What is the origin of Haloween?

Answer 1

Halloween is a tradition celebrated on the night of October 31, most notably by children dressing in costumes and going door-to-door collecting sweets. It is celebrated in parts of the Western world, though most common in Canada, the United States, Puerto Rico, Ireland, and with increasing popularity in Australia, and sometimes celebrated in New Zealand. Halloween originated among the Celts in Ireland, Britain and France

The pagan belief that lasted the longest in Brittany, and is by no means dead yet, was the cult of the dead. Caesar said that the Celts of Gaul traced their ancestry from the god of death, whom he called Dispater. Now figures of l'Ankou, a skeleton armed with a spear, can be seen in most villages of Brittany. as the Pagan Celtic harvest festival, Samhain. Irish, Scots, Calan Gaeaf in Welsh and other immigrants brought versions of the traditions to North America in the 19th century. Most other Western countries have embraced Halloween as a part of American pop culture in the late 20th century.
The term Halloween, and its older spelling Hallowe'en, is shortened from All-hallow-even, as it is the evening before "All Hallows' Day"[1] (also known as "All Saints' Day"). In Ireland, the name was All Hallows' Eve (often shortened to Hallow Eve), and though seldomly used today, it is still a well-accepted label. Halloween was also sometimes called All Saints' Eve. The holiday was a day of religious festivities in various northern European Pagan traditions, until it was appropriated by Christian missionaries and given a Christian interpretation. Halloween is also called Pooky Night in some parts of Ireland, presumably named after the púca, a mischievous spirit.

Halloween is often associated with the occult. Many European cultural traditions hold that Halloween is one of the liminal times of the year when the spiritual world can make contact with the physical world and when magic is most potent (e.g. Catalan mythology about witches, Irish tales of the Sídhe).

[edit] Halloween and All Saint's Day
As the influence of Christianity spread into Celtic lands, in the 7th century, Pope Boniface IV introduced All Saints' Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs, to replace the old pagan festival of the dead. It was observed on May 13. In 834, Gregory III moved All Saint's Day from May 13 to Nov. 1 and for Christians, this became an opportunity for remembering before God all the saints who had died and all the dead in the Christian community. Oct. 31 thus became All Hallows' Eve ('hallow' means 'saint'). Halloween and All Saints Day, however, have always been two distintively different traditions. All Saints Day is celebrated as a day of prayer to God. It has been instituted by the Church to honour all the saints, known and unknown, and, according to Urban IV, to supply any deficiencies in the faithful's celebration of saints' feasts during the year.


[edit] Origin: Celtic observation of Samhain
According to what can be reconstructed of the beliefs of the ancient Celts, the bright half of the year ended around November 1 or on a Moon-phase near that date, a day referred to in modern Gaelic as Samhain ("Sow-in" or alternatively "Sa-ven", meaning: End of the Summer). After the adoption of the Roman calendar with its fixed months, the date began to be celebrated independently of the Moon's phases.

As October 31st is the last day of the bright half of the year, the next day also meant the beginning of Winter, which the Celts often associated with human death, and with the slaughter of livestock to provide meat for the coming Winter. The Celts also believed that on October 31, the boundary separating the dead from the living became blurred. There is a rich and unusual myth system at work here; the spirit world, the residence of the "Sídhe," as well as of the dead, was accessible through burial mounds. These mounds opened at two times during the year, Samhain and Beltane, making the beginning and end of Summer highly spiritually resonant.

The Celts' survival during the cold harsh winters depended on the prophecies of their priests and priestesses (Druids), and the accurate prediction of how much food would be needed to sustain the people before the next harvest. They believed that the presence of spirits would aid in the ability to make predictions about the coming year.

The exact customs observed in each Celtic region differ, but they generally involved the lighting of bonfires and the reinforcement of boundaries, across which malicious spirits might be prevented from crossing and threatening the community.

Like most observances around this season, warmth and comfort were emphasized, indulgence was not. Stores of preserved food were needed to last through the winter, not for parties.


