Halloween: Do you know how it started?

I happen to be in a place right now where the celebration of Halloween is  forbidden because it is considered a type of idolatry.  However, in a city where there are many expatriates, some kind of halloween is happening more to give kids the joy of treat or trickin' by giving candies to other tots, and wearing cute colorful costumes.

My quick and dirty research about halloween led me to some facts. About 2,000 years ago in the area of the world that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, there lived a group of people called the Celts.  The Celts' lives revolved around growing their food, and considered the end of the year to be the end of the harvest season.  So, they celebrated new year's eve each year on October 31st with a festival called "Samhain," named after their Lord of the Dead (also known as the Lord of Darkness). The Celts believed that on the night that marked the end of summer and the beginning of winter, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead blurred allowing ghosts of the dead to return to earth.  Celts thought that the presence of the ghosts made it easier for their priests to predict the future.  These predictions were an important source of comfort and direction for the Celts during their long, dark, frightening winters.  The Celts eventually were conquered by the Romans, and by about the year 43 AD two Roman festivals were combined with the Celtic Samhain festival.  The first Roman festival was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead.  The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees.  By 800 AD, the influence of Christianity spread into Celtic lands.  In the seventh century, the Celtic festival of the dead was replaced with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday, Pope Boniface IV designated November 1st as All Saints' Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs.  The combined and updated celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints' Day) and the night before it, the night of Samhain, began to be called All-hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween. So there is its history. 

But what about the pumpkin? Where did it come from? And why has this annual tradition now in many countries become so associated with the orange squash or pumpkin?

Apparently, on All Hallows' Eve, many Western Christian denomination encourage abstinence from meat, giving rise to a variety of vegetarian foods associated with this day, such as apples.

So how did the pumpkins go from being an ordinary squash to a Halloween staple especially from the mid-19th century? In Pumpkin: The Curious History of An American Icon, Cindy Ott  explores the origins of the carved jack-o’-lantern, especially as it relates to the classic Sleepy Hollow legend. One of the best-known literary works in which a pumpkin stands in for a man’s foolishness is Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, published in 1848 and set in the rural countryside of New York’s Hudson River valley. As a central element of the tale, the pumpkin represents the its main character, Ichabod Crane. In the story, Crane, a silly, gangly, itinerant schoolteacher, spends his idle hours spooking himself by reading local ghost stories, especially a notorious one about the Headless Horseman. According to the legend, the Horseman’s head was severed from his body during a Revolutionary War battle fought in the area, and he periodically rides again to reclaim it. One night, while returning home late from a party down an isolated country road, Crane, who is afraid of his own shadow, is chased by the Headless Horseman. As the apparition rides past Crane, the ghost throws a headlike object at him, terrifying the schoolmaster so profoundly that he runs away and is never heard from again. The end of the tale reveals that the ghost was actually Brom Bones, Ichabod’s rival for the attention of a farmer’s attractive young daughter. The head was nothing but a pumpkin!

It is reported that the top 10 countries that celebrate Halloween big time are: USA, Ireland, Canada, England, Mexico, Sweden, Austria, Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands.

A California farmer has introduced an innovation that raking in lots of money from sales. He spent 4 years  perfecting pumpkins grown inside plastic molds to resemble the head of Dr. Frankenstein monster.  According to media reports, it is in such high demand for Halloween saying that his harvest of 5,500 trademarked "Pumpkinsteins" have already sold out!
  
I do know that Halloween surprisingly has become a big thing even in countries where there is no winter (to signal darkness), apples are not grown, and squash is known mainly as a vegetable rich in Vitamin A! By now, almost all countries that honor the dead in some form or another, also observe both or one or the other of Halloween and All Saints' Day on  the eve and the day of Nov 1, respectively.  In contrast to Halloween's costumes galore, house decors, and scary objects that give this supposedly dark night, a colorful festive spirit, All Saints Day is a much more sober day as people flock to cemeteries to offer prayers, flowers, and candles to their deceased loved ones.

I remember when I was young, older uncles or cousins would  scare little kids like me by giving us a quick "scary ride" through our local cemetery. I thought that was a truly scary experience then, to an extent that  a minute or two in front of a dark cemetery felt like an hour! That was the highlight of our Halloween!

True that this annual event has also become so commercialized. Parents flock to stores to buy pumpkins of all kinds, and the best constumes for their kids. The nice thing about kids' costumes is that they need not be scary, just cute! I think the older folks are the ones who get a kick out of dressing up and looking scary! Interestingly, pet lovers also spend time and money to give their dogs or cats that halloween look, whether they like it or not!

Oh well, I dont know at what age it stops, but I think my 10 year old grandson is almost over the trick or treat part of it. Now, for me, it is more about honoring the dead, and paying respects to our departed loved ones on All Saints day, my grandparents, parents, 3 siblings and relatives included.  May they all rest in peace.