the origins of halloween?

Question

i have this paper due tuesday on the origins of halloween. if any one has any little known facts or something, especially links to any really good sites that would be awesome

thanks in advance

Answer 1

The Real Origins of Halloween discusses the history of Halloween, the origins of trick-or-treating, reasons behind some of the symbols of the season, and why the holiday is well worth keeping and celebrating. Previous versions of this essay specifically contrasted the historical evidence with the absurd claims and urban legends used in most anti-Halloween propaganda. I have now put those latter materials into their own essay, Halloween Errors and Lies, since it seems that many people have never seen or heard those fearmongering tales and could not understand why I would spend so much space discussing them within an historical essay.

This is a work of amateur scholarship. If you wish to quote me in an academic environment, you may wish to first verify my statements by consulting the books linked within my text. A more formal Bibliography will appear in a future book, Some Truths About Halloween.

If you prefer black text on white, you can click here for a more easily printed (or for some folks, more easily read) edition of this specific essay. For a Spanish translation with graphics, go to Los Verdaderos Orígenes de Halloween or here for the easy printing/reading Spanish text without most of the graphics.

For information about the specific topic of Witchcraft, consider obtaining my book, Bonewits's Essential Guide to Witchcraft and Wicca.
There appear to have been four major holy days celebrated by the Paleopagan Druids, possibly throughout the Celtic territories: Samhain, Oimelc, Beltane & Lughnasadh (in one set of Irish-based modern spellings). Four additional holy (or “High”) days (Winter Solstice or “Midwinter,” Spring Equinox, Summer Solstice or “Midsummer,” and Fall Equinox), which are based on Germanic or other Indo-European cultures, are also celebrated in the Neopagan Druid calendar, along with others based on mainstream holidays (visit the linked essay for details).

The most common practice for the calculation of Samhain, Oimelc, Beltane and Lughnasadh has been, for the last several centuries, to use the civil calendar days or eves of November 1st, February 1st, May 1st and August 1st, respectively. Since we have conflicting evidence on how the Paleopagan Druids calculated these dates, modern Neopagans just use whichever method is most convenient. This means, of course, that we aren’t all doing anything uniformly on any given night, which fits perfectly with the Neopagan saying that, “organizing Pagans is like herding cats.” It doesn’t match the Evil Conspiracy theories — which have us all marching to a strict drumbeat in perfect Satanic unison — at all.

These four major holy days have been referred to as “fire festivals” for at least the last hundred years or so, because (1) to the ancient Celts, as with all the Indo-European Paleopagans, fire was a physical symbol of divinity, holiness, truth, and beauty; (2) fires play important roles in the traditional customs associated with these festivals; and (3) several early Celtic scholars called them that. Whether in Ireland or India, among the Germans or the Hittites, sacred fires were apparently kindled by the Indo-European Paleopagans on every important religious occasion. To this very day, among Eastern Orthodox and Western Catholics, you can’t have a satisfying ritual without a few candles being lit — of course, the Fundamentalists consider them Heathen too!

Samhain or “Samhuinn” is pronounced “sow-” (as in female pig) “-en” (with the neutral vowel sound) — not “Sam Hain” — because “mh” in the middle of an Irish word is a “w” sound (don’t ask me why, it’s just Irish). Known in Modern Irish as Lá Samhna, in Welsh as Nos Galen-Gaeaf (that is, the “Night of the Winter Calends”), and in Manx as Laa Houney (Hollantide Day), Sauin or Souney, Samhain is often said to have been the most important of the fire festivals, because (according to most Celtic scholars) it may have marked the Celtic New Year. At the least, Samhain was equal in importance to Beltane and shared many symbolic characteristics.




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Samhain was the original festival that the Western Christian calendar moved its “All Saints’ Day” to (Eastern Christians continue to celebrate All Saints’ Day in the spring, as the Roman Christians had originally). Since the Celts, like many cultures, started every day at sunset of the night before, Samhain became the “evening” of “All Hallows” (“hallowed” = “holy” = “saint”) which was eventually contracted into “Hallow-e’en” or the modern “Halloween.”