[edit] Samhain mistaken as New Year
Popular literature over the last century has given birth to the near universal assumption that Samhain, now associated with the Roman Catholic theme and folkways of Hallowe'en, was the "Celtic New Year". Both the work of scholarly historians and Neopagan writers have begun to scrutinize this assertion. The historian Ronald Hutton, in his study of the folk calendar of the British Isles[2] points out that there are no references which attest to this usage earlier than the 18th century, neither in church nor civic records. Although it may be generally correct to refer to Samhain as "Summer's End", this point of descent into the year's darkness may require better proof for us to cite this "end" as also being a "beginning". On the other hand, there is a huge volume of proof of the western world, including late Celtia, as having begun their calendars either at the end of December or around March 25th at various periods back through and before Medieval times.


[edit] Norse Elven Blót
In the old Norse religion an event believed to occur around the same time of the year as Halloween was the álfablót (elven blót), which involved sacrifices to the elves and the blessing of food. The elves were powers connected to the ancestors, and it can be assumed that the blót related to a cult of the ancestors. The álfablót is also celebrated in the modern revival of Norse religion, Ásatrú.

Answer 2

Yay! Finally a further Christian who consents with me in this! Yes, I knew that. My pastor taught that during church a couple of years again. We already knew it wasn't relatively a Christian vacation, irrespective of the catholic church's culture (we ain't catholic!). But after we discovered the origins we had been much more satisfied that we will have to keep away from it. On the identical be aware, we do not have fun Valentine's Day - it got here from the historical Roman dinner party of Lupercalia, which used to be quite often all approximately fornication with strangers (study that one, naysayers, and inform me how in the world it is Christian!). We do not have fun Easter - we opt for to have fun as just about the Passover as we will be able to. We do not do the easter bunny or dyed eggs or any of that crap considering that it's all from historical paganism. We do not have fun Christmas so much both. We shouldn't have a Christmas tree or publish any decorations, and this 12 months we're seeking to break out from doing stuff at the twenty fifth. We will likely be having a New Year's occasion as an alternative, with a massive dinner and offers. Christmas traditions are from an historical pagan occasion related to the rebirth of the solar-god (December 25 is the primary day that the day is significantly longer after the iciness solstice). I bet hubs and I and our households opt for to not simply go with the flow alongside and blindly take delivery of cultural traditions. We like to impeach matters and uncover out why we do what we do. If it's some thing that consents with scripture, first-rate. If no longer, we eliminate it from our lives. How are we able to honour God after we are training paganism? We cannot. Good query Xena!

Answer 3

Originally, the Celts celebrated Samhain (pronounced sow-IN), which means "November." It was a celebration of the Harvest and of the thinning of the veil between the world of the living and of the dead. It was believed that it became so thin on this night, that the souls that had past the last year could come back and walk in the world of the living.

People would have a "dumb dinner," which was served backwards (dessert first, appetizers last), and in silence. There would be an extra place setting and a chair left empty to invite a spirit guest to join them. Vegetables (commonly turnips) were carved into lanterns, lit with consecrated candles, and placed in windows to guide friendly spirits to their homes.

Treats and leftovers from the harvests were left on doorsteps or buried for passing spirits, which is one tradition that fed the practice of Trick or Treating.

Bonfires were lit to appease the gods who were thought to control the patterns of the sun, and were asked to ensure the returning of longer days after winter was over.

Romans also had traditions of their own at this time of year, and honored Pomona, the goddess of fruits and harvest. From them, we were given the tradition of bobbing for apples.

Later, when the Catholic Church started to rival Pagan religions in popularity, they created Halloween, by taking commonly practiced Pagan traditions and tweaking them a bit for themselves. Church members would go door to door begging for "soul cakes," which in return for these treats, they would promise to pray for dead loved ones of the household to ensure that they would reach Heaven.

Over time, traditions have changed more and more, including the abandonment of Halloween by adults, making it widely accepted as a children's holiday.

Answer 4

It was brought from Europe. Mostly the Irish and the Scottish fellows. When Immigration to the Americas was new, they brought it here.