Today is the day we celebrate as Halloween in the U.S. Everyone is familiar with jack-o-lanterns, witches with black cats, costumes and trick-or-treaters knocking at the door. Do you know where the Halloween tradition originated? Here’s the story of Halloween.Halloween began as an old Celtic custom, over 2000 years ago. The Celts called the day, “Samhain.” The day marked the end of summer and the beginning of winter for the Celts. They believed that on the eve of the New Year, the world of the living and the dead became blurred, allowing spirits to mingle with the living. The Celts thought spirits would return to destroy crops, cause trouble and seek out living bodies to possess. The people would put out fires in the hearth, making their house uninviting to roaming spirits. They would also parade around in costumes, making noise, making it difficult for evil spirits to distinguish between the living and the dead.
By the year 43 A.D., Romans had conquered most Celtic territory. During their rule, the Romans combined Samhain with two of their own Roman festivals, Feralia and Pomona. Feralia was held in late October, when Romans honored the passing of the dead. Pomona was a festival honoring the goddess of fruit and trees, during the harvest. Pomona’s symbol was the apple, giving speculation to the tradition of “bobbing for apples,” on Halloween.
The fading Roman culture gave way to the power of the Roman Catholic Church. By the 7th century, Catholic Pope Boniface IV wanted to eliminate pagan festivals and rituals. The Pope knew he couldn’t just ban the festivals without creating chaos, so he merely replaced Samhain with the church’s All Saint’s Day. This was a special Roman Catholic holiday, when believers would honor saints and martyrs. All Saint’s Day was also known as, “All-Hallows,” or “”All-hollowmas” and the celebration the night before was called, “All-Hallows’ Eve.” Eventually, the holiday name changed from “Hallow Evening” to “Halloween.”
I just wanted to point this out. See, what the Catholic (I suppose--at the time, until the 1500s, it should be a small letter c) church did was ruin a holiday that was celebrated by a lot of people. It was away for the people of the Celtic regions (which wasn't JUST ireland or scotland, but it was also Germany, France, etc.) to "keep" their crops; and also to celebrate the dead.
Then the church pretty much said, "Oh, this holiday looks like it's satanic." But by the churches standards so did December 25 and 16 April (based off of a 2006 calendar)--gee, don't those dates look familiar? They should, their Christmas Day and Easter Sunday (the United States is the only country in the world that does NOT celebrate Easter Monday, by the way)
See, what the church did took October 32, December 25, and April-May whatever, and decided "oh, these look pagan, and therefore are Satanic. We just do something to stop it, and to try to convert the pagans!"
See, December 25 was also the pagan Sun God, Mithra's, birthday. Mithra was also born of a virgin, had the 12 apostles (though they were called Acolytes), performed miracles, ect. So the church decided, "hmmm..this dude has the same qualities as our Jesus..let's take his holiday, and make the dying (but not coverting) PAGAN Emporer Constantine decide that Christianity is the main religion of the dying roman empire, and that Mithraday is now Christ-mas day." Tricky of the church, but it hasn't really worked what with the reorganization and the reocurrance of Wicca, a "pagan" religion.
Also, for April and May, that's where the pagan holidays of Oster and Beltane come in. See, in the pagan areas a rabbit was used to symbolize the pagan goddess of fertility. Many of the countries, particularly Germany, called the rabbit on that day (or week--it's been awhile and im going off of information from a pagan priest that's also a friend) the Oster Rabbit. Well..what did the church do..well they say "fertlity? renewal? sounds alot like our Jesus Christ dying on the cross, then rising again. We'll take the pagan holiday and turn into our own. and hopefully no one will notice the difference."
Now, tis like i said, that was the Catholic's church way of doing things.
The interesting thing to note, is that the Protestant church calls Oct. 31 "Reformation Day" and celebrates the holiday without any "Satanic" references. The "Orthodox" Jews DO consider it a Satanic holiday, and do not allow their children to celebrate--but it was primiarily the catholic church that took it and made it for their own purposes.
Watch me repost this exact post on Oct. 31.
By the way, for all of you interested, here in the City of Greensburg--trick or treating will be Monday, October 31, 2005 from 6-8 p.m.