Whether it was the Celtic New Year or not, Samhain was the beginning of the Winter or Dark Half of the Year (the seasons of Geimredh=Winter and Earrach=Spring) as Beltane was the beginning of the Summer or Light Half of the Year (the seasons of Samradh=Summer and Foghamhar=Fall). The day before Samhain is the last day of summer (or the old year) and the day after Samhain is the first day of winter (or of the new year). Being “between” seasons or years, Samhain was (and is) considered a very magical time, when the dead walk among the living and the veils between past, present and future may be lifted in prophecy and divination.

Many important mythological events are said to have occured on that day. It was on a Samhain that the Nemedians captured the terrible Tower of Glass built by the evil Formorians; that the Tuatha De Danann later defeated the Formors once and for all; and that many other events of a dramatic or prophetic nature in Celtic myth happened. Many of these events had to do with the temporary victory of the forces of darkness over those of light, signaling the beginning of the cold and dark half of the year.

There is some evidence to indicate that three days were spent celebrating this festival. Philip Carr-Gomm, Chosen Chief of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, speaking of both Paleopagan and Mesopagan Druids in England, had this to say about it in his Elements of the Druid Tradition:

Samhuinn, from 31 October to 2 November was a time of no-time. Celtic society, like all early societies, was highly structured and organised, everyone knew their place. But to allow that order to be psychologically comfortable, the Celts knew that there had to be a time when order and structure were abolished, when chaos could reign. And Samhuinn, was such a time. Time was abolished for the three days of this festival and people did crazy things, men dressed as women and women as men. [This happened at Beltane too — IB] Farmers’ gates were unhinged and left in ditches, peoples’ horses were moved to different fields, and children would knock on neighbours’ doors for food and treats in a way that we still find today, in a watered-down way, in the custom of trick-or-treating on Hallowe’en.

But behind this apparent lunacy, lay a deeper meaning. The Druids knew that these three days had a special quality about them. The veil between this world and the World of the Ancestors was drawn aside on these nights, and for those who were prepared, journeys could be made in safety to the ’other side’. The Druid rites, therefore, were concerned with making contact with the spirits of the departed, who were seen as sources of guidance and inspiration rather than as sources of dread. The dark moon, the time when no moon can be seen in the sky, was the phase of the moon which ruled this time, because it represents a time in which our mortal sight needs to be obscured in order for us to see into the other worlds.

The dead are honoured and feasted, not as the dead, but as the living spirits of loved ones and of guardians who hold the root-wisdom of the tribe. With the coming of Christianity, this festival was turned into Hallowe’en (31 October), All Hallows [All Saints Day] (1 November), and All Souls Day (2 November). Here we can see most clearly the way in which Christianity built on the Pagan foundations it found rooted in these isles. Not only does the purpose of the festival match with the earlier one, but even the unusual length of the festival is the same.

The Christian Church was unable to get the people to stop celebrating this holiday, so they simply sprinkled a little holy water on it and gave it new names, as they did with other Paleopagan holidays and customs. This was a form of calendrical imperialism, co-opting Paleopagan sacred times, as they had Paleopagan sacred places (most if not all of the great cathedrals of Europe were built on top of earlier Paleopagan shrines and sacred groves). So when Fundamentalists come to your local school board and try to get Halloween removed from the public schools because “it’s a Pagan holiday,” they are perfectly correct. Of course, Valentine’s Day/Lupercalia, Easter/Eostre, and Christmas/Yule also have many Paleopagan elements associated with their dating and/or symbols, as the Jehovah’s Witnesses and others have pointed out for decades. So if we decide to rid the public schools of all holidays that have Pagan aspects to them, there won’t be many left for the kids to enjoy.

I find it amusing that American teens and pre-teens seem to have instinctively expanded their seasonal celebrations to add another night before Halloween, one on which they commit various acts of harmless (or unfortunately not) vandalism, including pranks on neighbors. If we assume that All Saints Day was moved to co-opt the central day of Samhain which was associated originally with the Gods and Goddesses of the Celts, and All Souls Day was supposed to co-opt the worship of the Ancestors, then the modern “Cabbage Night,” “Hell Night” (boy does that push the Fundamentalists’ buttons!), or simply “Mischief Night” (which used to be April 30th — the night before May Day — in Germany — there’s that Beltane/Samhain connection again) would correspond to a celebration of the often mischievous Nature Spirits. This then nicely covers the Indo-European pattern of the “Three Kindreds” of Deities, Ancestors, and Nature Spirits.








