The last day of October is celebrated as Halloween or All Hallows’ Eve is many countries of the world. The visible part of this holiday are children who ask for sweets or “threaten” with tricks if no treats are given, adults dressed in many different masks costumes, candles burning in carved pumpkins. New York, for instance, will hold its thirty fourth annual Halloween dog parade this year…
Halloween, with its spooky parties, masks, costumes and other fun activities are often called the second most commercialised holiday after Christmas. Expenses go up every year. Ten years ago – in 2014 – Americans planned to spend approximately three billion dollars on Halloween celebration. This year, on the other hand, the costs will reach eleven billion dollars. The holiday is celebrated very ambitiously. The annual “Village Halloween” parade in New York gathers more than 50 000 “zombies”, “ghosts”, “witches” and other spooks every year without fail. The parade usually has a theme. This year it’s “meow”, so it’s not difficult to imagine what most people participating will be dressed as. (Cats are well-known companions of witches, after all). As organisers say – all purring ladies are more than welcome to put on car ears, tails and whiskers and join the parade… Admission is free of charge, but costumes are mandatory.
Another traditional event is the annual Halloween dog parade at Tompkins Square, which will be taking place for the 34th time. The show hosts call it the largest dog show in the world, with hundreds of dogs competing for a multi-thousand dollar cash prize for the best costume in various categories. This year, for the first time since the beginning of the event, the parade of dogs dressed in gorgeous costumes had an official route, as Tompkins Square has since become very narrow for about 15 000 people and 600 dogs.
BNN decided to look into the history of Halloween and how it was adopted from Celts and changed by Americans
Sunrise celebration – Samhain
It is thanks to the ancient Celts and the Christian church that Halloween of today features spooks, witches, skeletons, carved pumpkins, sweets and tricks. Americans made their contribution to all of this much, much later.
In reality, Celts and Baltis had a tradition similar to Halloween long before our era. They celebrated the end of summer – Samhain and believed that at this time once a year the gate to their world beyond and the dead come to visit the living. The people still held the belief that on this night there are all sorts of demons and spirits that prowl around. To scare them off, Celts would dress up in masks made from leaves, twigs, animal skins, bones and horns. Druids would make animal sacrifices (sometimes even criminals sentenced to death) to appease the spirits, lit enormous fires. The people lit lights in their homes to prevent misfortune. The Celts would also leave food outside and on roads so that the dead and demons would not come to the house to eat. Villagers, dressed in masks, went on marches to drive evil spirits out of the village.
The foundation of All Hallows’ Eve
In 609, Pope Boniface IV established a Catholic holiday celebrated on the 13th of May by the Western Church – All Saints’ Day. Later, Pope Gregory III included all the saints, as well as all the martyrs, and moved the celebration from the 13th of May to the 1st of November. From there also “Eve of All Saints”.
This day is characterized by large bonfires, solemn marches in which people dressed up as saints, angels and devils, as well as mystery performances of a religious nature. The church urged to commemorate the departed not with sacrifice, but with prayers, and taught the parishioners to bake small sweet buns – so-called “Bread of the Dead”. These buns were then distributed among the poor, who were expected to pray for the souls of their loved ones in return. This tradition became popular in time, and children started coming from door to door, singing and asking for food and money. In 998, this day was officially recorded in the Church Book.
How a turnip turned into a pumpkin
The symbol of Halloween – the carved up pumpkin – was a turnip at the beginning. This tradition has its roots in an old Irish legend about “Stingy Jack” and how he outsmarted the Devil but was forced to roam the land for all eternity, not allowed to enter Heaven (because of his sinful lifestyle) or Hell (because of the deal struck with the Devil) with only lantern made from a carved-up turnip to light his way.
It should be noted that in the past people living in the Irish countryside often used lanterns made of turnip or beetroot to light their way.
The legend about Jack and his lantern later made it to America with Irish immigrants. Apparently, at some point, the Irish were impressed with pumpkins – their size and the ease with which its skin is peeled from its fleshy parts. And so at some point Jack’s turnip was replaced with a pumpkin.
The era of Halloween vandalism
In the 50s of the nineteenth century, when there was a famine in Ireland, many were forced to go to America, and Halloween came with the immigrants. Americans liked this tradition, but at first the whole celebration turned into a real hooliganism – maddened party-goers burned trees, demolished the neighbourhood, knocked down sheds and animal enclosures. Youngsters wearing masks would damage cars, threw eggs at each other – the spirit of Halloween took on a truly terrifying look. Some of the “tricks” played on people on Halloween took on a much more nefarious nature. One story details that on the 31st of October, 1879, a passenger train in Kentucky was forced to an emergency stop because the train’s operator noticed what he thought was a man lying on the railway track. When he came close to the “figure”, it turned out it as just a straw-filled figure. Shortly after making this discovery, the man heard loud laughter from nearby bushes – young boys happy that their “Halloween trick” was such a success.
As time went on, however, the holiday gradually became calmer – the celebration even became popular in the high society. Halloween celebration followed a special scenario in many homes in America. Wealthy Americans would compete with one another with decorations and costumes, meals and various activities. In 1936, parades with thousands of attendees even began in downtown New York City on Manhattan Park’s Central Alley. But then the Second World War began, and all kinds of celebrations were briefly forgotten.
Halloween enters the “sweet era”
Halloween celebration was officially cancelled during the war. It made a comeback after the war, and in 1947 the US government even allocated funding specifically to buy children free movie tickets on Halloween day. Halloween celebration gradually moved from streets to homes and schools. Children imagined different ways they could be scared, and adults came up with all kinds of wonders for them to enjoy. Then came the tradition of coming over to neighbours for “trick or treating”, all kinds of “haunted houses”, costumes and masks appeared. Americans managed to turn a celebration into commercialised entertainment, in which children are the main audience. No more vandalism. By the way, there is no historical reason for sweets – it comes from the heads of US officials who decided to direct the overflowing energy of children towards a peaceful and sweet pastime.
Trick or treat! The world celebrates Halloween
