by Joe O'Dowd
Home >> Hallowe’en
Hallowe’en (October 31st), like many holidays, has become a huge money-spinner and we can now buy a huge variety of Halloween decorations, including foam tombstones and gargoyles and inflatable and animatronic monsters! In fact, when it comes to decorating, Hallowe’en is now America’s second most popular holiday, second only to Christmas.
That said, Hallowe’en really only appeared in the US a couple of centuries ago as a result of immigration from the British Isles. The feast day has its real roots as a pagan festival among the Celts of Ireland and Great Britain.
Samhain was an autumn festival celebrated by Pre-Christian Celts. Samhain was a fire festival, when the dead revisited the mortal world, and large communal bonfires would be lit to keep evil spirits at bay.
During the ‘Dark Ages’ the Popes got wind of all this unacceptable pagan behaviour and decided to intervene, moving the existing Christian feast of All Saints’ Day (May 13th) to November 1st in an attempt to Christianize, and ultimately replace, the pagan Samhain. This was by no means an isolated instance of the church imposing a Christian significance on pagan heritage. The Pantheon in Rome – originally built in 31 BC as the pagan temple of all gods – was also hijacked in the 7th century AD and has been used as a Christian church ever since.
The Christian All Saints’ Day was also known as All Hallows and the evening before, the eve, was therefore All Hallows’ Eve, which became, Hallowe’en. Simple!
The main event for children of modern Hallowe’en in most countries is trick-or-treating, in which children dress up and go door-to-door in their neighbourhoods. The children knock on the neighbours’ doors and shout “trick or treatâ€? in order to gather fruit, nuts, and sweets. Failure to opt for the ‘treat’ results in the children playing a ‘trick’ on the neighbour.
Hallowe’en’s most prominent symbol is the carved-out Pumpkinhead – the ‘Jack-o-lantern’. This goes back to the Irish legend of ‘Stingy Jack’, a greedy, gambling, hard-drinking old farmer who tricked the devil into climbing a tree and trapped him there by carving a cross into the tree-trunk. In revenge, the devil cursed Jack to forever wander the earth at night. This fable prompted children to carve out faces in swedes or turnips (pumpkins weren’t too plentiful in Ireland) and place a candle inside in memory of Jack.
Bobbing is a well-established Hallowe’en custom where apples, nuts, raisins and some small coins are placed in a big tub of water. The apples and nuts float, but the coins, which sink, are harder to catch. Everyone takes turns catching as many items as possible using only their mouths. Some say that the first participant to get an apple would be the first to marry.
Another common game, snap-apple, involves eating an apple hung on a string attached to the ceiling, without using the hands. In a variation on this, the apple is replaced with a treacle or syrup-coated scone, an activity which inevitably leads to a very sticky face. To make it even more interesting, this is sometimes carried out while blindfolded!
One Hallowe’en custom which still exists in Ireland is the baking of a barmbrack, a fruit cake with sultanas, raisins and nuts. Eaten with butter along with a mug of tea (yum, yum), the brack contains objects baked into it and Halloween tea-time becomes quite an exciting event as slices are dished out. Each baked-in object carries a message for the person who gets it.
• a ring – marriage within a year • a pea – will not marry that year • a stick – an unhappy marriage or disputes • a piece of cloth – bad luck or poverty • a coin – good fortune or wealth
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Posted on http://www.weeklyletter.com at 2007-10-25 10:00:00 +0200
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Halloween is always five days after my birthday.
So Halloween 1968 was five days after I turned 9. I dressed as a witch and went trick-or-treating in my Manila neighborhood with my cousin Pichina (I just had to say the name). There were sweets and stuff to be had in every single house. But not in my house. My mother either had forgotten or not bothered. Children rang and left empty-handed. In the morning we found our opaque black gate screaming KURIPOT in white chalk. That’s the Tagalog word for stingy. My mother was much humored. Delighted, she insisted on just waiting for the rains to wash away the lovely word.
Halloween is big in the Philippines. It came to us through our dear American colonizers, as did many other things. HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
Ah yes Oscar, but the Americans got it from us, the Irish!
But, of course, the Americans were better at selling it.
