How Did The History Of Halloween
Come To America?

"The history of Halloween was carried across the sea by hardy Irish immigrants during the 1800s."

Over the next one hundred years, the Irish celebration of Hallow E'en or All Hallows Eve was embellished bit by bit, until it became the distinctly American, good-natured, spooky theme we enjoy today.

Witches	Ravens and crows
Jack o'lantern	Black cats
Fairies and elves	Ghosts
Divination	Spiders
Bonfires	Trick or treat
Werewolves	Costumes
Bobbing for apples	Bats and vampires
Mummies	Owls
The Grim Reaper

Most accounts generally trace the earliest roots of Halloween to a Celtic holiday called "Samhain," a two-day celebration held at the end of the Celtic year, on October 31st and November 1st.

Celtic life was vitally dependent on the fertility of the land. As pagan tribes, they sought the favor of many different Gods who might bring them bountiful grain for their tables and fodder for their livestock. They prayed for healthy and fertile beasts to provide muscle for hard labor, skins for clothing, and meat for stew pots and roasting spits.

Samhain or "summers end" was a natural time for culling hogs, cattle, and sheep in preparation for the lean months of winter. The killing was performed as religious ritual under the authority of Druid priests. Imagine the high drama, feasts and pageantry of festivals befitting the annual harvest celebration!

The Celts already held a lively belief in fairies, elves, magic, and unseen forces of good and evil. The arrival of early Roman conquerers, with their pagan mythology and nature festivals, added even more color and earthiness to what must have been a robust spiritual life.

For the next fifteen hundred years, the autumn holiday was infused with Roman Catholic influence. As much as Christians may have wished, pagan harvest festivals, belief in magical beings and divination did not disappear.

To the contrary, many believe that Catholic preoccupation with the dead on this holiday....All Saint's Day, All Soul's Day, All Hallows Eve....brought to the "summers end" festival a fascination with morbidity and death. Instead of supplanting the old ways, celebration of dead saints was simply woven into the rugged fabric of Celtic religion.

The concepts of witches, devils, and sin, the outlawing of necromancy....could some of these have been Christian attempts to disenfranchise the learned class of Druids?

It was necessary also for Christians to condemn the pantheon of Celtic Gods. What better way than to demonize and persecute their priests.

We can never know for sure. But let's look to the past for the history of Halloween and the roots of our favorite symbols, decorations, and activities.

Witches

We enjoy our Halloween witches just as they are....warty green hags that do not exist in nature. They ride broomsticks by moonlight. They stir bubbling cauldrons of witches' brew. Little girls feel safe as they don pointy black hats and go "trick or treating."

This image is far removed from the true accounts of persecution, torture, and murder of tens of thousands of European "witches" over a 300 year period (1450 - 1750). Even America was infected by witch hysteria, evidenced by the Salem witch trials of 1692.

Since the 1960s, public perception of witchcraft has been transformed. Witches can now be entertaining, not evil, thanks to American pop culture. Preview or send a witch ecard.

Ravens and Crows

Unless they happen to be plundering your cornfield, you might be tempted to admire their sleek, swooping black bodies and bright, intelligent eyes. Crows and ravens belong to the same family of avians (Corvus) and thrive everywhere in the Northern hemisphere.

So why do they appear so often in tales of horror? Perhaps because they are opportunistic feeders and omnivores. They have a widely variable diet of grain, seeds, insects, grubs, fruit, bird eggs, hatchlings, refuse and carrion.

It's the last item which has given them their ghoulish reputation, as they will scavenge carcasses of any kind, including human remains. Witness accounts suggest they especially enjoy soft tissues such as eyeballs and open wounds.

Black Cats

Silent, solitary, unseen in the dark....black cats are nocturnal stalkers by nature. It's no surprise they have been associated with witchcraft and the occult for centuries.

Cats' evil reputation was gained fairly recently, as domesticated cats did not appear in Europe until 1000 AD.

The persecution of witches during the Middle Ages heightened fear and loathing of certain animals, especially black cats who were suspected
of serving as witches' familiars.

Preview or send a black cat ecard.

Ghosts

A frequent reason to "haunt" the living seems to be the unfortunate circumstance of dying suddenly and unfairly. This premise gives motive to an infinite number of plot possibilities. We can look forward to jumping out of our skins again and again, with each new ghost story.

Most people do not believe in ghosts. After all, we know that Halloween ghosts are not real....

Preview or send a ghost ecard.

The Grim Reaper

To early pagans of eastern Europe, death was represented by a woman dressed in white. Over the next thousand years with the influence of Christianity, she was replaced by the grisly spectre of a walking skeleton.

The Grim Reaper became a constant and terrifying symbol during the massive pandemic of Black Death (1347 - 1351). He presided over the largest annihilation of human beings ever recorded.

Both Hollywood and Halloween keep alive the Grim Reaper's personification of death.

Spiders

But spiders occupy a harmless, even beneficial place in the folklore of many peoples. both Europeans and Japanese equate spiders with financial reward. They were good omens to American Navahos, Australian Aborigines, Indian Hindus, and early Romans.

So why do spiders lurk in the dark corners of so many Halloween themes?

Their hairy bodies, multiple glaring eyes and bloody fangs cause us to shiver in revulsion. It's easy to see why spiders decorate all our Halloween backdrops.

Bats and Vampires

To most people, bats are grotesque in appearance and habit. We do not want to stroke or caress them. They flutter out of the darkness to startle us. They can harbor rabies virus, deadly to humans.

Of course bats are not evil, but unlike the imaginary dangers of most Halloween symbols, there really are blood-sucking varieties of bats.

