[The
vigil of this feast is popularly called "Hallowe'en" or
"Halloween".]
Solemnity
celebrated on the first of November. It is instituted to honour
all the saints, known and unknown, and, according
to Urban IV, to supply any deficiencies in the faithful's
celebration of saints' feasts
during the year.
In
the early days the Christians were accustomed to solemnize the
anniversary of a martyr's death for Christ
at the place of martyrdom. In the fourth century, neighbouring dioceses
began to interchange feasts, to transfer relics,
to divide them, and to join in a common feast;
as is shown by the invitation of St.
Basil of Caesarea (397) to the bishops
of the province of Pontus.
Frequently groups of martyrs suffered on the same day, which
naturally led to a joint commemoration. In the persecution
of Diocletian the number of martyrs
became so great that a separate day could not be assigned to each. But the Church,
feeling that every martyr should be venerated, appointed a
common day for all. The first trace of this we find in Antioch
on the Sunday after Pentecost.
We also find mention of a common day in a sermon of St.
Ephrem the Syrian (373), and in the 74th homily of St.
John Chrysostom (407). At first only martyrs
and St. John the Baptist were honoured
by a special day. Other saints were added gradually, and increased
in number when a regular process of canonization
was established; still, as early as 411 there is in the Chaldean
Calendar a "Commemoratio Confessorum" for the Friday after Easter.
In the West Boniface
IV, 13 May, 609, or 610, consecrated
the Pantheon in Rome to the Blessed
Virgin and all the martyrs,
ordering an anniversary. Gregory III (731-741) consecrated
a chapel
in the Basilica of St. Peter to all the saints
and fixed the anniversary for 1 November. A basilica
of the Apostles already existed in Rome,
and its dedication was annually remembered on 1
May. Gregory IV (827-844) extended the
celebration on 1 November to the entire Church.
The vigil seems to have been held as early as
the feast itself. The octave
was added by Sixtus IV (1471-84).
Night falls
and a fierce knocking assails your quiet home. Mischievous laughter resounds
outside. You open the front door and are confronted by a wicked witch, Princess
Barbie, and George W. Bush. They rustle bags and yell "trick or
treat." You hand them some candy and send them on their way, to other
houses decorated with spider webs, tombstones and glowing hollowed-out
pumpkins. By morning, some of these dwellings (usually those with teenage
inhabitants) will be decorated with shaving cream and eggs, their trees
festooned with toilet paper. Meanwhile, at parties all over town, costumed
adults dance and drink into the wee hours. From whence did Halloween, this
peculiar and seemingly all-American holiday, derive?
As
with much of our culture, Halloween's roots lie overseas. Its ancestor was the
ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, celebrated around November 1. The Celts
lived in continental Europe (where the Romans called them the
"Gauls") as early as three thousand years ago, migrating after that
to the British Isles. Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Brittany have been the
strongholds of Celtic language and traditions in modern times. Samhain was the
most important of the Celtic fire festivals, or holy days, because it marked
the New Year. The harvest had ended and winter was on the way. The last crops
had been picked, a chill was in the air, and the dark half of the year was
beginning.
In his book The
Pagan Mysteries Of Halloween, Jean Markale describes Samhain (pronounced
"sow-en") as an important festival that served many purposes:
spiritual, agricultural, social, political, and military. It was a holiday of
obligation to unite the tribe. To commemorate the new year, fires all over the
Celtic world were extinguished the night of Samhain, then relighted from
ceremonial blazes kindled by Druids (the religious and intellectual leaders of
the pre-Christian Celts). Animals were slaughtered and sacrificed to Celtic
deities. Some claim the offerings on Samhain included humans, but there is no
evidence to support this. Indeed, such a practice was probably rare at any
time. In his exhaustive study The Druids, Peter Ellis writes, "The
deduction one is really drawn to is that the idea of widespread human sacrifice
among the Celts was mere Roman propaganda to support their imperial power in
their invasion of Celtic lands and destruction of the Druids."
