Halloween hasn’t always been the holiday we enjoy. It has many Celtic roots. Samhain was a Celtic festival that celebrated the end of the harvest season and the start of winter. That night, October 31, was the night that the Celtics believed that ghosts came to earth. When the Romans ruled the Celtics, they combined some of their traditions with the Samhain festival. One of these traditions was Feralia, when the Romans celebrated the dead. The other festival was in honor of Pomona, the goddess of fruit, and from this festival we got the tradition of bobbing for apples. In 609 A.D., Pope Boniface IV created the feast of All Martyrs Day, which Pope Gregory III later named All Saints Day to honor both saints and martyrs. November 2 was later named All Souls Day, which is a feast similar to the Celtics’ celebration of the dead. Following the creation of these Catholic feasts, Samhain became what we know as Halloween.
In the American colonies, Halloween first became popular in the South, being used to celebrate the dead and the harvest. As more and more people came to the U.S. in the 1800s, Halloween became more popular. Another European tradition was trick-or-treating. However, when Americans first started trick-or-treating, they asked for money instead of candy. Costumes became popular because of the Celtics as well. During Halloween, it was a common belief that ghosts came back to haunt the earth. People were afraid that they would be recognized by these ghosts, so they would dress in costumes, especially masks. This took place usually after dark, so that the ghosts would confuse the masked people for other ghosts. Another way to scare ghosts away was to put food outside of houses, similar to the way many people put bowls of candy outside their houses for trick-or-treaters in modern times. Happy Halloween!