WattMag: Spooky November Issue

The Spook-tacular Origin of Halloween

Title: The Spook-tacular Origin of Halloween

Topic: Origin of Halloween

Written by: WckdWzrd

Ho-Ho-No, it’s not yet Christmas, but it’s already the most wonderful time of the year!

It’s that time when darkness falls even in the day and makes the space under your bed creepier than ever. Your closet isn’t a safe place anymore than it was every night, and the thin stream of chill down your back just won’t go away. Ghosts and ghouls and monsters go rampant in the streets, but they’re all welcome. Yes, folks. Halloween is just around the corner, bearing horrific tricks and spine-tingling treats throughout the world.

            All Hallows’ Eve, or Halloween as we all know it, is a yearly occasion celebrated on October 31, but the celebration extends throughout the whole month of November, mostly on purposes of profit – like horror movies, scary costumes, Halloween-themed amusement parks, and candies.

            This holiday is a recent adaptation by the Filipinos from the Americans, and is done a week before All Saints’ Day/All Souls’ Day, when Filipinos visit their deceased loved ones and repaint their graves before having a picnic or praying for the their dead.

            But where did this American tradition come from? When did it start and how did it end up being the second highest-grossing commercial holiday next to Christmas?

AN INCOMPLETE TIMELINE OF THE HISTORY OF HALLOWEEN

|| Celtic Times

            In ancient Ireland and Scotland, approximately around Christ’s time, the Celts celebrated a festival called Samhain (pronounced SAH-win), which means “summer’s end”, on October 31.

            The Celts celebrated November 1 as the start of the New Year and believed that October 31 was neither in the past year nor in the new one, which made the day filled with chaos. That’s why stealing and vandalism were tolerated on this day.

On the day of Samhain, it was thought that the spirit world and the world of the living overlapped one another, and fairies called Aos Si and the spirits of the deceased roamed around in the streets to find bodies to possess. Because of this, people wore costumes and made strange noises to either confuse or scare away the spirits.

            Samhain was also harvest day for the Celts, with November 1 being the start of winter. All crops were to be harvested on this day because the day was filled with spirits, which would bring havoc and sickness and damage of crops. Food or a portion of the harvest was left outside the citizens’ doorsteps to appease the Aos Si and the lingering spirits.

|| Spread of Christianity

            In the fifth century, the Catholic Church moved in and introduced the celebration of All Hallows Day/All Saints Day, which was initially celebrated every May 13.

            It was not until the eighth century when Pope Gregory moved the celebration to November 1, and the day of Samhain was celebrated as All Hallows Eve, because the people back then, until now, were accustomed to celebrations lasting for two nights – the night before the occasion until the day after it, like Christmas Eve to Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve to New Year’s Day.

            In those times, Christianity was at its peak and people strived real hard to become good. Those who achieved being virtuous until the day they die were raised as saints, and these saints were given their own days of commemoration. But then the saints grew larger in number and soon, there were too many to commemorate all of them, and that’s when the concept of All Hallows Day or Hallowmas started.

            People also believed that from the end of October until the start of November, spirits who hadn’t passed over yet to Heaven came back to visit their living relatives and loved ones. This started the celebration of All Souls Day on November 2. On this day, people would light candles and pray for their deceased loved ones. Some would even set a plate on the table and an extra chair in the living room in thought that the spirits were with them.

            The poor would knock door-to-door on this day, asking for small cakes in exchange for prayers for the homeowners’ dead loved ones, or sometimes they would dance or sing or do any form of entertainment. This tradition was called souling, and the cakes given to the soulers were called soul cakes.

|| Allhallowtide

            By the sixteenth century, the three days from October 31 to November 2 were called Allhallowtide, with All Hallows Eve starting the triduum, but it was not until 1745 that All Hallows Eve was turned into what we know now as Halloween.

            The word, Halloween, means “hallowed evening” or “holy evening”. The reason why it’s called Halloween and not Halloweve was because Ireland and Scotland were very influential in the western countries in these days and the word “evening” in their language was “even”, which was then compressed to “e’en”.

            In these times, a very popular folklore started the practice of carving pumpkins used as jack-o-lanterns.  The story was about a man named Jack, who was being chased by a mob for stealing something. In his will to escape, he happened upon the Devil. Jack tricked the Devil into climbing up an apple tree. Once there, Jack carved a cross on the trunk of the tree, making it impossible for the Devil to climb down. Jack made the Devil promise not to let him enter Hell ever if he were to die, in which the Devil abided. Inevitably, Jack died, but he was not permitted to enter Heaven, too, because of his foul deeds. His spirit was then sent back to the world. As he was eating a turnip in his search for a place to settle, the Devil threw an ember from Hell at him to help him with his journey. This ember would never lose its flame. Jack carved his turnip and placed the ember inside as a makeshift lamp, and he went on his journey in search for shelter.

            Later on, the turnip was changed to a pumpkin, specifically a Connecticut field pumpkin, because pumpkins are easier to carve, and that’s where jack-o-lanterns came from.

|| Irish and Scottish Immigration to the United States

            By the early nineteenth century, the Irish and the Scottish started to migrate to the US, carrying the Halloween tradition with them. The Americans adapted the celebration and by the mid-19th century, Halloween gradually assimilated into the mainstream society. Finally, by the start of the 20th century, Halloween became as widespread as a forest fire, being celebrated from coast to coast in the US.

            Monster parties, anyone?

|| Philippine Adaptation

            Now, the tradition came to us when the Americans settled in our country. In the Philippines, Allhallowtide is called Undas, which is a national holiday. Because of this, Filipinos choose the time of holiday to visit the graves of their deceased loved ones in cemeteries. We added our own version to it, like painting the graves of dead relatives, giving suman and abuloy to kids who sing for the souls of those in Purgatory, or practicing our own version of souling called pangangaluluwa.

But these traditions slowly faded as we became more Americanized. Now, trick-or-treating replaced pangangaluluwa, and witches and monsters and ghosts are becoming mainstream symbols of Halloween. Ghost stories are made popular and it’s not wrong to scare the living snuff out of people.

And all of these because of an ancient harvest festival.

Bet you didn’t know that, do you?