In addition,
Samhain was not a bloody rite dedicated to "Samhain, the Lord of the
Dead," as claimed by many Catholics and fundamentalist Christians. There
was no "Samhain" deity in Celtic religion, although this fallacy
continues to be perpetuated, notes author Isaac Bonewits, a specialist in
ancient and modern Druidism. There may have been an obscure character named
Samain or Sawan in Celtic mythology, whose main claim to fame was his magical
cow. He was not a god or "lord of the dead," however.
Celtic sagas
tell of many important heroic and prophetic events occurring on Samhain. It was
a sacred time, during which warriors were ordered to lay down arms and observe
a peace. During Samhain, there was great feasting and ritualized drunkenness.
Revelers consumed huge quantities of mead and beer. Once the Romans invaded England
in the first century A.D., their festivals for Feralia (which commemorated the
dead) and Pomona (the Roman goddess of fruits and trees) may have added
traditions to Samhain such as apple-bobbing. Yet it was a serious event: anyone
who missed the festival ran the risk of going mad and dying, according to
legend.
"In
marking the onset of winter, Samhain was closely associated with darkness and
the supernatural," adds Nicholas Rogers, a York University history
professor and author of Halloween: From Pagan Ritual To Party Night.
"The festival was closely related with prophecy and story-telling."
It was a time out of time, "charged with a peculiar preternatural
energy." Samhain was considered a period "between years," a
magical interval during which the spirits of the dead spilled out of the sidhe,
the ancient burial mounds of the Celts, and walked among the living. "It
was an intensely spiritual time, for it was the one period when the Otherworld
became visible to mankind," writes Peter Ellis in The Dictionary Of
Celtic Mythology.
The old ways
began to change as the Celts converted to Christianity, a process that began in
England in the 4th century and in Ireland (with the arrival of St. Patrick) in
the 5th century A.D. The Christian Church could not utterly abolish Samhain
celebrations, so they co-opted them. In 731 A.D., Pope Gregory III had
dedicated a chapel to the saints in Saint Peter's Church of Rome. In the 9th
century, Pope Gregory IV changed the date of this observance to November 1 and
made All Saint's Day an official feast day. It was known as All Hallow Mass or
Hallowmas in England and the night of October 31 became All Hallows Eve.
"Hallows Evening" was eventually condensed to "Halloween."
Although November 1 was now a Christian feast day, the night before retained
the otherworldly spirit of Samhain.
In 998, the French monastic order of Cluny
initiated a mass for souls of the Christian dead, which later was moved to the
day after All Saints Day. The new feast day of All Souls, devoted to all the dead,
held further resonance for Celts accustomed to Samhain. "By the end of the
twelfth century, the linked festivals of All Saints' and All Souls', Todos
Santos or Tots Sants in Spanish, or Hallowtide in English, were
well-established liturgical moments in the Christian year," writes Rogers.
Samhain's
idea that spirits were on the loose, and that communication was possible
between this world and the other world, survived in All Hallows Eve. On that
night, "the world of the dead was open to the living and vice versa; time
was abolished; and ghosts, a convenient term for spiritual entities seeking
contact with humans, could temporarily materialize and engage in dialogue with
their relatives, friends, and even strangers who had the gift of second sight,"
adds Markale. A few rituals of Samhain, like fire rites and divination, were
transferred to All Hallows Eve.
