Short History of Halloween

2. The origins of Halloween date back 2,000 years to
an ancient Celtic festival of
SAMHAIN.

3. The festival
(Samhain) marked
the end of Summer
and the beginning of
the cold, dark
winter…at time often
marked by death.
Most commonly, it
was held on October
31st to November 1st.

4. The ancient Gaels believed
that on October 31, the
boundaries between the
worlds of the living and the
dead overlapped and the
deceased would come back to
life and cause havoc such as
sickness or damaged crops…
So the people wore
costumes to protect their
identities from the spirits

5. When the Celts were conquered
by the Roman Empire, the
influence of Christianity began
to permeate the Celtic rituals
and beliefs. Christian
missionaries and higher Roman
Catholic officials declared the
festival of Samhain to be evil,
and sought ways to change
the festival to become more
Christian-oriented. In the 7th
century, Pope Boniface IV
proclaimed November 1st as
“All Saints Day”, which was
also known as “All Hallows” or
“All Hallowmas”. From this
came the name “Halloween”.

6. The ancient traditions were
deeply ingrained into the
Celts, however, and were
hard to completely
obliterate. As a compromise,
the Roman Catholic Church
eventually created “All Souls
Day”, to be celebrated on
November 2nd, and deemed
it a day to pray for and
honor the dead.

7. Many people today do not
realize that this is the
tradition they are
following when they give
gifts of candy to the
“ghosts and goblins” that
come knocking on their
doors on Halloween night.
Of course, from the
festival of Sanhaim
comes the tradition of
the Halloween party,
where guests come
dressed in their favorite
Halloween costumes.

8. The tradition of carving pumpkins for
Halloween decoration originated from the
ancient Irish story of “Stingy Jack”, who
tricked the devil into promising that he
would not take Jack’s soul to hell when he
died. Upon his death, Jack was unable to
enter heaven due to the life of cruelty
and selfishness that he had led, and was
also unable to enter hell due to the devil’s
promise. Cursed forever to walk in the
darkness between heaven and hell, Jack
took an ember from hell that the devil
gave him and placed it inside a hollowed-
out turnip to use as a lamp. Thus was
born the “Jack-o-Lantern”. Eventually
people discovered that it was easier to
carve out pumpkins to serve as
commemorative Jack-o-Lanterns on
Halloween.