With its ghouls, jack-o-lanterns, and trick-or-treaters shouting BOO, Halloween is the unadulterated descendent of Samhain, the ancient Celtic festival of the dead.
Pronounced SOW (rhymes with cow) –in, the word comes from the Proto-Indo-European root word *semo- (summer), and the Proto-Celtic *samoni- (reunion, assembly). It literally means “an assembly to celebrate the harvest.”
The Celts believed that the natural cycle of the year hinged on Beltainne (the first of May) and Samhain (the first of November). Celebrated as fire festivals, Beltainne honored hope and new life; Samhain, death.
Samhain, however, carries a deeper meaning. The Sun’s decline caused anxiety. Without heat and sunlight, crops could not grow, and without adequate preparation for winter, people died. While Samhain simultaneously marked the final harvest of one year, it necessitated preparations and prayers for bounty in the new one.
The Celts were especially captivated with the timelessness of a moment that belonged to neither the past nor the present, to neither this world nor the Other, to the moment when beginning and end were separated by a thin veil.
When that veil between the divisions of time opened, chronology was irrelevant. Past, present, and future dissolved into one dimension. The physical and invisible worlds became one. As the Sun descended into the underworld, the forces of the underworld ascended. Unhindered by time and space, Samhain is the night when the dead and denizens of the Underworld are released from the Underworld and walk among the living.
Past is Present
Fire was a powerful and appropriate symbol to counteract helplessness and doom. Not only did winter fires pay homage to the Sun on its descent, but they also kept the evil spirits at bay and protected families from fairies.
A note on faeries—they are not benign pixies. They are fearsome and vengeful elementals. Many rituals were based on appeasing them.
Carved turnips called jack-o-lanterns served the same purpose as fires. According to legend, Stingy Jack trapped the Devil and only let him go on the condition that Jack would never go to Hell. But when Jack died, he learned that Heaven did not want his soul either, so he was forced to wander the Earth as a ghost for eternity. The Devil gave Jack a burning lump of coal in a carved-out turnip to light his way. Locals eventually began carving scary faces into their own turnips to frighten away evil spirits. The Irish introduced the pumpkin.
Masks served to protect one’s identity and crops from faeries. Since ancestors might cross over during this time, families wanted to welcome them while warding off harmful spirits. They wore costumes and masks to confuse the spirits. They also dressed as animals and monsters so that faeries would not kidnap them.
Trick-or-treating evolved from the ancient Irish and Scottish practices of mumming—the practice of going door-to-door in the nights leading up to Samhain wearing costumes and singing songs to the dead. Tricks were typically blamed on fairies and cakes were doled out as treats.
Cross-cultural Adaptation
The pagan festival of Samhain has been Christianized as All Saints and All Souls Days.
When St. Patrick arrived in Ireland in the fifth century, he followed the formula established by the early church that if a holiday looked like a pagan festival, pagans would accept the Christian holiday and, ultimately, the God it celebrated. That’s how Christianity gradually absorbed all pagan holidays into its own mythology.
In the fifth century, Pope Boniface specified May 13 as a day to honor all saints and martyrs. The fire festivals of October and November, however, did not end with this decree. So, in 741, Pope Gregory III changed the date to honor all saints to November 1. Pope Gregory IV added all souls on November 2. Instead of eliminating Samhain, however, the church solidified it. October 31 became known as All Hallows Eve, or Halloween, and contained much of the traditional pagan practices.
In the 19th-century, Irish emigrants brought Halloween with them across the ocean.
Likewise, the Mexican Dia De Los Muertos was Christianized by the European colonization of Central and South America. The ancient meso-Americans honored the spirits of the dead in August. The church moved those traditions to November 1 and 2, making the holiday universal across the Catholic empire.
Italian missionaries introduced the confection of Sugar Skulls, which was quickly accepted along with the cultural practice of creating altars for deceased loved ones. Although it shares its origin with Samhain, Dia De Los Muertos is different in that it is a celebration of life without fear of death. It honors those who have passed with offerings of their favorite things, decorating graves, feasting, and sharing memories.
Samhain is a borderline, or liminal, festival. Not only is it the separation between summer and winter, lightness and darkness, it is also a time when the normal order of the universe is suspended, when a moment belongs to neither the past nor the present, to neither this world nor the Other.
Thus, the liminality that originated with the Celts still exists. It has been handed down through generations and across cultures, imbuing the festivities of Samhain with a contemporary sense of timelessness.
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