The church
masses of Hallowtide served as insurance against hauntings, according to
Rogers, "for ghosts were generally understood to be dead relatives who
visited their kin to rectify wrongs committed against them while alive and to
enforce the obligations of kinship." As night fell and All Souls' Day
arrived, "bells were rung for the souls in purgatory." Across
Catholic Europe, "food was laid out for the dead, whose souls were
expected to return to their former abodes on All Souls' Day," a practice
we see today in Mexico's Day Of The Dead. In England, candle and torch-lit processions honored
the deceased and bonfires in graveyards discouraged the visitation of malicious
spirits. In England and elsewhere, it
was a custom for the rich to give out food in return for prayers, a practice
called "souling." Bread or "soul cakes" (square
biscuits with currants) were baked and given to relatives, poor neighbors or
beggars on All Souls' Day. In return, the recipients promised to pray for the
dead relatives of the donors. It was felt their prayers could speed a soul's
passage to heaven. While "soulers" went door to door during
Hallowtide, less solemn revelers also took to the streets.
Costumed folk
began a "season of misrule" full of "disguisings, masks and
mummeries" (folk plays or skits), according to Rogers. They sang, danced,
drank, rode hobby horses, cross-dressed, and impersonated officials, inverting
the established order. Full of masquerades, role reversals, shaming rituals and
street music, Hallowtide could have a little of the atmosphere of Carnival or
Mardi Gras. Celebrants demanded food, ale and coins from their neighbors and
mocked those who wouldn't comply. The use of masks on Hallows Eve probably
started with these merrymakers; and mummers and soulers asking for donations
clearly set the stage for trick-or-treating.
Hallowmas
fell out of favor in England during the Protestant Reformation of the 16th
century, and All Souls' Day was eliminated from the calendar. Yet devotions to
the dead persisted, and Catholics continued to light bonfires on hilltops and
ring church bells for the departed. Souling was important to the hungry poor
and survived in many parts. All Hallows Eve, which became popularly known as
Halloween in the 18th Century, continued as a time of "supernatural
intensity," notes Rogers.
In Ireland
and Scotland, "Halloween was largely untouched by the Protestant
Reformation," writes Rogers. "From the seventeenth century onward,
the folklore associated with Halloween flourished without much intervention,
sometimes accenting and rejuvenating older pagan customs. In the Scottish
highlands, Hallow fires blazed from cairns and hilltops. Their ashes were later
placed in magical circles around with people danced. In some areas, there were
torchlight processions around the fields to ensure their fertility or to ward
off evil spirits and witches...many of these customs recalled the fire rituals
of Samhain that were to be found in the ancient Celtic sagas."
Witches, said
to be in league with the devil, were feared because of the teachings of the
medieval Church. Actually, in "pagan times" (i.e., pre-Christian),
witches practiced healing, herbalism and magic, and had nothing to do with
Christian belief systems. Eventually, the witch with the black hat and
broomstick would become an indelible Halloween motif, their images further
developed by literature and movies.
Mummery and
begging for treats on Halloween continued. In Scottish villages "it was
not the deceased themselves who returned but young people who personified the
spirits of the dead by hiding their faces under masks and wearing long white
robes or grotesque costumes made from straw. Little by little it was the
children who picked up the baton in these masquerades...they went in search of
treats, treats that, of course, represented the offerings made to the
deceased," writes Markale. He adds that some carried hollowed-out turnips
with a candle inside, representing a wandering spirit. These were called
"jack-o'-lanterns" after an Irish legend about Jack, a man who was
not accepted in either heaven or hell and was doomed to wander the earth eternally.
Halloween was
associated with divinatory rituals, omens that foretold marriages or deaths,
and premonitory dreams. Over time, it underwent a transformation into
ritualized amusement, albeit with eerie undertones. Families and young woman
enjoyed fortunetelling games in the parlor. Rogers notes, "Halloween
acquired a special significance as a courtship ritual or augury for marriage.
The way stones settled in bonfires, the way nuts cracked in the heat, the shape
of kale stalks pulled from the ground, the people or sounds one encountered at
the midnight hour at a crossroads or stile -- all were windows to the
future." The Scottish poet Robert Burns (1759-1796) described many
divination games in his famed poem "Halloween." Meanwhile, outside
the warm parlor, in the dark night, high-spirited boys were on the loose. They
assumed the roles of mischievous goblins, fairies and witches, unhinging farm
gates, moving horses to different fields, and playing other jokes on their
neighbors.