Where does the custom of “trick or treating” come from? Is it really ancient, a few centuries old, or relatively modern? Let’s look at the evidence:

Kevin Danaher, in his remarkable book The Year in Ireland, has a long discussion of the traditional Irish celebrations of this festival. In one section on “Hallow-E’en Guisers,” he says:

A familiar sight in Dublin city on and about October 31 is that of small groups of children, arrayed in grotesque garments and with faces masked or painted, accosting the passers-by or knocking on house doors with the request: “Help the Hallow E’en party! Any apples or nuts?” in the expectation of being given small presents; this, incidentally, is all the more remarkable as it is the only folk custom of the kind which has survived in the metropolis.

A couple of generations ago, in parts of Dublin and in other areas of Ireland, the groups would have consisted of young men and grown boys, who often travelled considerable distances in their quest, with consequently greater reward. The proceeds were usually expended on a “Hallow E’en party,” with music, dancing, feasting and so on, at some chosen house, and not merely consumed on the spot as with the children nowadays…

Irisleabhar na Gaedhilge, ii, 370, states that in parts of Count Waterford, Hallow E’en is called oidhche na h-aimléise, “The night of mischief or con.” It was a custom in the county — it survives still in places — for the “boys” to assemble in gangs, and, headed by a few horn-blowers who were always selected for their strength of lungs, to visit all the farmers’ houses in the district and levy a sort of blackmail, good humouredly asked for, and as cheerfully given. They afterward met at some rendezvous, and in merry revelry celebrated the festival of Samhain in their own way. When the distant winding of the horns was heard, the bean a’ tigh [woman of the house] prepared for their reception, and got ready the money or builín (white bread) to be handed to them through the half-opened door. Whoever heard the wild scurry of their rush through a farm-yard to the kitchen-door — there was always a race amongst them to get possession of the latch — will not question the propriety of the word aimiléis [mischief] applied to their proceedings. The leader of the band chaunted a sort of recitative in Gaelic, intoning it with a strong nasal twang to conceal his identity, in which the good-wife was called upon to do honour to Samhain… “A contributor to An Claidheamh Soluis, 15 Dec. 1906, 5, gives a example of these verses, from Ring, County Waterford:


‘Anocht Oidhche Shamhna, a Mhongo Mango. Sop is na fuinneogaibh; dúntar na díirse. Eirigh id’ shuidhe, a bhean an tighe. Téirigh siar go banamhail, tar aniar go flaitheamhail. Tabhair leat ceapaire aráin agus ime ar dhath do leacain fhéin; a mbeidh léim ghirrfiadh dhe aoirde ann ages ciscéim choiligh dhe im air. Tabhair chugham peigín de bhainne righin, mín, milis a mbeidh leawhnach ’n-a chosa agus uachtar ’n-a mhullaigh; go mbeidh sé ag imtheacht ’n-a chnocaibh agus ag teacht Ôn-a shléibhtibh, agus badh ó leat go dtachtfadh sé mé, agus mo chreach fhada níor bhaoghal dom.’

‘(“Oh Mongo Mango, Hallow E’en tonight. Straw in the windows and close the doors. Rise up housewife, go inside womanly, return hospitably, bring with you a slice of bread and butter the colour of your own cheek, as high as a hare’s jump with a cock’s step of butter on it. Bring us a measure of thick fine sweet milk, with new milk below and cream above, coming in hills and going in mountains; you may think it would choke me, but, alas! I am in no danger.”)’

Wow, that chant sure sounds scary, doesn’t it?

As I mentioned before, because it was an “in-between” kind of holiday, spirits (nice or nasty), ancestors (ditto), or mortals (ditto?) were thought to be more easily able to pass from This World to the Other World and vice versa. It was also a perfect time for divination or “fortune telling” (Danaher talks about all of this at great length). While some monotheists may consider these activities to be “evil,” most religions in human history have considered them perfectly normal.

Before and after the arrival of Christianity, early November was when people in Western and Northern Europe finished the last of their harvesting, butchered their excess stock (so the surviving animals would have enough food to make it through the winter), and held great feasts. They invited their ancestors to join them, decorated family graves, and told ghost stories — all of which may strike some monotheists today as spiritually erroneous, but which hardly seems “evil” — and many modern polytheists do much the same (though few of us have herds to thin). So where does “trick or treating” come in?

