A bit of this—$1.57 billion—was spent on candy, but the money paid for decorations also added up to a not-so-small $490 million. Covering bushes with spider webs and planting tombstones in the front yard sound familiar? Some Halloween stores have reported that people will pay as much as 250 dollars for an animated flying bat, a product which sells out every year.But…spiders? Tombstones? Bats? These have become accepted traditions for Halloween, but for all those who will slap down 30 dollars for a goblin costume and 40 dollars for a inflatable pumpkin with bats flying around inside, do they understand what they’re celebrating?
Although some can rightly trace “Halloween” to a time of honoring martyrs and saints, the skeletons and witches people now like to flaunt reflect more on the Celtic festival of Samhain. The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in (what is now) Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the start of the dark, cold, winter season that was usually associated with death. On the last night before their New Year, October 31, the Celts believed the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. They thought that on that evening, Saman, the lord of the dead, called forth hosts of evil spirits.
To ward off these spirits, the Celtic priests, or Druids, would build huge sacred bonfires where people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities. The Druids would gaze into the fire and make predictions about the future. The Celts would wear costumes made from animals skins as they danced and chanted around the fire, hoping to get a glimpse into their futures. Because of the slaughters of the animals, the festival was associated with symbols of death and skeletons which have made their way into our modern celebrations of Halloween.
The practice of “trick-or-treating” also dates back to the celebrations of Samhain. In medieval times, the people would place bowls of food outside their homes to appease the ghosts who supposedly came back to the earthly world on October 31. The tradition of dressing in costumes for Halloween stemmed from the Celtic belief that if they wore masks when they left their homes after dark on Halloween, the ghosts would mistake them for fellow spirits.
In the seventh century, Pope Boniface VI re-consecrated the Pantheon in Rome on A.D. May 13, 609, establishing it as a day of celebratory remembrance for all the church’s martyrs. Pope Gregory III later changed the date of remembrance to November 1, designating it as All Saints’ Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs. It is widely believed that the pope was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a church-sanctioned holiday. The celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints’ Day), and the night before began to be called All-Hallows Eve, and eventually, Halloween.
The church also attempted to replace the Celtic tradition of “trick-or-treating” by encouraging a different practice, called “going-a-souling.” This “going-a-souling” began with the All Souls’ Day parades in England. During the festivities, poor citizens would beg for food, and families would give them pastries called “soul cakes” in return for their promise to pray for the family’s dead relatives. This practice was eventually adopted by children who would visit the houses in their neighborhood and be given ale, food, and money.
Whether or not the church really replaced the Celt’s pagan traditions, some parents may not care, preferring to go along with the other 64 percent of Americans. Then there are some who purposely are and have been returning to the pagan practices of Samhain. Any drive around town a week or so before Halloween will reveal hanging dummies and bloody witches whose display doesn’t exactly seem to reflect the honoring of godly Christian martyrs and saints of God. Maybe some people really do have good intentions, and maybe some don’t care enough to wonder what their front yard-gravesites represent, but before we go along and simply accept the Halloween spirit, we should question what values most Americans are really celebrating on Halloween. There’s nothing wrong with honoring saints and martyrs, but are skeletons and goblins really the way to do that?
http://www.cornellsun.com/node/19340
http://cfn13.com/StoryHeadline.aspx?id=19897
http://www.history.com/encyclopedia.do?articleId=211305
http://www.avoidingevil.com/blog/archives/002073.htm
http://www.allaboutpopularissues.org/origin-of-halloween.htm
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