays,  this practice is still doing by people of some country’s, for example, the USA. Some others were, roast walnuts, interpretation of the dreams, and many others. In this festival, the people made huge bonfires and celebrated rituals with it. It was considered that flames, smoke and ashes had protected and purific powers. In some regions, the torchs of the bonfires, were moved following the direction of the sun, around the houses and fields to protect them. It is suggested that the bonfires were a kind of “imitative or symphathetic magic”; they mimicked the Sun and held back the decay and darkness of Winter. On top of all that, they were used to Ward off evil spirits. 

From at least the 16th century, the festival included “mumming”, which consisted about folk plays performed by troupes of amateur actors, traditionally all male, known as mummers or guisers, and “guising”, the most popular practice of Halloween in which children and adults in coustumes travel from house to house, asking for treats, saying “trick or treat”. The origin of the guising, probably was a tradition where the people pretended to be the Aos Si or the souls of the deceased and received the gifts on their behalf. Impersonating these beings, or wearing a costume, was believed to protect themselves from them. 

At least since the 18th Century, immitating evil spirits it was a sinonim of made jokes in Ireland and the Scotish Highlands. The use of costumes and jokes in Halloween, it didn’t spread to England until the 20th Century. The joker’s used turnips and fodder beets such as lannters, that usually had horrible faces on them. On the 20th Century they spread to another parts of Britain and this lannters started to be known as “Jack-o’-lannters”. Who’s made them, said that the Jack-o’-lannters represent the evil spirits or that they were usefull to drive away the evil spirits.

Franco Justiniano Santini