EVERY year around this time I hear the same smug remarks about Halloween.
“I don’t celebrate Halloween because it’s SO American!” or “we live in Australia so why do people celebrate Halloween?”
Well much to the surprise of all those haters out there, Halloween has a more medieval, religious and European history, with the Americanisation of Halloween only coming about within the last 100 years or so.
The version of Halloween we all celebrate today, by gorging ourselves silly on chocolate and lollies and dressing up in frightening zombie outfits, is a popular left over of more than 2000 years of cultural and historical mixing.
One of the earliest origins of Halloween comes from the 2000 year old Celtic festival of Samhain, when people would light huge bonfires, share epic feasts and dress up as saints, devils and angels to ward off the ghosts of the dead.
The festival of Samhain was a pagan celebration to mark the end of the harvest season and the beginning of the long, dark winter. The Celts often associated winter with death, so a festival to ward off any unwanted ghouls and ghosts was a highly superstitious and spiritual matter.
By 43 AD the Roman Catholic Empire had conquered all the Celtic lands of modern day Ireland, the UK and Northern France. Once the Romans had this new territory they then started installing their own festivals around the traditional Celtic ones including Samhain.
Across the next thousand years there was a slew of festivities and celebrations named in honour of the deceased, the martyred and the saints. Pope Gregory III marked November 1 as All Martyrs Day, a day which included bonfires, feasting and prayers, to include the traditional Celtic festival.
Around 1000 AD the Roman Empire wanted to irradiate all festivals which weren’t sacred and church- sanctioned so they created All Saints Day, on November 2 which replaced the Samhain festival.
Traditional elements of the former festivals merged with All Saints Day, or as it was known throughout England Alholowmesse, but the Celts rebelled and wanted to keep their own day of celebration so October 31 was named All-hallows Eve, which later translated into Halloween.
Across England, at this point of time, there was a wide sweeping famine which discriminated against the poorer classes. On Halloween, the last day of harvest, the poor would quite often beg for scraps, left overs and any excess produce from the harvest. This is considered one of the earliest incarnations of trick or treating.
In 1607, as English colonisation pushed its way into North America, all the traditions of European life made its way across the Atlantic and to the New World. Religious differences separated where Halloween could be celebrated with the staunch beliefs of the Protestants outlawing the festivities.
America became flooded with new immigrants as the 1846 Potato Famine took hold in Ireland, and with this wave of new settlers came a new wave of traditional Celtic cultures. As the Irish moved across North America they popularised the form of Halloween that we see today with parades, plays, costumes, trick or treating and parties.
Next time someone criticises you and yours for celebrating the very traditional, ancient and multicultural festivities of Halloween be proud like the Celts and rebel, because if you don’t take pride in your celebrations someone will try to turn it into something else.
This originally appeared in issue 21 of Western News and issue 186 of Nepean News.
Keegan Thomson Journalist 