Daniel Deagler

The other week I saw in a suburban Philadelphia newspaper a letter to the editor complaining about Hallowe'en and how far that holiday had fallen from its original purpose. The

Rev. Thomas Duffy, a catholic priest, of Warminster, PA wrote:  "On the eve of the Christian feast honoring the saints on November 1, children would dress in the attire of a favorite saint and celebrate that person's heroism. That custom has disintegrated to something far less worthy, to say the least."

I laughed aloud when I read it as years before I had heard that same origin story from the Sisters of St. Joseph, who were my teachers back at St. Athanasius in Philadelphia. I no longer remember if I accepted that creative explanation as a 1^st grader in 1964 (I probably did) and in retrospect I certainly can't blame the sisters for giving it a good try. But dressing up as your favorite saint is definitely not where the customs of Hallowe'en originated.

Long before the Gospels reached the lands of Father Duffy's (and my) forebears, the Celts observed the festival of Samhain (pronounced SOW-in) at the cross-quarter day (halfway point) between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice. Samhain was a celebration of the harvest and a transition into the dark half of the year. The ancient Celts divided the year between the “dark” and “light” halves, with November the beginning of the dark half and the de-facto Celtic New Year.  It was observed with bonfires, feasting, and games along with a certain amount of trepidation, as Samhain was not just a festival of the harvest but also a festival of the dead.

It was during Samhain that the veil between the living and the dead was thought to be the most transparent, a time when spirits of the departed and inhabitants of the “fairy realm” walked abroad in the world and interacted with the living.  At Samhain one was never sure whether a stranger encountered on the road was a person or something else. It was thus in one's self interest to treat with hospitality any stranger knocking on their door at Samhain.  

The Catholic Church, unlike iconoclastic groups from the Puritans to the Taliban, often sought to succeed rather than obliterate indigenous customs by overlaying Christian rituals and symbols overtop pagan ones. The Celtic cross combines the pagan symbol of the sun with the cross of the living Christ.  Gods and goddesses were transmuted into saints. Saturnalia and other winter solstice observations evolved into Christmas. The cross-quarter day festival Imbolc (February 2) became Candlemas.

In 835 Pope Gregory III established November 1 as the Feast of All Saints, or All Hallows (meaning "all holy.")The Feast of All Souls, November 2, was added officially in the 14th century. These two days along with the day preceeding the Feast of All Hallows, called All Hallows Eve or Hallowe'en (a contraction of "Hallow Evening") made up what was called the Hallowtide.  Customs of Hallowtide combined harvest celebrations with praying for the souls in purgatory. Because both Hallowtide and Samhain were about veneration for the dead, they were a reasonably good fit. During the Hallowtide children would go door to door begging for little cakes made of oatmeal and molasses called “soul cakes.”

After the Reformation, Protestants had no need for venerating saints or praying for souls whose salvation they believed were already predetermined. Those parts of Europe that remained both Celtic and Catholic, specifically Ireland but also parts of Britain, carried on the customs of Samhain/Hallowe'en that would eventually cross the Atlantic with them to America. It was in the New World that the Hallowe'en revelers found something without which our modern celebration would be unthinkable: the pumpkin. (The original jack-o’-lantern was a hollowed out turnip.)

Hallowe'en today, in spite of its name, is not a "holy evening."But nor is it the devil's dance party. The mysterious travelers of the night are children and they are as likely to be attired as princesses and Power Rangers than as ghosts and goblins. If the 31st of October is not about venerating the saints there are plenty of other days in the year to do so - November 1st, for example.

We should remember that many things make up our cultural heritage. Our alphabet is Roman and our numeric system Arabic. Four of the seven days of the week are named after Nordic gods. January, March, May and June are named for Greek and Roman ones,  Pagan customs surround us every day and this is especially true during holidays, whose roots go much deeper than we might be aware. Anyone who disagrees can tell me what exactly the Christmas tree or the Easter egg have to do with Jesus of Nazareth.