Halloween Essay Research Paper Black cats goblins

Halloween Essay, Research Paper

Black cats, goblins, witches flying on broom sticks, jack-o-lanterns, and scary costumes are all remnants of a holiday known as Halloween. As child you may recall Halloween as this .genuinely playful night that lit up their [your] imagination like no other holiday.. You probably could describe your very first Halloween costume, and the rushing emotions of terror and excitement as you approached your first house. Only later in your years of growing up, is it discovered that Halloween is no longer a childlike holiday that is filled with imagination, but an event that has undergone a complete metamorphism. Looking out a Halloween through the eyes of an adult there is no longer cute little costumes, and a desire for candy, but a night that has commercialized into parties and inappropriate pranks. This complete evolution of Halloween didn.t just start in the 21st century but in fact, .has evolved from generation to generation.. Hence, the blending of ethnic, religious, and occult heritages has shaped the Halloween that we know today. Therefore, for a proper understanding of the modern American celebration on October 31, we must look at the earlier celebrations that have come together to form today’s Halloween.

Halloween origins date back to the second century B.C. where the Celtic order called the Druids, in their celebration on the eve of the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain .performed mystical ceremonies in honor of the great sun god and the lord of the dead.. (968 American Days.) The Samhain festival wasn.t just a harvest festival that marked the end of summer and harvest, but also the beginning of the dark, cold winter. It could be stated that this Samhain festival was the most sacred and important ritual to the Celtics .The Celts truly believed that the night before the new year the dead rose and that ancestral ghosts and demons were set free to linger on earth to cause trouble and damage their crops. In addition to causing trouble the Celts believed that the presence of the ghosts and ancestral spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests to make predictions about the future, seeing as how the spirits were believed to hold the secrets of the afterlife and future. This belief played an important role in the lives of the Celtics because they were entirely dependent on the natural world and the prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter (1-3 Halloween).

Every year on the Samhain during the darkest hour the .Samhain Vigil. was held. This ceremony was a very scared ritual in that the Celtics believed that the Lord of the Dead was going come and resentence all the lost souls. This sentencing could land the sinning souls up to 12 months of afterlife in the shape of an animal and the good souls were sentenced to 12 months of death, however they could take on the shape of a human being (4, Halloween). In observance to this .vigil. Druids built huge bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities to honor the sun gods and scare away any evil spirits that may still be prowling around. During the celebration, the Celts wore 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. (Sound familiar)

Modern Halloween also entails slight influences from the Roman festival honoring Pomona, the goddess of orchards and harvest. This reflection of the Roman festival in modern Halloween is due to the fact that by the first century A.D., Romans had conquered the majority of Celtic territory and in the course of the four hundred years that they ruled the Celtic lands, festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain, and celebrated on November 1 (American days 968).

The first to combine with the Celtic traditions was the Ponoma festival. The festival consisted of a feast containing apples (which was seen as a symbol of love and fertility) nuts, grapes and other fruits. The symbol of Pomona and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain probably explained the tradition of “bobbing” for apples that is practiced today on Halloween. Consequently, the Celtic and Roman cultures created what one may describe as .Halloween in its ancient form., where it was a .night devoted to the dead and yet a night for divination and romance as well. (8). However, at the end of the century an even greater blending of traditions occurred. These pagan traditions were faced with a new religion, Christianity (Halloween 8).

Christianity, a religion known to denounce paganism slowly began to spread across the Roman Empire from the first to the fourth century. During the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV was the first to designate May 13 to All Saints’ Day, a preserved day to honor the saints and martyrs (Halloween 8). However, in the eighth century Pope Gregory the III re-established this festival on November 1, which was the result of the church trying to incorporate the existing pagan rites into their new Christian ones. For example, during this festival the clergy would enforce the members to remember the dead with prayers instead of sacrifices and instead of trying t