Feature: A Short History of Halloween
From October Dreams, edited by Richard Chizmar & Robert Morrish (2001)
By Paula Guran

The farther we've gotten from the magic and mystery of our past, the more we've come to need Halloween. It's a festival of fantasy, a celebration of otherness, the one time each year when the mundane is overturned in favor of the bizarre, and anyone can become anyone or anything they wish. At its core, Halloween is a chance to confront our most primal fear -- death -- and attempt to control it or, at the very least, mock it. Ancient beliefs, religious meanings, a multitude of ethnic heritages, diverse occult traditions, and the continual influence of popular culture have combined to make Halloween a booming commercial industry as well as a beloved holiday.

Fed by phantasm and frivolity, Halloween nowadays generates a seriously spooktacular cash flow. How big has Halloween become? In the United States, only Christmas is bigger in terms of retail dollars spent. According to a 1999 survey by the International Mass Retail Association 82% of all Americans purchase candy, costumes, decorations, and other items for Halloween. In 1999, adults age 35-44 spent about $50 on average; those age 18-24 spent $42 on average; and adults age 25-34 spent $41 on average. A yearly estimate of $5 billion in Halloween sales doesn't even include income generated by local haunted attractions or the larger commercial endeavors like those staged at Universal Studios, Disney World, and Disneyland and other regional theme parks. Nor does the total take other purchases into account: leotards, fabric or other costume-making supplies; food and liquor sales for entertaining; florist shop merchandise, balloons (at least 18% of seasonal balloon sales come at Halloween), lingerie and magic shop sales. It also thought up to 75% of all sales in second-hand and retro clothing shops may be Halloween-related.

The essentially American holiday is now spreading to other countries. Canadians already celebrate with their neighbors to the south. England, Australia, and Japan are adopting American Halloween activities. In France, Yankee Halloween customs have become very popular in the last decade. Some French revelers point out, however, a conviction that Halloween is really Gallic in origin anyway and that America is just a jack-o-lantern come lately. Since France's ancestral Gauls were a Celtic tribe -- and the largest and wealthiest at that -- and Halloween's beginnings are probably Celtic... well, they have a point.

Festivals emphasizing the supernatural and death are common in almost all cultures. Modern Halloween is, at least, influenced by and probably originated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. About 500 -1,000 BC, the Celts -- who at the time populated Ireland, Scotland, Wales, England, Brittany, and northern France -- celebrated the first day of winter as their New Year. Winter began, in the climate of Northern Europe, in November. The end of summer marked radical change in the daily life of this pastoral people. The herds were brought down from the summer pastures in the hills, the best animals put to shelter, and the rest slaughtered. For the Celts, the period we now consider the end of October and start of November was a time of preparation, festival, and plenty before the coming of the long winter. As agriculture became a part of their lives, harvest time also became part of the seasonal activity. The communal celebration became known as "Samhain" (there are a number of variant spellings, including Samfuin, Samhuinn, Samain). Linguistically, the word evidently simply combines the Gaelic words "sam" for "end" and "fuin" for "summer" -- End of Summer. Samhain may have just been one night -- October 31 -- or it may have stretched out over three days -- October 31, November 1, and November 2.

Although the bounty of nature and the natural change of seasons were important aspects of Samhain, it was also a festival of the supernatural. Samhain was the turning point of the year for a people who believed that even minor "turning points" -- the change from one day to the next, the meeting of sea and shore -- were magical. The turning of the year was the most powerful and sacred of such junctures. The worlds of the living and of the dead were very close to one another at Samhain, the veil between the two at its thinnest. The living could communicate with those who had gone beyond; the dead could visit the living. In Celtic times, the dead were not considered evil or particularly dreaded so much as consulted and honored as ancestral spirits and guardians of the wisdom of the tribe. Celtic priests, the Druids, contacted the dead in order to divine the future and make predictions for the community. [In Halloween lore of the last two centuries or so, references are made to "Samhain" as a deity or Celtic "Lord of the Dead." There is no evidence for such a god. The fallacy seems to have arisen in the 1770s before improved translation of Celtic literary work and modern archeology. It can be traced to the writings of a Col. Charles Vallency (who, for some reason, was trying to prove that the Irish originally came from Armenia) and then was later perpetuated by Lady Jane Francesca Wilde (Oscar's mum) in her mid-nineteenth century book Irish Cures, Mystic Charms and Superstitions. It has gone on to be unquestioningly and inaccurately repeated in many sources over the years.]

