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Halloween is a favorite holiday for children in the United States, filled with candy, costumes, and scary props. However, Halloween hasn’t always been with us. It was brought to the United States with Irish immigrants in the mid-1800’s and has been celebrated in one form or other in Europe for over a thousand years.

Halloween has its roots in the European pagan festival of Samhain (pronounced “soween”- with the “sow” sounding like “cow”). Although Samhain had different names and slightly different observances in various parts of Europe, Samhain in general was considered to be the end of the growing season when it was time to store up meat and other foods for winter. At this change of season, Celtic pagans believed that the veil between the living and the dead was particularly thin and that the dead could come back on that one night only to communicate with the living. Steps were taken to ward off the evil dead spirits and tributes were laid out to welcome departed friends and family. Candles were lit and placed in West-facing windows and the window itself left open to encourage the dead to join in. Skulls were carved from turnips and other root vegetables and placed on windowsills to represent the dead. This custom, melded with the existing American custom of hollowing out pumpkins and lighting them with candles, has turned into the modern day jack o’lantern.

In the ninth century, Pope Gregory IV, as part of an ongoing effort to make Christianity more appealing to the pagans, moved the existing Christian celebration of All Saints’ Day (also known as All Hallow’s Day) from May 13 to November 1 in order to allow pagans to continue to celebrate on that day. The term Halloween (or more correctly, Hallowe’en) means All Hallow’s Eve. As All Hallow’s Day, like many early celebrations and observances, were celebrated from sundown to sunup, the night of October 31 was the beginning of the holy day.

Despite the Christian church’s attempt at revamping Samhain into a Christian holy day, many pagan traditions and symbols connected to Samhain exist today. Apples were traditionally used as a divination tool. A long apple peel was sliced from the fruit and thrown over one’s shoulder. The initial it made on the ground was the first letter of the name of the woman’s future husband. Crows were used as divination tools as well. The pattern of scatter when crows were chased told the diviner about future events. Wiccans and other neopagans still celebrate Samhain today with a variety of symbols and celebrations.

Today, Halloween parties are popular with adults. It is an opportunity to wear costumes and play traditional Halloween games like bobbing for apples. Halloween parties are often decorated with scary props, such as cobwebs, witches, and ghosts. Halloween parties are also becoming more common for children in the past decade as a safer alternative to knocking on strangers’ doors and asking for candy.

Ziggos
2142 South State Street. Suite B
Salt Lake City, UT 84115
888.494.4467