Throughout the past two months many fall festivities have occurred to welcome autumn. The biggest festival is finally here– Halloween. It is the time for costumes, carving jack-o-lanterns, and trick-or-treating. This popular holiday is celebrated all around the country and world, but how exactly did Halloween start? Who were the first people who celebrated it? How did America start celebrating it?

The origins of Halloween actually date back to a celebration that took place about two thousand years ago. The Celts, a people who lived in present Day Ireland, United Kingdom and northern France, celebrated a holiday called Samhain. This holiday marked the end of the summer harvest season and the beginning of a harsh and cold winter.

Samhain was celebrated the day before the Celts’ new year, November 1st. They believed that on the eve of their new year ghosts and other spirits crossed into the living world. There were many superstitious rituals conducted by Druids, or Celtic priests, to drive away the spirits from haunting the people and ruining their crops. Some of the rituals include giving sacrifices to the gods to protect the Celtic people during the winter and wearing animal skin costumes to disguise themselves to avoid attacks from ghosts. Samhain was also a time for predicting how long winter would last and how the next harvest season would do.

Later, after the Roman Empire took over the territory of the Celts, the traditions of Samhain blended with the Romans’ own holiday for the dead, Feralia. It also blended with the Romans’ tradition of honoring the fruit goddess, Pomona, whose symbol was an apple. This is where the tradition of bobbing for apples today could have started.

During the reign of the Roman Empire, the Pope made November 1st All Saints’ Day, a day to celebrate all christian saints and martyrs. All Saints’ Day was also known as All-Hallows (from the latin Alholowmeese for All Saints’ Day) and the day before it was known as All-Hallows Eve, or Halloween.

The Romans also named November 2nd All Souls’ Day, a day to remember the dead. During this day people would give food to the homeless and children. They would give out “Soul cakes” and ale. This would eventually be kept as the tradition today known as trick-or-treating.

These early religious based Halloween celebrations arrived in the 13 colonies. At first not all of the colonies celebrated the holiday, but the ones that did held parties, wore costumes and told ghost stories. They would dance and sing together to celebrate the harvests. But Halloween did not start to spread until the late 19th century when a surge of immigrants moved to America. Among these immigrants was a large population of Irish who were fleeing from the Irish Potato Famine. With them they brought some of the traditions of Halloween (if you remember from earlier in the article the early celebrators of Halloween, the Celts, lived in Ireland).

By the early 20th century Halloween had moved away from its early superstitious and religious rituals and became a secular celebration. This was because as the holiday became more widespread, it became more of a family and community holiday. As a result, parents were encouraged to remove the disheartening tales of witchcraft and misfortunes from celebrations of the holiday for children.

Today there are various parades, festivals and parties throughout the country to celebrate Halloween. It is the second largest holiday in the nation and enjoyed by all. This year, we hope you and your family can keep the holiday spirit during the pandemic and celebrate autumn to its fullest.

The Origins of Halloween

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