If you ask someone what Halloween is, you’ll get a thousand different answers depending on where in the world you live instead of “slutty cat costume party night,” which would be the answer here in America. The answer would also vary depending on when you asked the question. Halloween is a mishmash of traditions going back thousands of years that is constantly changing. For this reason, to tell the history of Halloween would be to tell the history of the world. If I could do that, I would be writing college textbooks that collect dust on people’s bookshelves for decades because the book store will only buy it back for seven dollars and goddamn, “If I paid three hundred dollars for a book I didn’t want in the first place, I’m gonna fuckin’ keep it instead of letting those ass merchants turn around and resell it.” But I can give you some snapshots of where different parts of the Holiday come from.
The name “Halloween” goes back to the Christian celebration All Hallowtide. Which is a three-day festival consisting of All Saints Eve, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day. This was to celebrate all the saints and to pray for the souls of the dead, as far back as 640 A.D. Originally, this was practiced in May, as was The Roman Festival of Feralia, which was basically the same thing. Both festivals got co-opted and pushed to October, but we’ll get to that in a little bit. The important thing to remember is that Halloween is a Christian word that means “Holy Evening.” So next time you see some crusty old lady saying children are evil because they’re wearing an Iron Man costume you can tell her she’s a stupid cunt. In 2014 Pope Francis said Halloween was evil too, so I guess that makes him a stupid cunt as well. But what do you expect from a guy who runs the world largest and longest running pedophile ring?
For thousands of years, at the end of what we now call October different pagan rituals were held across the Western world to rage against the dying of the light. The days started getting shorter, the crops started dying (and people along with them), and people started avoiding Ned Stark. Yeah, we get it Ned, “Winter is Coming.” I swear to god, if I hear that shit one more time I'm gonna do something drastic.
Everyone starts freaking out about whether or not they’ll survive the winter so they do any and all crazy ritual they can to help their odds and being equally desperate to hear some good news. The most famous freak-out, and the one most associated with Halloween traditions is the Celtic festival of Samhain, which hogs the spotlight from the similar Welsh festival of Calan Gaeaf. October 31 falls in that dreary shit period halfway between the Summer Equinox and the Winter Solstice. The ancient Celts believed at this time the veil between the living world and the afterlife was at its thinnest, allowing spirits, dead gods, and dead relatives the opportunity to hang around and watch people undress.
Meanwhile, everyone was butchering animals and stocking up for the winter. People would light bonfires and give offerings to spirits to gain their favor. Basically, everyone had the same chores to do so they made a party out of it to try to forget they weren't all gearing up to spend the next six months trying to not freeze or starve to death. People would grab a torch and use the bonfire to get some flames to light their hearth fires. They claimed it was symbolic of the sun or some shit but really, they were just too lazy to get their own fire going in the kitchen. Think of Samhain as Burning Man, just a lot more depressing and it actually means something.
There are a bunch of different traditions involving people going house to house asking for food that all got lumped together to turn into trick or treating. The Celts would leave food out for dead relatives and others would put out food to bribe restless spirits not to fuck with them. People would dress up as spirits and take the food as a proxy spirit. People would also dress up as monsters to scare away spirits, while others did it to trick the dead into thinking they were spirits in the hopes they would go fuck with someone else. Meanwhile the Catholics were going “Souling.” That is going door to door offering prayers for the dead in exchange for a piece of cake called a soul cake, because Catholics love ceremonies involving pretend cannibalism.
In the year 609 Pope Gregory III, upheld a long-standing tradition of shuffling Christian holidays around to match pagan holidays. He moved All Hallowtide from May to October since it and Samhain were similar, with the intention of slowly pushing all the fun out of the festival and replacing it with Catholic collection plates. Just for good measure he also moved the also similar Roman festivals of Feralia, Parentalia, and Lemures, because fuck everybody and their traditions.
Jack-O-Lanterns come from a Christian story about an Irish drunk named Stingy Jack who was such a piece of shit that the devil made a special trip to Earth just to see if all the hype was real. Jack asked the devil to take him to a pub to get drunk and asked the Devil to turn himself into a coin to pay his tab. The Devil agreed because that’s some hilarious evil shit. Jack slipped the devil/coin into his pocket along with a crucifix. He wouldn’t let the Devil out unless he promised not to send Jack to hell for at least ten years. Ten years later the Devil shows up to collect. Jack asked the Devil for an apple as a last request so ole Scratch climbs up a tree to get an apple and Jack traps him in the tree with some crosses. Jack makes the Devil promise to never send him to hell before he lets him out of the tree. Fast forward a few years and Jack’s liver gives out on him after some serious shenanigans done by someone who knows he can’t go to hell. Surprise, Surprise, when he dies he goes to the Pearly Gates of Heaven where Saint Peter tells him to go fuck himself. He goes down to Hell, and the Devil won’t let him in, per their agreement. Jack was all like, “If I can’t come in, how the hell do I get back to earth?” The devil threw a chunk of burning hell coal at Jack to light his way back down the road paved with good intentions and slammed the door in his face. Jack, an avid lover of turnips who always kept one handy, put the burning ember in a lantern he fashioned out of said turnip and roamed the earth like a douchey version of that guy from Kung Fu. This was a convenient story for Christians since Celts were already putting candles in Turnips to scare away spirits. Pretty crazy fucking coincidence.
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This video has absolutely fuck-all to do with Halloween but I have a theory you are 100% the author and creative force behind it.
If not - this should be your new morning joe and you should be their creative consultant. And damn Catholics! They ruin everything.
I want to hang out with whoever made this video.
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Your post had been curated by the @buildawhale team and mentioned here:
https://steemit.com/curation/@buildawhale/buildawhale-curation-digest-10-22-18
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