According to Tad Tuleja’s essay, “Trick or Treat: Pre-Texts and Contexts,” in Jack Santino’s anthology, Halloween and Other Festivals of Death and Life, modern trick or treating (primarily children going door-to-door, begging for candy) began fairly recently, as a blend of several ancient and modern influences. I’m mixing Tuleja’s material here with my own insights, see his essay for details of his opinions, which I’ll mark with italics to separate from mine:

At various times and places in the Middle Ages, customs developed of beggers, then children, asking for “soul cakes” on All Souls Day.


At some other Medieval times and places, costumed holiday parading, singing and dancing at May Day, Halloween, and Yule (with different themes, of course, though sometimes with similar characters, such as the “Hobby Horse”) became popular in Ireland and the British Isles. Originally these costumed celebrants were adults and older teens, who would go from house to house (as Danaher describes above) demanding beer and munchies in exchange for their performances, which mixed Pagan and Christian symbols and themes. While many Neopagans may think these folk customs go all the way back to Paleopagan times, they are actually fairly modern (see Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in England, by Ronald Hutton).


To the medieval householders, of course, being thought stingy (especially in front of the visiting ancestors and faery folk at Halloween) would be very bad luck, as it would violate the ancient laws of hospitality. Perhaps there were some inebriated paraders who might have decided to come back later in the night and play tricks upon those who hadn’t rewarded them properly, but any references to such are fairly modern.


In 1605 c.e., Guy Fawkes’ abortive effort to blow up the British Parliament on November 5th, led to the creation of “Guy Fawkes Day,” celebrated by the burning of effigies of Fawkes in bonfires and children dressing in rags to beg for money for fireworks. As the decades rolled by, this became thoroughly entwined with Halloween celebrations and customs. This is not surprising, considering that bonfires were a central part of the old Samhain/Halloween tradition, and that Nov. 5th was actually closer to the astrological date for Samhain (thought by some Neopagans to be the original dating method) than Nov. 1st was! In the year 2006, the movie V for Vendetta introduced the image of Guy Fawkes to millions of Americans.


In 19th Century America, rural immigrants from Ireland and Scotland kept gender-specific Halloween customs from their homelands: girls stayed indoors and did divination games, while the boys roamed outdoors engaging in almost equally ritualized pranks, which their elders “blamed” on the spirits being abroad that night.


Also in mid-19th Century New York, children called “ragamuffins” would dress in costumes and beg for pennies from adults on Thanksgiving Day.


Things got nastier with increased urbanization and poverty in the 1930’s. Adults began casting about for ways to control the previously harmless but now increasingly expensive and dangerous vandalism of the “boys.” Towns and cities began organizing “safe” Halloween events and householders began giving out bribes to the neighborhood kids as a way to distract them away from their previous anarchy. The ragamuffins disappeared or switched their date to Halloween. The term “trick or treat,” finally appears in print around 1939!
Pranks became even nastier in the 1980’s, with widespread poverty existing side-by-side with obscene greed. Unfortunately, as criminologists, military recruiters and historians know, the most dangerous animals on our planet are unemployed teenaged males. Bored kids in a violence-saturated culture slip all too easily from harmless “decoration” of their neighbors’ houses with shaving cream and toilet paper to serious vandalism and assaults. Blaming Halloween for this is rather like blaming the Fourth of July for the many firecracker injuries that happen every year (and which are also combatted by publicly sponsored events).

By the mid- 20th century in Ireland and Britain, it seems only the smaller children would dress up and parade to the neighbors’ houses, do little performances, then ask for a reward. American kids seem to remember this with their chants of “Jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg,” and other classic tunes done for no reason other than because “it’s traditional.”

To a great extent, the costumes worn by modern trick-or-treaters represent, as they might have in older times, an effort to entertain, amuse and/or scare the neighbors, and to compete a bit with others in beauty, ugliness, humor, scariness, and costuming skill.

What was Halloween in America like forty years ago? Read Lady Phae’s Halloween and Me essay on my website for some heartwarming memories.

Why Bother to save Halloween? is an essay by Richard Seltzer, which has yet more reasons why it’s important to keep the custom of trick or treating alive:

Halloween is a time that reconfirms the social bond of a neighborhood (particularly the bond between strangers of different generations) by a ritual act of trade. Children go to lengths to dress up and overcome their fear of strangers in exchange for candy. And adults buy the candy and overcome their distrust of strange children in exchange for the pleasure of seeing their wild outfits and vicariously reliving their own adventures as children.

