The Origin Of Halloween From The Celtic Culture

First is the history of Halloween all according to a 2017 article from LiveScience by Benjamin Radford. Around 2,000 years ago in the United Kingdom Ireland, and the northern part of France the people called the Celts started this holiday. They called it Samhain back then instead of Halloween. November 1st marked their new year which resulted in them celebrating on October 31st. The New Year brought wintertime which to them meant death. On the night before winter which was October 31st, they believe that the spirits of the Dead came back. They wore costumes, put on bonfires, burned crops and sacrificed animals. When the Romans

Halloween is believed to come from Celtic rituals. The Celts lived over 2000 years ago, and were found in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and France. The Celts celebrated

La dia de los Muertos dates back to as early as the maya and aztec days, nearly 3,000 years ago. “The Aztecs didn’t fear death. They believed the way a person died determines their type of afterlife.” (Sarah Massey) Families place alters in their homes with favorite foods of the deceased people, sugar skulls with their name on it, special possessions of the loved ones, and Pan de Muerto (bread of the dead). On the altar are four special elements, water, wind, fire, and earth. Candles represent fire, food represents the earth. Halloween dates back to the celt days, about 2,000 years ago. They lived in what now is known as Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. They gathered on October 31st to celebrate the end of the harvest season. The celts believed that spirits roamed the earth on this night. Celts out food out for the spirits, this was the first form of trick or treating. Some dressed up as the dead to scare away the spirits. They carved turnips and put candles in them to make lanterns. This tradition continued when the immigrants came to America, but pumpkins were easier to find so they carved pumpkins. They swapped scary stories and had a big feast. Roman Catholics began to celebrate All Hallows’ day on November 1st, October 31st became All Hallows’ Eve, later shortened to

These traditions were connected with the lower class at the time and so they were also connected with crime, rowdy behavior and other stereotypes the upper class believed about the poor. Of course people who were part of the upper class did not like this and by the 1870s they had turned Halloween into a holiday to make children into “good American citizens.” Halloween was now targeted towards children and because of that families were encouraged to celebrate it at home where food, games and other entertainment would have adult supervision. By doing this children were expected to understand the values society holds, while also learning about their proper gender roles. At this point we are able to start to see how Halloween became so heavily influenced by gender roles/stereotypes and how that led to the over-sexualized holiday it is now. Trick or treating and wearing Halloween costumes became popular in America around the 1920s and by the 1950s children’s costumes were extremely reflective of their sex. (Bannatyne.) Girls were dressed as princesses and angels while boys were army men, hobos and so on. However, as cute and adorable as this is or may have been, this creates a very thick line between genders. When that line is present it is alluding to children that

The Celtic people would have huge bonfire celebrations in which they dressed up in costumes and wore masks to mimic and appease the spirits.”

Halloween is a holiday celebrated on October 31st, or All Hallows Eve. It is a night of candy and fun for us, but started as a Scottish-Irish festival “[...] or two major gods—a sun god and a god of the dead (called Samhain), whose festival was held on November 1, the beginning of the Celtic New Year” (Bacon). The day after Halloween became “[...] a feast in honor of all the saints (All Hallows) was fixed on November 1, and in the 11th century November 2 was specified as All

Irish immigrants moved to America. They told everybody about Hallow's Eve. The American people said they wanted to call it Halloween instead of hallow’s eve.

Long ago, the Celtic and pagan religions made Halloween more alive before we ever did. The essay says, “Carving pumpkins, bobbing for apples, dressing up in costume and even trick-or-treating were all pagan practices that were carried over.” All of these items made people more interested in the holiday, since they got to be scared and get to be whatever character from whatever show, movie, or play. Some people also think Halloween can be dangerous though because of broken down homes. The essay said that residential house built during the early 1800s were becoming worn down and dilapidated. That means the young children could get crushed by beams supporting the house, fall through floors, and get severe broken bones, but since then, Halloween been improved to where no parent or child will get hurt and haunted houses have been mending their special FX, actors or employees makeup and costumes and are getting better than

Halloween was a day to celebrate the deceased, followed by a time to pray for them. B. Halloween also comes from the sacred Celtic festival, Samhain. 1. On the eve of Samhain, the Celts believed the dead, both ghosts and demons, were allowed to roam free.

Halloween started as an ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, people would dress up in costumes, and make bonfires to defend or guard from roaming ghosts. Celts are referred to now as cultures or people from Scotland or Ireland or another place like that. The majority of the Celtic territory was conquered by the Roman Empire in 43 A.D. Rome had found a way to combine the day that Celts made, and were able to make two special days. One was called Feralia and the other day was to honor a goddess named Pomona, who was the goddess of fruit and trees. Feralia was a day to show respect to the passing of the dead. The second day was to honor Pomona.

Halloween originated as a time to remember the dead. Some take this aspect of Halloween very seriously. This brings the first type of costume at a party, the Spooky. These can be zombies, vampires, witches, mummies, Frankenstein, and of course creepy

“Trick or Treating was a start by the Celtics dressing up at the end of the year as evil spirits as a celebration. They believed that at the beginning of each year the dead and the living would overlap, demons would roam the world so dressing up was a defense mechanism.” Trick or Treating had a pause during world war 2 and started back up in the 1920s and 1930s. Many people don’t know the actual meaning today, they think of it as a time to dress up with friends and see who is the scariest or funniest for laughs and fun. As said in (Smithsonianmag, 2014) “the British were not a great fan of Halloween, in 2006 a survey found that half of British homeowners turn off their lights and pretend to not be home on

Halloween is best known for its tricks and treats and ghoulish costumes but do you know the origins of Halloween?

Borrowing from Irish and English traditions, Americans began to dress up in costumes and go house to house asking for food or money. Over time this tradition turned in to today modern “trick or treating”. In the late 1800s, America turned Halloween into a holiday more about community and neighborly get-togethers than about ghosts, and witchcraft. As the centuries changed Halloween parties for both children and adults became the most common way to celebrate the day. Parties focused on games, foods of the season and festive costumes. Parents were encouraged by newspapers and community leaders to take anything “frightening” or “grotesque” out of Halloween celebrations. Because of these efforts, Halloween lost most of its superstitious and religious overtones by the beginning of the twentieth century (Kammen).

Halloween is known for the scary and unknown; mysteries. This is exactly how it’s origin is, as well. Various historians argue the origin is really a Celtic harvest festival and also paganistic, and that the holiday was later converted to Christianity when the Good News of Jesus scattered through the Roman Empire nearly two thousand ago. Obviously, Martin Luther was not trick-or-treating when he hammered his 95 Theses to the big wooden church door in Wittenberg. There’s another viewpoint on Halloween that many are not aware of 500 years later.