- Background
Halloween is a day celebrated once every year on the 31st of October around the globe, and this year the Halloween is coming on Thursday. The festive is a reminiscence of what the ancient people of Samhain would do during the Celtic festival. To ward-off ghosts, these people used to light up bonfire and dress like ghosts. In the eighth century, Pope Gregory III designated November 1 as a time to honor all saints; soon, All Saints Day incorporated some of the traditions of Samhain. The evening before was known as All Hallows Eve, and later Halloween. Over time this turned into a festival for kids to dress up as scary as possible and wander in their neighbor for candies. Another distinct feature of the event is the carving jack-o-lanterns. Halloween day history by travel will cover all aspects of how this festival transformed into what it is today.
- Origins
History of this highly celebrated festival goes back 2000 years to the civilization of Samhain, who used to celebrate the festival of Celtic. They lived in the region that today is Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, and they would celebrate the new year on the 1st of November. This day was believed to be the end of the harvest and summer session and the start of the winter session. This period was associated with human deaths. They believed that the night before, 31st October was when living and dead had no boundaries in between and that ghosts of the dead would return to earth,
To commemorate the event, they would build a huge sacred bonfire and sacrifice their crops and animals to please deities. During this entire procession, the Celtics worn costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins and attempted to tell each other’s fortunes. When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.
By 43 A.D., the Roman Empire had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the 400 years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain. The first 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. The symbol of Pomona is the apple, and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain probably explains the tradition of bobbing for apples that are practiced today on Halloween.
- History of Trick or Treating
European’s had a tradition which the world later adopted and that was of going to homes in search of money or food. This practice is what eventually turned into today’s trick or treat. Tradition. Young women, of the previous century, believed that on Halloween they could divine the name or appearance of their future husband by doing tricks with yarn, apple parings or mirrors.