In other words, the true value and importance of Halloween comes not from parading in costumes in front of close friends and family, but from this interchange with strangers, exorcising our fears of strangers, reaffirming our social bond with the people of the neighborhood who we rarely, if ever, see the rest of the year.




Reporters are always asking us what we Neopagans “do” for Halloween. Well, usually we take our kids around our neighborhoods trick or treating, as carefully as any other parents. Those who stay at home may hand out commercially packaged candy to those who visit our houses (we might prefer to give out homemade goodies, but paranoia has made such treats unwelcome). Over the weekend, our circles of friends will have rituals that might include “dumb suppers” (silent, saltless meals) for the Ancestors, or separate “kid circles” and costume parties for our children — and we always wind up with at least as many kids as we started out with! Most of us will do some divination, give honor to those who have died in the past year, play traditional games, and meditate on our own mortality.

That’s what American Neopagans will do on Samhain. No blood drinking, no baby sacrifices, no crimes — just good, clean, all-American festivity with some ceremonial additions appropriate to the season and current events.

A student sent me an email asking me to sum up in more personal terms what Halloween means to me and other Neopagans. Here is what I told her:

Halloween is the modern name for Samhain, an ancient Celtic holy day which many Neopagans — especially Wiccans, Druids and Celtic Reconstructionists — celebrate as a spiritual beginning of a new year.

Halloween is a time to confront our personal and cultural attitudes towards death and those who have passed on before us.

Halloween is a time to lift the veil between the many material and spiritual worlds in divination, so as to gain spiritual insight about our pasts and futures.

Halloween is a time to deepen our connection to the cycles of the seasons, to the generations that have come before us and those that will follow, and to the Gods and Goddesses we worship.

Halloween is a time to let our inner children out to play, to pass on our childhood traditions to our children, and to share the fun with our friends and neighbors of many other faiths. So…

Answer 2

As it is, Halloween has ancient roots in demonism. The date of the death of the children of the demons (the Nephilim of Genesis 6:1-5) and others who died in the flood became Halloween. The druids of Europe transformed that into a night in which the dead came back to life to haunt the living on that one night.

Despite the silly costumes that people buy for their children and the candy that is purchased and distributed to visiting children in these costumes, the demonic influence of this holiday is clear. Movies released during this time are always with spiritistic themes. TV shows feature episodes with these themes. Songs are played on the radio, and advertisements of all kinds will reference the "undead", "vampires", "ghosts" and "witches" all through the month of October.

Just because candy is involved, it doesn't make it innocent. The human children who died in the flood died because their parents did not permit them to go into the ark, as they also refused to do - so their deaths are their parents' fault, not God's. If we set a bad example for our children, and make a demon themed celebration into a fun thing, they won't know any better, unless we tell them.

And, because of this holiday, which is by no means a holy day, they will be susceptible to believe, as many do, in that old lie that Satan told Eve: "You shall not surely die." - and in the lie that people are still alive walking around as ghosts, and the lie that other people are extending their lives and powers by following demon rites and practices.

So, BEWARE!! Become knowledgeable and follow the example of Jehovah's Witnesses and the Bible. Halloween is based on deceptive lies, that can take our lives away, because Satan is a manslayer and the father of the lie. (Genesis 3:4, John 8:44)

Origin of Halloween "All Hallows Eve" http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/11019... The Truth About Halloween http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/10201...

Answer 3

Samhain Lore (October 31st)

Samhain, (pronounced SOW-in, SAH-vin, or SAM-hayne) means "End of Summer", and is the third and final Harvest. The dark winter half of the year commences on this Sabbat.

It is generally celebrated on October 31st, but some traditions prefer November 1st. It is one of the two "spirit-nights" each year, the other being Beltane. It is a magical interval when the mundane laws of time and space are temporarily suspended, and the Thin Veil between the worlds is lifted. Communicating with ancestors and departed loved ones is easy at this time, for they journey through this world on their way to the Summerlands. It is a time to study the Dark Mysteries and honor the Dark Mother and the Dark Father, symbolized by the Crone and her aged Consort.