In North
America, Halloween arrived in force in the 1840s. Rural immigrants from Ireland
flooded into America and Canada because of the Great Potato Famine, and brought
Halloween customs from their homeland. Nearly two million Irish men and women
lived in the United States by 1890. A steady stream of Scots also carried
Celtic traditions to the New World. The restless energy of "mischief
night" found expression in new surroundings: rowdy boys knocked down
fences, tipped over outhouses, and wreaked other havoc. Families upgraded a
harmless custom, thanks to the new land's plant life, making jack-o'-lanterns
out of pumpkins, easily carved into large, grinning demonic faces.
By the late 1800s in North America, Halloween
had developed into a family festival full of parties, seasonal foods (pumpkins,
maize and apples), and costumes. Ghost stories were told, contests were held,
and games were played. Masks for Halloween were on sale in Ontario, Canada as
early as 1874, notes Rogers. Retailers advertised candies and nuts for the
night. Black cats and bats became Halloween motifs, apparently because of the
influence of Edgar Allen Poe and gothic writers.
Halloween
lost its religious overtones and changed into a secular, community-oriented
celebration. It was no longer regarded as primarily an Irish or Scottish
festival, and became a fixture in the North American calendar. Such acceptance
did not diminish the pranking committed by young males that night, who now saw
Halloween as their best opportunity to let loose. Other American and Canadian holidays
had become all too respectable, tame and institutionalized. By the 1920s,
there was public concern about how wild the night was getting. Mischief often
veered into vandalism: signs were removed, roads barricaded, street lights
knocked out, and automobile tires deflated. There were even youth riots in a
few cities. Towns and clubs began to organize "safe" Halloween events
-- carnivals, dances and street fairs -- to keep youngsters occupied.
The Halloween
decorations of the time were similar to those of today: "Black cats, bats,
Jack'o'Lanterns, ghosts and witches predominate. Autumn leaves, corn-stalks,
fruits and vegetables carry the idea of a harvest celebration. Orange and black
crepe paper are indispensable in decorating," observes an instructional
booklet from Boston, quoted by Rogers. Costumes were typically homemade, often
from sacks, old clothes, soot and shoe polish. Yet, even in the '30s, pop
culture was having an effect, with some celebrants imitating well-known
figures like Charlie Chaplin, Mae West, Mickey Mouse, and Dick Tracy.
While the
practice of begging for, or demanding, food on Hallow's Eve was centuries old,
the words "trick or treat" came into use around 1939, according to
Rogers. The words first appeared in the files of Merriam Webster, Inc., in
1941, after being used as the title of a poem in the Saturday Evening Post,
according to Washington Post writers Ken Erickson and Patricia
Sunderland. Trick-or treating picked up momentum in the 1940s and '50s. Rogers
writes, "Trick-or-treating radically altered the dynamics of festive
license without eliminating its masking or playful features." The custom
"sought to marginalize adolescent pranking and to defuse the antagonism
inherent in the festive tribute, transforming the exchange into a rite of
consumption." The holiday became a boon for food manufacturers and
retailers.
During the
1960s and '70s, Halloween became a thoroughly secular, consumer-oriented
event. The booming plastics industry made it possible to cheaply sell
realistic masks, noses, fangs and props. Hollywood monster movies influenced
the costumes and decorations of the holiday. Middle-class parents bought full
Halloween getups at mass-market stores for the family, and also rented more
expensive outfits for themselves. Parents were not content merely to place a
glowing pumpkin on the porch; many added elaborate graveyard and
haunted-mansion decor. For children, the main point of Halloween became to
dress up and collect as much tasty candy as possible. There wasn't much sense of
actually dealing out nasty "tricks" to people who didn't offer
sufficient goodies, but many boys harassed friends, neighbors and random
victims with armaments like eggs, toilet paper and shaving cream.