Although possibly later developed as post-Christian mythology, the Celts may have believed in faeries or similar magical creatures. They did not believe in demons or devils, but they may well have had these not-so-nice entities to deal with. Resentful of humans taking over the world, the faerie-folk were often thought to be hostile and dangerous. During the magical time of Samhain the faeries were even more powerful than usual. Humans might be lured astray by faeries. These unfortunates would then be lost in the fairy mounds and trapped forever.

Faeries or their kind weren't the only ones causing mischief. The yearly turning point was also seen as a suspension of ordinary space and time. For order and structure to be maintained for the rest of the year, chaos would reign during Samhain. Humans indulged in cross-gender dressing, tricks, and highjinks. On the practical side, such behavior was an outlet for high spirits before the confining winter came. We know very little of Druidic religious rituals, but we do know Samhain was one of four "Fire Festivals" of the Celts. Hearth fires were extinguished to symbolize the coming "dark half" of the year, then re-lit from Druidic fires to signify the return and continuance of life. Bonfires were also part of this observance.

Halloween can't really be considered a direct outgrowth of ancient Celtic practices. Other cultural elements -- including various harvest festivals -- eventually became part of Halloween custom. Over the centuries traditions have been both correctly and incorrectly attributed to the Celts. Sometimes this has been done with an appreciation of the ancient ways. But, more often, cultural-centrism and historic revisionism so colored thinking that a the past was unfairly interpreted. Early Christian missionaries intentionally identified contact with the supernatural as experiences originating with the Devil and inherently evil. The Druids, since they adhered to "false gods" were, therefore, worshippers of Satan. Later religious prejudice also lumped pagans in Sata- worship and the resulting misinformation has been further propitiated. (For that matter, as we shall see, animosity between Catholics and Protestants resulted in the alteration of some Halloween lore.)

As with other pre-Christian practices, Samhain was eventually absorbed by the Church. In AD 609 or 610, May 13 was designated as a day to honor the Virgin Mary and the martyred saints. In the eighth century, Pope Gregory III (731-741 then fixed November 1 as the anniversary for all saints (including the martyrs). October 31 became All Hallows' Eve [Hallowmas or Halloween], the evening before All Hallows Day [All Saints Day] on November 1. (The word "hallow" was used in the Middle ages as a synonym for "saint.") Gregory IV (827-844) extended the celebration of All Hallows Day to the entire Church.

The old beliefs did not die out so easily and just honoring saints was not enough to replace the notion of a time of year when the dead could travel the earth. A more abstract holiday commemorating all the faithful departed on November 2 began to be marked as early as the ninth century. although Odilo, abbot of Cluny (d. 1048) actually instituted the date. By the end of the thirteenth century, it was accepted by the entire Church.

Not only did the Church give the holiday its popular name, it also sanctified the custom of remembering the dead on the eve on November 1. Other pagan traditions and religious practices were adapted by the Church and readapted by the people. "Soul cakes" were baked and given to the town's poor in exchange for their prayers for the dead. Eventually young men and boys went "souling" from house to house, singing and asking for food, ale and money rather than cakes. The church encouraged parishioners to dress as saints, angels and devils as part of All Saints Day. Spirits of the dead and the supernatural, now associated with evil and the devil, became something to fear. Gifts of food and drink once meant to welcome the dead were now offered to keep them away. Bonfires were now lit to frighten the devil.

On October 31, 1517 Martin Luther, intending to stir debate, posted his Ninety-five Theses on the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church. (An occasion still marked in Lutheran churches on Reformation Sunday.) The religious reformation he sparked eventually did away with the celebration of Halloween for many Europeans. Reformation Protestants did away with the observance of saints' days and without the "hallows" one can not have All Hallows' Eve.

The English, however, managed to preserve some of the secular traditions of the holiday with Guy Fawkes Day. (In 1605 a group English Roman Catholics conspired to blow up Parliament, King James I, and his heir on November 5. They evidently hoped that in the confusion following, the English Catholics could take over the country. What came to be known as the Gunpowder Plot was foiled and in January 1606 Parliament established November 5 as a day of public thanksgiving. The day became known as Guy Fawkes Day for a conspirator who was arrested and, under torture, revealed the names of the other plotters.) Guy Fawkes Day borrowed a great many of the traditions used to mark Halloween that had fallen just six days before. Bonfires, pranks, begging, and dressing in costume became part of the occasion. In some parts of England, the festivities were virulently anti-Catholic.

