The Catalyst

By Jesse Siddeek, Reporter

It all started in Western Europe, where the Celts, an ancient group of people who lived 2,000 years ago, were the first to start what we now know as Halloween. However, this Halloween is nothing like our go door to door for candy Halloween, which we know today. Unlike our toilet paper zombie costumes, the origins of Halloween have a much darker connection to the dead.

Back then, Halloween’s name was Samhain(sow-in). It was celebrated on October 31, the night before the Celtic New Year. This day marked the beginning of the harvest and the long bitter winter ahead of them.

This time of year was connected with death because according to the Celts, on this night, the line between the living and the dead could be crossed. According to the History Channel, they would wear costumes mostly made of animal skins and heads in order to placate the spirits that would wreak havoc on their town, as well as their crops. Huge bonfires towered over the townspeople where they would burn their crops. Animal sacrifices were thrown into the flames to honor the Celtic Deities which were the town priests. The Celtic priests believed it was easier to predict the future with the dead present. Their predictions were what kept the people going through the dark nights of winter.

In A.D. 43, when the Romans conquered the Celts, they morphed the Samhain tradition into two of their own festivals. Feralia was the first tradition where they would honor the memories of the dead. The second was to honor Pomona the Roman Goddess of fruit. Her symbol was an apple and it is believed that the tradition of bobbing for apples came from the Romans.

The influence of Christianity hit Celtic lands by the 800s where Pope Boniface IV designated November 1st as All Saints days, a day to celebrate saints and martyrs. This was his attempt to steer the festivities towards a church related festival because the church didn’t sanction a holiday that celebrated the undead. The church sanctioned celebration was also called All Hallows or All Hallowmas. The celebration the night before became All Hallows Eve and later became known as Halloween.

European immigrants were the people who brought Halloween to America. It became very common in the Northern colonies like Maryland. They would have public parties to celebrate the harvest where they would tell ghost stories, play pranks on each other, dance and sing. The tradition of Halloween was still concentrated into these parts of America at this time.

With the potato famine of 1846, many Irish immigrants moved into America and brought their traditions with them. For example, the Irish would go door to door dressed up, and ask for food and money. They meshed their traditions with the English traditions already in place and it came out as what is now our modern Halloween. It then spread across America to an annual tradition.

Now every October 31st everyone from little kids to adults dress up in their costumes and go out to celebrate. However, we no longer have bonfires; we light candles in jack-o-lanterns and instead of dressing up to keep away spirits, we dress up to receive candy. We no longer make animal sacrifices unless you count dressing your dog up as a pumpkin as one Halloween has a huge mark in history and our traditions of our spookiest holiday are still carried on today.