That 1970s
saw a hint of danger return to Halloween night when widespread fear broke out
that evil persons were handing children poisoned candy or apples with razor
blades inside. Since then, trick or treating has become a more supervised
activity, as American parents worry about tampered treats or strangers harming
their children. The '70s also were arguably the time when Halloween costume
parties became a much more popular adult activity, as parents saw the night as
a great excuse for a get-together and an opportunity to dress up in a silly or
sexy fashion.
Today's
Halloween is a thoroughly commercialized affair, and it has become popular in
many places outside of North America and the U.K. In America, suburban homes
have bigger and spookier lawn displays each year. Celebrity, politician and
slasher-movie masks complement monster, ghost and witch outfits. Office
cubicles are festooned with orange and black crepe paper and bowls of candy.
Hundreds of thousands show up at work in full Halloween garb. Costume parties
for adults are commonplace, and Halloween has become the occasion for various
"alternative lifestyle" balls and parades. "Haunted houses"
are popular seasonal attractions. The merchandising for the holiday is
enormous, second only to that of Christmas, and takes over large sections of
stores during October. Halloween is big business, worth nearly $6.9 billion
annually, according to Time magazine reporter Michael Elliott. Samhain
and Hallows Eve have been possessed by Hollywood and Wallmart.
The Halloween
of this century has pretty much lost its uncanny power, unless one is four
years old and terrified of an uncle dressed as Count Dracula. There aren't many
Americans now who believe that the spirits of the dead are on the loose the
night of October 31, or who are lighting fires to keep evil ghosts away.
Although death is the central theme of Halloween, and plentiful mock blood,
plastic bones and gruesome adornments are on display, celebrants deal with the
grim reaper only on a superficial level. Yet perhaps this somehow helps
children cope with the most fearful realities of life. "We create a
special and safe moment during which danger and death, skeletons and strangers
can safely be part of our experience. Then we lock our doors again and return
to our everyday, safe American lives," write Erickson and Sunderland.
For adults,
it may be that Halloween is evolving into a masquerade event like Mardi Gras in
New Orleans and Carnival in other countries. These are "inversion
rituals," in which ordinary people can break the rules, flout convention,
and mock authority for a few days, until the normal social order reasserts
itself. Halloween has been such a ritual for centuries, yet no longer retains
the sense of awe and wonder associated with Hallows Eve and Samhain in the
past. If one wishes to commune with the spirits in a more serious way, one must
now travel south of the border or to our own Mexican-American communities on
All Soul's Day. There, one will encounter a festival on November 2 that is also
growing in international popularity: The
Day Of The Dead
Primary
Book Sources:
The
History Of Halloween: From Pagan Ritual To Party Night
by Nicholas Rogers (Oxford University Press, 2002)
The
Pagan Mysteries Of Halloween: Celebrating The Dark Half Of The Year
by Jean Markale (Inner Traditions, 2001)
The
Druids
by Peter Berresford Ellis (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1994)
Dictionary
Of Celtic Mythology
by Perer Berresford Ellis (Oxford University Press, 1992)
Collins
Gem Irish Dictionary
(Harpers Collins, 1995)
Primary
Article Sources:
"Boo, Humbug!" by Michael Elliot (Time magazine, October 27,
2003)
"Old Tricks, New Treats" by Buck Wolf (abcnews.com, October
22, 2003)
"What's Behind Halloween" by Ken C. Erickson and Patricia
Sunderland
(Washington Post, October 14, 1998)
"The History Of Halloween" (www.historychannel.com)
"The Development Of Christian Society In Early England"
(www.britannia.com)
"The Celtic Year" (www.livingmyths.com)
"The Real Origins Of Halloween" by Isaac Bonewits
(www.neopagan.net)
"Halloween And Its Christian Roots"
(www.americancatholic.org)
"The Myth Of Samhain: Celtic God Of The Dead"
(www.religioustolerance.org)