In the seventeenth century, immigrants brought a variety of traditions, beliefs, customs, and superstitions to what would later become the United States of America. The Puritan influence in New England left little room for any form of Halloween. Guy Fawkes Day (and its attendant anti-Catholicism), however, was celebrated until the Revolution. The Puritans also brought their fear of witchcraft and a history of persecuting witches to the colonies. Anglican settlers in Virginia brought not only commemoration of saints days, but a typically seventeenth century English belief in the occult. Many Germans who settled in the tolerant Quaker-run state of Pennsylvania had pronounced supernatural beliefs and mystical ideas. Catholics in Maryland and other colonies retained their Halloween-connected religious traditions. Spanish Catholic influence was felt in Florida. African slaves imported a belief in an active spirit world into the southern colonies Post-revolutionary America saw the popularization of harvest "play parties." These community get-togethers were non-religious and -- unlike similar task-oriented fall convenings for sorghum-making, corn husking, apple picking and paring, and the like -- were just for fun. The early autumn parties often featured fortune-telling games played with apples and nuts (both seasonally plentiful) and the telling of spooky tales. A tradition of mischief-making on the night of October 31 was common in some communities as well.

Almost 7.4 million new immigrants from all over the world came to the United States between 1820 and 1870 and each nationality brought its own traditions and customs. In the early nineteenth century, Cubans and Haitians fleeing unrest in the Caribbean strengthened the Voudoun culture in the South and mixed new mythologies of the dead, witchcraft, and divination into the Halloween cauldron. Spanish and Mexican Catholic traditions of the Day of the Dead were strong in the Southwest. But the Irish had the greatest influence by far on the overall celebration of American Halloween. (From 1825 to 1845, Irish famines drove 700,000 Irish Catholics to the U.S. Another 300,000 entered between 1847 and 1854.)

In County Cork, All Hallows was marked with a mummers' procession of young men claiming to be followers of "Muck Olla" (a boar from Irish folk tales). Led by Lair Bhain (white mare) who wore a horse's head and white robes, the group went from house to house noisily beseeching householders to impart food, drink, or money in return for a promise of prosperity in the coming year. Similar masquerades were popular in other Irish locales.

Young Irish women and girls marked the night with various methods of telling the future. The divinations most commonly foretold the identity of future spouses or one's destiny in love.

Irish villagers had used carved-out turnips and occasionally beets -- abundant in late autumn -- to make cheap lanterns with which to light their way as the evenings darkened toward winter. (The term "jack-o-lantern" first appeared in print in 1750. It referred to a night watchman or a man carrying a lantern.) Some say these vegetable lights were carved or painted with scary faces to frighten the spirits away on Halloween. In the U.S. the pumpkin took the place of the turnip. By the 1880s upper and middle class Victorian Americans thought of Halloween as a quaint holiday brought to America by genteel English. This seems to have been the result of the popular fiction and articles in children's and ladies' periodicals of the day. They downplayed Irish Catholic connections and provided social tips on entertaining. Although they also downplayed death and magic, they reveled in divination -- especially that involving romance. Parlor games (such as bobbing for apples, jumping over candle sticks and the like) and Halloween parties were intended for Victorian adults, not children. Halloween was seen as an occasion for matchmaking more than fright. Ghost stories in the ladies' magazines became less involved with ghosts and more inclined to be tales of love with mildly Gothic trappings.

By the beginning of the twentieth century, middle class Halloween became more of a children's holiday full of harmless amusements. Parties, scavenger hunts and other games became the focus. Scary and eerie elements were sanitized into safe, folkloric fun.

Among the lower classes, however, Halloween remained a night of rough mischief. It became an increasingly destructive way to for poor city dwellers to vent their frustrations. By the 1920s vandalism was no longer confined to tipping over outhouses and soaping windows. Severe property damage, fires, and cruelty to animals and people became all too common. Local civic groups mobilized to deal with the "Halloween problem." Various charitable and community activities -- raking leaves, neighborhood clean-ups, property improvements -- were organized with young participants treated to parties as a reward. Children were encouraged to go door to door and receive treats instead of making trouble. By the 1930s these "beggar's nights" were practiced all over the country. The "trick-or-treat" greeting first appeared in print in 1939.

But vandalism and destruction -- particularly in crowded urban areas like Detroit, Chicago, New York -- continued to grow through-out the 30s. Halloween was already endangered in some areas when World War II made such activities even more seriously frowned upon. The Chicago City Council banned Halloween for the duration of the war, substituting "Conservation Day" in its stead. Single-minded community intolerance of wasteful destruction and vigilance curtailed vandalism in other communities. Although some communities did away with officially sanctioning Halloween, most saw the holiday as an opportunity for morale-building. Even though some festivities were altered due to war shortages, substitutions and innovation made for wartime Halloween celebrating.

