halloween is a very popular party in the United States and known in Brazil as Halloween. This party takes place on October 31st and was taken to that country by immigrants Irish. During Halloween, it is traditional for people to dress up as monsters, and one of the most common practices at the party is for children to dress up and go from house to house asking people for candy.
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Halloween's History
Halloween is a tradition that originated in the peoplesCelts (who inhabited the British Isles and part of the Iberian Peninsula and Central Europe), according to historians. The modern festival, associated in popular culture with the dead, monsters and witches, is a derivative of a festival called Samhain. This festival was held by the Celts between October 31st and November 1st.
What did this festival mean to the Celts? In the British Isles, these performed Samhain as a kind of New Year's Eve is harvest celebration that would sustain them throughout the coming winter (in the Northern Hemisphere, winter begins in December). Also, in addition to the connection with the calendar and the harvest, Samhain has a connection with the supernatural world.
This link obviously concerns the dead, as the Celts believed that during Samhain, the last year's dead would pass through the earth before going to their final destination in the afterlife. So the Celts lit their villages with bonfires and lanterns so that these spirits could find their final destination.
The Celts also believed that in this period evil beings and evil spirits roamed the earth looking for people to do evil. The bonfires and lanterns used in the period were also to keep these beings away. During Samhain, Celts also went out in costume to avoid being recognized by evil beings.
Samhain practices were extremely popular in the British Isles, and when the region began to be Christianized, they were rooted in popular tradition. One of the strategies at the time was to transform pagan celebrations and rites into Christian rites, as a way of accelerating the assimilation of Christianity.
In the case of the British Isles, this was done by transferring a Church commemorative date to the date on which Samhain was commemorated. In the eighth century, through Popes Gregory III and Gregory IV, it was established that the 1st of November would be celebrated the All Saints’ Day, O Hallowmas. Previously, this date was celebrated in May.
It's not known if the Church moved the party to that date as a way to end Samhain, but we know that created a Christian religious tradition that absorbed elements of paganism and transferred them to religious practice Christian. The mix of pagan and Christian elements gave rise to Halloween.
In the case of the British Isles (England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland), this gave rise to the Allhallowtide, a period that stretched from October 31 to November 2, in honor of the dead. Within this period, there were the following celebrations:
All Hallows’ Eve: took place on October 31 and was celebrated as the eve of Saints' Day.
All Saints’ Day: took place on November 1st and celebrated the life of the Saints of the Church who had already died.
All Souls’ Day: took place on November 2nd and was a celebration of prayer for the dead Christians who were in purgatory.
Based on the mixture of pagan and Christian culture, celebrations were held that ended up giving rise to Halloween between the end of Middle Ages and the end of the Modern Age. Halloween took on its current characteristics when the party arrived in the United States. The influence of Christian festivities in its formation is noticeable when we see that this term is a contraction of All Hallows’ Eve.
Halloween's arrival in the United States
Halloween became popular because of the export of North American culture from the 20th century onwards. The party, however, only arrived in the US in the middle of the XIX century and was taken by irish immigrants who fled their country because of great hunger, which hit Ireland and caused thousands of people to die or migrate.
The Irish, of course, took their traditions with them, and Halloween was one of them. Although, initially, Halloween was restricted to the Irish community, the festivity became popular, and today it is one of the most important in the United States, mobilizing, per year, more than 100 million people.
Historians say that Halloween only arrived in the 19th century in that country because there is no record that points out that the party was held in a period prior to the great immigration of Irish. Some Halloween practices, such as exchanging candy, were only consolidated from the 1920s onwards, although there are precedents for this practice in Samhain and Allhallowtide.
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Halloween symbols
When it arrived in the United States, Halloween was being adapted to the local culture and, with that, some practices and symbols remained and new symbols were added. Some of these are:
lanterns in the pumpkin: the lantern was a symbology of Samhain to light the way of the dead. In Irish tradition, the lantern could be placed inside a turnip because of a local legend called jack-o'-lantern. In the US, the practice began to be carried out on pumpkins due to the great availability of this fruit there. Carving the turnip with macabre expressions was also done as a way to scare away evil beings.
Costumes: As mentioned, it's common on Halloween nowadays for people to dress up as monsters. This practice was performed by the Celts during Samhain to hide from the evil beings that roamed the land.
Trick or treating: one of the symbols of the party is the act of children dressing up as monsters and going from house to house saying “trick or treat”. This practice, as we know it, emerged between the 1920s and 1930s, but it is related to Samhain and Allhallowtide.