Popular fiction and horror films have introduced vampires to huge audiences, indelibly marking them as frightful and repulsive....perfect for Halloween night!

Owls

After dark when humans return to the safety of their hearths, owls awaken. They hoot hauntingly in the twilight. They are efficient killers of prey who swoop silently out of the blackness.

Deserved or not, owls have a long history of association with death. Romans, eastern Europeans, native Americans, Orientals, and Aztecs all considered owls to be evil omens.

There is nothing quite so bone chilling as walking alone in the dark while hearing, just over your shoulder, "WHOOOOooo...."

Costumes

There is no mention of Irish immigrants donning costumes to celebrate All Hallows Eve during the 1800s or earlier. The practice of wearing costumes for Halloween appears to be an American innovation which began in the late 1930s.

The only similar custom in old Britain and some parts of Europe was "guising," dressing up to celebrate Christmas and New Years Eve.

By the postwar boom of the late 1940s and 1950s, new fads spread rapidly by radio, print and film. This provided lots of opportunity to create commercial demand for the scariest, fanciest, most original, humorous, or amusing disguise each season.

Trick or Treat

In America, this delinquency of teenage boys and young men was largely tolerated and overlooked as minor nuisance. But by the 1920s and 1930s....a time when lots of young men were underemployed, penniless and frustrated....their pranks escalated into more and more destructive and costly damage for shopkeepers and property owners. At their extreme, pranks became malicious vandalism. Sometimes pets and livestock were injured or killed.

Neighborhood civic groups, community groups, even the Boy Scouts of America according to some accounts, went into action to find safe, non-destructive outlets for young people to channel their energies on Halloween night.

Children and young adults were encouraged to go door-to-door, collecting sweets and treats from neighborhood homes and shops. They were rewarded for good behavior, a profitable result, whereas pranks received no reward.

Divination

Ancient Celts depended on the powers of divination to see into the future. Druid priests served as both magicians and diviners.

Maidens yearned to know the name, comeliness, and wealth status of their future husbands. Farmers wanted to know which crops the Gods might favor in the spring. Is a harsh winter on the way? Who in the clan will be the next to die?

By the shape of a cloud or the croak of a raven, life or death answers might be revealed. The incantation of a few sacred words could cast a spell on a rival.

Divination represented raw, potent power which was never quite stamped out by Christian teachings.

The fortune teller of our popular culture is often a gypsy. She is mysterious, magical, and slightly dangerous....perfect for Halloween.

Jack o'lanterns

Vegetable lanterns were used for centuries in England, Ireland and Scotland as simple and inexpensive candle holders to light the darkness. Potatoes, turnips, and beets were carved for the purpose.

The 18th century Irish tale of Jack, who tricked the Devil and made him agree never to take his soul, gives us the name Jack o'lantern.

Jack was a scoundrel whose life was so miserly and sinful he could not get into heaven. When he died, he had nowhere to go. He was doomed forever to wander the darkness between heaven and hell.

The Devil cast him an ember of hellish coal which would never go out. Jack put it into a hollowed turnip which became known as a Jack o'lantern.

When Irish immigrants came to our shores, they found no turnips but a plentiful supply of pumpkins. Pumpkins quickly became our favorite Jack o'lanterns.

Preview or send a Jack o'lantern ecard.

Bonfires

To celebrate Samhain, huge communal bonfires were lit on hilltops surrounding Celtic villages.

Samhain was one of two fire festivals during the year (the other was Beltane on May 1st) when all hearth fires of the clan were extinguished, then relit from the communal bonfires to symbolize renewal of life.

Winter was a time for storytelling in front of the hearth, renewing clan ties, planning crops and herds for the coming spring.

Fairies and Elves

Fairies and elves were supernatural beings of the land of Faery, part of Celtic religion. They lingered in hills, mounds, cairns, and subterranan hiding places, waiting to interfere in the affairs of people.

According to some accounts, fairies could be horrible and dangerous with malevolent schemes to injure humans. They could also be benign....simply playful and mischievous. It was best to avoid them entirely and, if confronted, to appease them.

Modern fairy tales were originally told from person to person, passed down from one generation to the next. From the 1600s to the 1900s Italian, French, and German authors collected and put into print early versions of the classic tales we recognize today.

American stage and cinema popularized the stories to mass audiences, adding new characters and benevolent themes with huge appeal to children.

Bobbing for Apples

This Halloween game was brought to America by the Irish.

When early pagan Romans conquered the Celts, their fall harvest celebration honoring Pomona, the Roman Goddess of fruit and trees, was incorpirated into the fall festival of Samhain.

This tradition was the most likely origin of bobbing for apples.

Werewolves

Werewolf first appears in Greek mythology as lycanthrope, a person who has the ability to shapeshift into a wolflike animal, a result of eating human flesh. Almost every European country had werewolf folk tales during the 15th through 17th centuries.

In the Americas, legends include shapeshifters which turn into wolves, bears, foxes, jaguars, and vultures.

Werewolves have been immortalized in popular novels and Hollywood movies, assuring their place as Halloween horror favorites.

Preview or send a wolf ecard.

Mummies

Mummies do not have a scary history. They are the cherished remains of beloved rulers, scholars, and persons of great wealth from a number of ancient cultures.

The most famous mummies are Egyptian, but Chinese, Japanese, and South American Indian tribes also preserved the bodies of important ancestors.

Mummies acquired their "walking dead" reputation thanks to Hollywood movies. It was inevitable for them to join the ghosts and ghouls in our Halloween closets.

 

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