After the war, civic leaders continued their campaigns for "safe and sane" Halloween activities. Halloween became, more and more during the 40s and 50s, a holiday for children to enjoy rather than one for pranksters. In the 50s, the impetus moved back to school and family activities. Trick-or-treating became a nationwide custom. Its implied threat became less and less a reality in most communities; in others the "tricks" were relegated to a Mischief Night and the "treats" to Halloween itself.

By the 1960s, when most Americans were no longer particularly frightened by supernatural entities, a new element arose: the fear of sadistic or deranged adults intent on harming children. These "urban legends" were originally given impetus by incidents with some truth, but no real malicious intent. In the mid-sixties, the fear was of poisoned candy. In 1967 the focus became the threat of razors and sharp objects hidden in apples (and later candy). In 1973-74, completely unfounded rumors of a Satanic cults plotting to kidnap and sacrifice children on Halloween arose. These new legends altered Halloween celebrations. Trick-or-treat was banned entirely in some areas; safety factors and "safe" festivities were stressed.

Some conservative fundamentalist Christian groups also began to come out against celebrating Halloween in the 70s. Ironically, many churches had, in the 30s, 50s and 60s, sponsored "wholesome" community Halloween activities. Some of the anti-Halloween propaganda from these groups also tended toward anti-Catholicism. In the 90s some public schools reacted to parental concerns about Halloween -- sometimes linked to promoting violence and violent images -- by substituting "Harvest Festivals" for Halloween celebrations.

In some parts of the world, All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day are still important days of religious observance and in the U.S. there is still something of a Christian religious aspect to the holiday as marked by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and Episcopalians. Modern Wiccans and other neopagans consider Samhain a major holiday. But Halloween as we now know it is a secular holiday with no religious significance for most. One organization, The Halloween Association, even promotes the change of the celebration of Halloween to the last Saturday in October, citing practical, safety, and merchandising advantages. In many ways, modern Halloween has actually become two separate celebrations. One is child-oriented and evolves around masquerade, parties, family-oriented events (hayrides, not-very-scary haunted houses, and pumpkin patches), and trick-or-treating -- even if the latter is sometimes restricted, adult-controlled, and made entirely "safe." At the same time, many of the negative myths that arose in the previous three decades were, by the end of the 90s, beginning to be debunked by the media.

Halloween marketing began to shift toward adults in the 70s. By 1980, a quarter of adults aged 18 to 40 wore costumes; by 1986, it was around 60%. Halloween is now the third biggest "party day" (after New Year's and Super Bowl Sunday) of the year. Adults celebrate it not only at home, but in the work environment and retail and entertainment outlets. Haunted attractions -- from local charity-run haunted locations to more extravagant for-profit attractions and even major commercial theme parks -- now number in the thousands. Although some cater to youngsters, most are aimed at scaring teens and young adults. There are now "virtual haunted houses" online and hundreds of Web sites -- ranging from mild to intense. Many homes are decorated with Halloween lights and displays. You'll also now find educational events with a Halloween theme -- parks, zoos, museums, and nature study facilities educating both adults and children about traditionally scary creatures likes owls, spiders, snakes and bats; ghost-tours related to historic locations and events; some older cemeteries even use Halloween as an excuse to nurture an appreciation of history. "Trick or Treat for UNICEF" is no longer the only charitable event using Halloween for a good cause. There are blood drives with vampires, programs to collect used costumes to allow homeless and disadvantaged children to dress up for the holiday, balls to raise funds for AIDS research, and more.

Fall celebrations of life and death are common in most cultures. The way modern folks relate to the dead, the supernatural, their fears, and their futures has changed. For Americans, Halloween has manifested itself as an important -- if still unofficial -- holiday. We are just now beginning to seriously investigate its history and antecedents even as we adapt it to an ever-changing society and devise new traditions and customs with which to celebrate. What we do at Halloween -- and what it does for us -- various from individual to individual and group to group depending on our beliefs, backgrounds, sexual orientation, even employment.

There are certain rites of passage associated with Halloween as well. As we progress through different stages in life, we relate to Halloween in different ways. The day comes when we are "too old" for trick-or-treat, but that may mean we are ready for more adult activities. Like the Victorians, young and single adults often mix the modern equivalent of "match-making" with Halloween celebration. As we become parents ourselves, we pass on traditions, give out the treats, and make the costumes: we become responsible for supplying some of the magic ourselves. At the same time, we discover we still have a need to be, for just one night, something other than what we usually are. Instead of becoming gatekeepers for a new generation, some adults extend the fantasy of Halloween far past the perimeters of age.

Whatever its history, Halloween is anything but a dead tradition. It is, perhaps, more alive and more meaningful now than ever before.