When I was a child, if you had candy for trick-or-treaters, you left your porchlight on. If you did not or weren’t going to be home, you turned it off so no one would go knocking on your door.
Obnoxious teens didn’t usually need an excuse to TP houses, though stingy neighbors at Halloween were a good target. What I never understood were those who went around at night and smashed the jack-o’-lanterns that we children had worked so hard on.
...interesting to read Joe of some of the less well-known traditions. The pumpkins, balloons and face masks seem to be more available here now than a few years back…but a slice of that barmbrack can’t be beaten I guess…
I never celebrated Hallowe’en when I was young.I’ve never heard anything about neither pumkins nor “trick or treat”. In Spain this tradition didn’t exist. It’s only in the last few years that we have known about it. Nowadays the supermarkets are trying to introduce this tradition in order to increase the consumerism.
We have our own traditions at this time of the year. The “Castañada” consists in the time to eat chesnuts and sweet potatoes. The Hallowe’ens Eve we join all the family to celebrate the “Castañada” eating this kind of meals.
Unfortunately for us we think that if the consumer society considers that is better for business Hallowe’en than the “Castañada” we are going to lose our tradition.
Yes indeed, I would have to agree with you Toni. I’ve been living here for about fifteen years and I get a lot of enjoyment from the local traditions here. Only last week I ate castañas (roasted chestnuts) on a cold evening in the streets of Tolosa and really enjoyed them. Growing up in Ireland, I loved Hallowe’en. These traditions were part of our heritage, but importing this in order to encourage money spending is not something I would be happy about and less so if it means losing local traditions.
Hi everyone.
I love this article, it really remind me when I was a teenager, even a child.I used to celebrated this day with happiness.Even though in Spain is not this kind of celebration was still quite good.Of course nothing to compare about the way the article mentioned, but the way my group celebrated this day was dressing up with different clothes, from an animal to a girl to an old person ,etc. We went knocking doors in the neighbourhood doing trick or treat, more treat than trick unfortunately for them.Once we finished collecting all the money from the neighbours we spent it eating some sweets together.
In some regions in Spain we have a similar day that is ususally in February,it is CARNABAL and is unbelieveable the way those cities change to be prepared for those days, especially Tenerife and Cadiz.
I reckon a tradition like this shouldn´t be forgotten in Spain, just because is a different way to enjoy a good party and make everyone to be happy and enjoy the tradition.
Greetings
I like the way that the church and also the people integrate their pagan traditions with the religion.
It is important to keep our traditions, in Catalunya we have the Giants and Big Heads, that dance and say hallo to the children, it’s also a fantastic tradition, every village has a couple of Giants, with a group of people who are in charge of move and dance the Giants and also musicians.
My son explained to me a terrible joke related with Hallow’en: “someone had a friend so uggly that it was so dificult to find a good disguise” well my son is eight years old …
Hi,
When I was a child, we didn’t have the Hallowe’ en tradition here in Spain. It is very modern, and I think it is a influence of the USA movies, as Santa Claus and other north-american traditions. It is good to have traditions from other countries, but we don’t have to lose ours.
The origin of the feast is a pagan tradition, as a lot of actual feast, like the Carnivals, Saint John, etc…, and they are part of our culture, and for this we have to keep them.
But I think that the economic interests are also very important, and the people don’t distinguish between the tradition and the comercial world. The feast is losing the original meaning, and this is not good. It is the same case that Chritsmas.
Greetings.
Conchi Calvo
Well, it’s Hallowe’en tonight!
Thank you all for your comments on this week’s topic. It’s been interesting reading them. It looks like the barmbrack has just beaten trick or treat as the most popular Hallowe’en activity. Hmm. I wish I had a barmbrack now!
Happy Hallowe’en to all!
Joe
Happy Halloween from the Philippines! I bought plenty of candy to give away for trick or treat at about 3 pm, thinking that the kids would start their route at dusk. But no kids came! I had totally forgotten that, in the Philippines, trick or treat starts at noon. So now we have a pumpkin full of candy, which we will have to eat by ourselves!
I have always celebrated Halloween. As most Catholics do, long before the pagan festivities brought over by the Brits and the Irish.
For the real story behind the scenes: All Saints Day Eve