Halloween is a combination of different European traditions, the Celtic practices, Catholic and Roman religious rituals and European Folk, that blended together over the time and made the holiday that we know today.
When thinking at the origins of Halloween we have to go back until many hundreds years ago when people called the Celts lived on the British Isles. The Celts believed that October 31st was the end of the year and the souls of the dead visited the Earth, so they had a festival, called Samhain, in honor of the souls. The Celts also associated the winter with the human death because they used to have harsh winters, which not all the population could survive, so they also used this date to take stock of supplies and prepare for the new season. During the festival the ancient Celts would light bonfires and wear costumes to warding off these roaming ghosts.
During the first century A.D. the Romans conquered most of the Celts territory, and also tried to unify the different holiday of both culture. As a matter of fact the Romans had 2 holidays in October, the first was called Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans originally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second holiday called Pomona, which was the goddess of fruit and the trees and the symbol was the apple. The Romans decided to combine these festivals with the Celts celebration of Samhain.
Around the 800 A.D. the influence of Christianity spread into the Celtic lands. Around this time the Pope Boniface IV designated November 1st as All Saint's Day as a time to honor the saints and martyrs. Current belief is that the Pope wanted to replace the pagans festival with the Church sanctioned holiday.
This combined holiday was referred as All-Hallows or All- Hallowmas, which was the Middle English for All Saint's Day. Later in the year 1000, the Church declare November 2nd as All Souls Day to honor the dead, and the holiday was celebrate similar to Samhain; so together the three celebration became known as Hallowmas.
As European immigrated to America, they brought their varied Halloween customs with them. But because of rigid Protestant beliefs in early New England, the celebration of the holiday was limited. The beliefs of various European ethnic groups and the American Indians also began to mesh with the celebration of Halloween and an American version began to materialize. The first American celebrations included public events held to celebrate the harvest. Neighbors would share stories of the deceased, tell fortunes, dance and sing. Colonial Halloween celebrations featured ghost stories and mischief. By the middle of the nineteenth century, autumn festivals were common but Halloween had not reached the entire country.
However, when the Irish immigrated to America in the 1800s, popularized the Halloween traditions around the country. Taking from both Irish and British traditions, Americans began to dress up in costumes and go door-to-door asking for food or money, a practice now known as trick-or-treting. By the end, Americans tried to change Halloween into a holiday more about community than about ghosts, and making parties for adults and children, and as a consequence the Halloween lost most of its superstitious and religious ties.
By the 1920s and 30s, Halloween had become completely community centered with parades and parties in every town. Vandalism also began during the Halloween celebration. But by the 1950s, this trend slowed down, and it started to a holiday for children. A new American tradition was born, which became the second most famous commercial holiday after Christmas.
I leave you with a video on the History of Halloween:
The History of Halloween
Enjoy!
