What is the Origin of Halloween?

First off, let's dispel any rumors. I'm not "oh great one", just a guy who types really fast. I still put my pants on one leg at a time, when I'm not tripping, stumbling and ultimately falling on my face during the attempt! :-)

Halloween has a very interesting history, though, that involves some of my favorite cultures and historical places, so let's dig into the story of All Hallow Even, shall we?

First off, the holiday of Halloween originated with the Celts as a pagan harvest and seasonal change festival called Samhain. Separately, Pope Gregory III, head of the Christian church back in the eight century, moved the Christian festival of All Hallows Day or All Saints Day from May 13 to November 1 to mark the dedication of the All Saints Chapel in Rome. The serendipity of two days in a row focused on the dead helped make Halloween an important festival, but most likely the Pope had no clue about pagan Celtic festivals when he picked that particular date for the "day after Halloween" festival.

Before you start worrying about sullying your immortal soul celebrating some pagan ritual, however, it's worth pointing out that paganism is completely distinct from anyting satanic, other than according to the most evangelic of communities. In fact, the word "pagan" actually means "one who worships something other than the God of Abraham." Today it's more generally accepted to refer to spiritual practices of shamanism, animism or polytheism (which mean an ability to form a relationship with spirits and channel them, the belief that everything is alive and has a soul, and, finally, belief in more than one god or goddess).

Okay, so back to Halloween!

The Celts believed that the last day of October marked the end of summer and the beginning of winter, the beginning of killing livestock to prepare meat, and, most importantly, the date marked the day when the boundary between the living and the dead became blurred. Common practices seem to have included lighting bonfires and marking boundaries across which malicious spirits were prevented from crossing. Sounds like a typical frat party to me.

According to History.com: "During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other's fortunes. When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter."

Halloween didn't make it to the United States until the late 19th Century and it wasn't until the 1930's that door-to-door begging became a popular practice. Interestingly, Halloween is now celebrated in a similar fashion in the United Kingdom, but that's only been in the last fifty years or so. It's not really celebrated anywhere else in the world, albeit there are occasional Halloween parties in Australia, New Zealand, and other English-influenced nations.

As Wikipedia says: "Commonly-associated Hallowe'en characters include ghosts, aliens, ghouls, witches, bats, owls, crows, vultures, haunted houses, pumpkinmen, black cats, spiders, goblins, zombies, mummies, skeletons, werewolves, and demons. Particularly in America, symbolism is inspired by classic film, such as fictional figures like Dracula and Frankenstein's monster in the vein of Boris Karloff and Alfred Hitchcock. Homes are often decorated with these symbols around Hallowe'en."

Trick or treat!