Halloween: origins, meaning and traditions

Halloween is an annual holiday celebrated on October 31, and Halloween 2022 will take place on Monday, October 31. The custom stems from the ancient Celtic holiday of Samhain, when people would light bonfires and dress up in costumes to fend off spirits. Pope Gregory III established November 1 as a day to celebrate all saints in the ninth century. All Saints Day soon included certain Samhain rituals. The previous evening was known as All Hallows Eve, and later as Halloween. Halloween has grown into a day of activities such as trick-or-treating, carving jack-o-lanterns, and celebratory parties, dressing up in costumes, and eating candy. The origins of Halloween may be traced back to the ancient Celtic feast of Samhain (pronounced sow-in). The Celts, who lived in what is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France 2,000 years ago, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day signified the end of summer and the harvest, as well as the start of the dark, frigid winter, a season traditionally connected with human death. Celts thought that during the night before the new year, the line between the living and the dead was blurred. They celebrated Samhain on the night of October 31, when it was thought that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth.
In addition to creating havoc and destroying crops, Celts believed that the presence of otherworldly spirits made it easier for Druids, or Celtic priests, to prophesy the future. These forecasts were an essential source of solace throughout the long, dark winter for a people who were completely dependent on the turbulent natural environment.
Druids erected massive holy bonfires to celebrate the festival, where people came to burn crops and animals as offerings to the Celtic deities. During the feast, the Celts dressed up in animal heads and skins and sought to tell one other’s fortunes.
Halloween, being a secular festival, has become connected with a variety of activities. One example is the practice of engaging in mostly innocent pranks. Celebrities dress up in masks and costumes for parties and trick-or-treating, which is claimed to have originated from the British habit of enabling the needy to beg for food, known as “soul cakes.” Trick-or-treaters walk from door to house, threatening to pull a trick if they do not receive a treat, typically sweets. Halloween gatherings sometimes involve activities like bobbing for apples, which may have originated with the Roman feast of Pomona. Along with skeletons and black cats, the festival has featured frightening characters such as ghosts, witches, and vampires. The jack-o’-lantern, a hollowed-out pumpkin, originally a turnip, carved into a demonic visage and lighted with a candle inside, is another emblem. Since the mid-twentieth century, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has worked to incorporate fundraising for its projects with Halloween.
By Yimeng CHEN