Originally the "Feast of the Dead" was celebrated in Celtic countries by leaving food offerings on altars and doorsteps for the "wandering dead". Today a lot of practitioners still carry out that tradition. Single candles were lit and left in a window to help guide the spirits of ancestors and loved ones home. Extra chairs were set to the table and around the hearth for the unseen guest. Apples were buried along roadsides and paths for spirits who were lost or had no descendants to provide for them. Turnips were hollowed out and carved to look like protective spirits, for this was a night of magic and chaos. The Wee Folke became very active, pulling pranks on unsuspecting humans. Traveling after dark was was not advised. People dressed in white (like ghosts), wore disguises made of straw, or dressed as the opposite gender in order to fool the Nature spirits.

This was the time that the cattle and other livestock were slaughtered for eating in the ensuing winter months. Any crops still in the field on Samhain were considered taboo, and left as offerings to the Nature spirits. Bonfires were built, (originally called bone-fires, for after feasting, the bones were thrown in the fire as offerings for healthy and plentiful livestock in the New Year) and stones were marked with peoples names. Then they were thrown into the fire, to be retrieved in the morning. The condition of the retrieved stone foretold of that person's fortune in the coming year. Hearth fires were also lit from the village bonfire to ensure unity, and the ashes were spread over the harvested fields to protect and bless the land.

Answer 4

Halloween's origins date again to the old Celtic pageant of Samhain (suggested sow-in). The Celts, who lived two,000 years in the past within the field that's now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northerly France, celebrated their new 12 months on November one million. This day marked the tip of summer time and the harvest and the starting of the darkish, bloodless wintry weather, a time of 12 months that used to be customarily related to human loss of life. Celts believed that at the night time earlier than the brand new 12 months, the boundary among the worlds of the residing and the lifeless grew to become blurred. On the night time of October 31, they celebrated Samhain, whilst it used to be believed that the ghosts of the lifeless again to earth. In addition to inflicting quandary and dangerous plants, Celts proposal that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it less difficult for the Druids, or Celtic monks, to make predictions approximately the longer term. For a persons thoroughly elegant at the risky usual international, those prophecies had been an essential supply of alleviation and path for the duration of the lengthy, darkish wintry weather. To commemorate the occasion, Druids constructed large sacred bonfires, in which the persons amassed to burn plants and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities. During the occasion, the Celts wore costumes, most commonly along with animal heads and skins, and tried to inform every different's fortunes. When the occasion used to be over, they re-lit their fireside fires, which they'd extinguished prior that night time, from the sacred bonfire to aid preserve them for the duration of the approaching wintry weather. By A.D. forty three, Romans had conquered the vast majority of Celtic territory. In the path of the 4 hundred years that they dominated the Celtic lands, 2 fairs of Roman beginning had been mixed with the conventional Celtic occasion of Samhain. The first used to be Feralia, an afternoon in past due October whilst the Romans in general venerated the passing of the lifeless. The moment used to be an afternoon to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and timber. The image of Pomona is the apple and the incorporation of this occasion into Samhain usually explains the culture of "bobbing" for apples that's practiced in these days on Halloween. By the 800s, the have an impact on of Christianity had unfold into Celtic lands. In the 7th century, Pope Boniface IV unique November one million All Saints' Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs. It is commonly believed in these days that the pope used to be making an attempt to exchange the Celtic pageant of the lifeless with a comparable, however church-sanctioned vacation. The occasion used to be also referred to as All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse which means All Saints' Day) and the night time earlier than it, the night time of Samhain, started to be referred to as All-hallows Eve and, ultimately, Halloween. Even later, in A.D. one thousand, the church might make November two All Souls' Day, an afternoon to honor the lifeless. It used to be celebrated in a similar way to Samhain, with giant bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels, and devils. Together, the 3 celebrations, the eve of All Saints', All Saints', and All Souls', had been referred to as Hallowmas.

Answer 5

Halloween originates from a Christian holiday I think it is All Hallows Eve. Try looking for that>

Answer 6

Due Tuesday?

You got the whole weekend to do your own research.

Cmon.

Answer 7

Google it and you will find lots of information. When you use key words also try Samhain. wikipedia is useful for this search. (It has nothing to do with the devil, he was created by the christian religion.) Good Luck and Blessings.

Answer 8

heres the complete history

Answer 9

You can always start here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween