The Cauldron

Issue date: 10/27/08 Section: Feature

The Ancient Origins of Halloween

Halloween's constantly evolving traditions originated about 2,000 years ago in the Celtic culture that thrived in what is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France.

Oct. 31 marked the end of the Celtic year and the annual ancient festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in). This event celebrated the end of both the summer and the harvest. It was a pivotal time for early pagans whose lives were so closely linked to the land.

Perhaps more closely linked to modern concepts of Halloween, the time also marked the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time often associated with human death. During the night of Samhain, the boundary between the living and the dead was thought to become blurred. Celts believed ghosts returned to Earth at this time to cause trouble and damage crops.

In order to lessen the mischief of the dead, they lit huge bonfires and burned crops and animals for sacrifice. During these ceremonies, they wore costumes usually consisting of animal heads and skins.

By 43 AD, Romans had conquered much of the Celtic territory. The conquerors merged Samhain with two customs of their own. The first, called Feralia, commemorated the dead. The second tradition honored Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. Her symbol was an apple, and this explains the inclusion of apple-bobbing during many autumn festivals.

In 800 AD, Pope Boniface IV tried to replace all of these fall rituals with All Saints' Day on November 1, in honor of saints and martyrs. The night before became known as All-Hallows Eve, which was eventually shortened to Halloween.

Two centuries later, the Catholic Church named November 2 All Souls' Day, and citizens began dressing up as saints, angels, and devils to honor Catholic beliefs.

Eventually, the three day period from October 31-November 2, which included the eve of All Saints' Day, All Saints' Day, and All Souls' Day, became known collectively as Hallowmas.

When European immigrants settled in North America, their differing ethnic customs merged with aspects of Native American cultures to form a Halloween holiday unique to America.

In its early days, Americans celebrated with costume parties, where they often played fortune telling games. These frequently focused on determining which of a young woman's suitors she would marry.

At the turn of the twentieth century, there was a push away from superstition and the occult to make Halloween a more neighborhood-oriented event. By the 1950's, the holiday was largely for children.

Over the next few decades, the holiday once again became popular among adults. Halloween is now the second largest commercial holiday in the country, with Americans spending $6.9 billion each year.

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Scare Tactics

Each fall, when trees erupt into torches of burning orange and red leaves, the days become concoctions of gray skies and chilly breezes, and Halloween rolls around, it seems that you can't rush quickly enough to take a hike through a pitch-black haunted forest, inevitably teeming with chainsaw murderers and mental hospital escapees, or to Blockbuster to rent 90 minutes of blood, gore and suspense. year round, we go skydiving, ride roller coasters, partake in the stock market, take turns so fast in our cars that we leave marks on the pavement -- all just to feel that rush of adrenaline.

Blood-pounding, nail-biting, heart-in-your-throat rush of adrenaline.

Why do we want to relive that primal feeling of fight or flight? Why do we watch helpless victims be decapitated from the safe, cozy cushions of our couch, or take a two-minute thrill ride from inside trains that have been tediously tested and retested, that we know will never fall off the tracks?

We want to have our cake and eat it too. We're compelled to feel as if we could die any second, even though we are the proprietors of vanilla-flavored lifestyles. Something inside us craves danger - even if it's just vicarious. If something gets too scary or too realistic, it can be gone with the click of a remote. Our lives are so redundant, so expected and so nauseatingly innocuous that we crave a taste of the dark side of life. Just as blazer-wearing female CEO's are secret sexual deviants in bed, our obsessively calculated lives can lead us to desire that forbidden side of the human instinct.

A New York entrepreneur recently began a company that offers a personalized kidnapping experience. You can arrange the day, time and place of your kidnapping, whether they will tie you up or use duct tape, what they'll be wearing, and where they'll hold you hostage. Honestly. People pay thousands of dollars for this. They even have gift certificates available.

We want to know how far we can be pushed. How much can we watch without covering our eyes and just how long can we stare into the face of death? Halloween gives us the chance to flirt with death and create a psychological dominatrix out of our greatest fears. So sure, I'll continue watching slashers and going to Cedar Point every year. Is it the false sense of bravery, or catharsis that makes being scared worth it?

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Halloween Around the World

Día de los Muertos
In Mexico, Latin America, and Spain, Nov. 2 is known as "The Day of the Dead" and marks the end of a three-day celebration beginning on Oct. 31. During this period, it is believed the dead returned to their earthly homes.

Families build altars in their homes honoring deceased loved ones. These altars contain candy, flowers, and photographs of the deceased, along with the favorite foods and drinks of the dead relatives.

Believing these lost relatives actually attend the festivities, a wash basin and towel are also set up so that the spirits can wash before their feast. Candles and incense are then used to guide the dead back to the underworld.

On the final day, "The Day of the Dead," relatives carefully groom and decorate the gravesites of loved ones.

Children often decorate and eat skulls made out of sugar.

The celebration culminates in a picnic at the gravesite, where the family reminisces about those they have lost.

Guy Fawkes Day
In England, the celebration of All Saints' Day was halted after Martin Luther's Protestant Reformation, because many citizens no longer believed in saints.

On November 5, 1606, a new autumn holiday, Guy Fawkes Day, was created when English traitor Guy Fawkes was executed. Fawkes, a Catholic, attempted to blow up parliament in opposition of King James, a Protestant.

After his death, The English began the tradition of burning effigies of Fawkes, along with symbolic bones of the pope, in large bonfires.

Two centuries later, it had become more common to instead use effigies of the pope himself.

Today, English children still carry around small effigies called "guys." They go door-todoor asking for "a penny for the guy." This is the closest tradition the modern English have to trick-or-treating.

Halloween, Irish-style
In Ireland, Halloween is still celebrated much like in America, but with a few unique customs.

One such tradition is "snap-apple," where an apple is hung by a string in a doorway. Players try to take a bite out of it without using their hands.

A popular game at children's parties is the hiding of candy and coins under facedown playing cards. Children get to keep the prize underneath whichever card they end up selecting.

The Irish also eat "barnbrack," a fruitcake with a wrapped toy baked inside. Superstition says that the particular toy an eater gets can tell their future. For instance, a ring means they will soon be wed, while a piece of straw signifies a prosperous coming year.

A trick that Irish children often play on Halloween is called "knock-a-dolly." Similar to American pranks, it involves knocking on someone's door and running away before they answer.

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Top Local Spots to Hit for Halloween:

- Seven Floors of Hell - The Berea Fairgrounds is transformed every year for this event. Only one ticket for a total of seven houses: Scarecrow's Revenge, a haunted corn maze made of 10,000 stalks, Camp Nightmare, House of Nightmares, a haunted mansion and laboratory, the Cemetery, The Crypt, CarnEvil in 3-D, and The Butcher Shop.

- Mansfield Reformatory - The prison used for multiple blockbuster hits, including Shawshank Redemption and Air Force One, is turned into "Prison of the Evil Dead" September through November, where the site's rumored hauntings are brought to life with actors and special effects.

- Lake View Cemetery - The grounds where the ghosts of James A. Garfield, the Collinwood School Fire victims, Eliot Ness, John D. Rockefeller, and John Hay supposedly roam. It's said that Garfield plays a game of chess with Rockefeller, using tombstones as pieces, to explain the moving gravestones around the cemetery.

- Franklin Castle - An old mansion in Ohio City houses some of the darkest mysteries around Cleveland. The house was built by Hannes Tiedemann in 1865, and a rash of family deaths led to the urban legend that the father was killing them all. Chock full of hidden passages, underground tunnels, and rooms discovered full of baby skeletons, who knows how much is myth and how much is true?

- Haunted Cleveland - This tour team will take you to all of the sites where the Cleveland Torso Murderer's 12 victims were found. Decapitated and dismembered by the "Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run," many remain unidentifiable. Also included is a private tour of the Cuyahoga County Coroner's Office and the Cleveland Police Museum.

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