Halloween

Halloween is a date celebrated on the night of October 31^st. It is a celebration that is mostly practiced in United States and Canada where children would wear costumes and go to the people’s homes saying the phrase: “Trick or Treat!” to ask for candy or sweets, then the people would give it to them. This practice originally involved a threat. A threat is a statement indicating the possibility of something harmful that is about to happen. In this case, a threat could be explained as: “Give me a treat or I will play a trick on you.” However, children today usually do not play tricks even though they do not get any treats, although there are also some children who do play pranks to make fun of people. In addition, some people, other than kids, also dress up as ghosts, witches, or other scary creatures for Halloween.

The origins of Halloween started with the pagan holiday Samhain and was largely based on the Celtic religious traditions. About 2, 000 years ago, lived a group of people called the Celts. The Celts’ lives revolved around growing their food and they considered the end of the year to be the end of harvest season. So they celebrated new year’s eve each year on October 31^st, the celebration was called Samhain, named after their Lord of the Dead. Samhain was presided over by Celtic priest called Druids. To celebrate Samhain, the Druids built huge sacred bonfires around which the Celts gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to their ancient gods. During that celebration the Celts dressed up in costumes consisting of animal heads and skins.

Back then, winter was the time of year that was associated with human death. The Celts believed that in the night that marked the end of summer and the beginning of winter, the boundary between worlds of the living and the dead will blur, allowing ghosts of the dead to return to earth. They also thought that the presence of ghosts made it easier for the Druids to predict the future.

Eventually, the Celts were conquered by the romans and about the year 43 A.D., two roman festivals were combined with the Celtic Samhain festival. The first roman festival was called Feralia, a day in late October when the romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second day was a day to honor Pomona, the roman goddess of fruit and trees. By 800 A.D., the influence of Christianity spread into the Celtic lands. In the seventh century, the Celtic festival was replaced with a church-sanctioned holiday by Pop Boniface IV designated on November 1st which was known as All Saints’ Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs. The combined and updated celebration was also called All-hallows and the night before it began to be called All-hallows Eve and eventually, Halloween.