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» A Historian's Homage to Halloween


Laura Prieto is an associate professor of history and women's studies at Simmons College. She is the author of At Home in the Studio: The Professionalization of Women Artists in America (Harvard University Press) and other explorations of American cultural history. She recently was queried about the origins and customs of Halloween.

What are the origins of Halloween?
Its origins are (perhaps appropriately?) rather mysterious. We know that the holiday has both Christian and pagan roots. There is a strong popular association with the Celtic festival of Samhain (summer's end), which might have been a festival of the dead. There were also Roman festivals around the same time of year, like that of Pomona, goddess of fruits and nuts.

Halloween traditions were borrowed from numerous other holidays through its long history. But the one certain connection is with the Christian calendar; Halloween is the eve of "Hallowtide," that is All Saints' Day (Nov. 1) and All Souls' Day (Nov. 2). During the Middle Ages, these became important occasions for honoring saints and praying for souls in purgatory.

Do most countries celebrate Halloween, or something similar to it?
Very few countries mark Oct. 31 in a way that we'd recognize as Halloween. People in Great Britain observed Halloween into the 20th century. Now Halloween is really an American holiday, brought to the U.S. and Canada by Irish and Scottish immigrants in the 1800s.

Many Catholic countries have their own popular festivals of the dead in association with All Saints' and All Souls' days, but their traditions are very different. The best-known alternative to Halloween is Mexico's Dia de los Muertos or Day of the Dead. Remembrance of the dead is central to the holiday, where families set up altars, and sugary treats and figurines in the shape of skeletons abound.

However, there are signs that Halloween may be spreading, as an export of the American card and candy industries, to places such as South America and Japan. It has even made a comeback in England.

How did the traditions of "trick or treating" and dressing up in costume get started?
"Trick or treating" is a modern-day version of the door-to-door begging for food and money that was part of many other holidays, including Thanksgiving! On All Souls' Day, beggars would offer to pray for the dead in exchange for sweet-tasting "soul cakes." The practice of children trick or treating on Halloween started relatively late, in the 1930s.

Another early modern European ritual, the charivari, involved dressing up in outlandish costumes (including cross-dressing), making noise, and ridiculing members of the social elite. As with "souling," these rituals allowed the poor to subvert the social order. Such cultural revels were associated with mischief, destructiveness, and violence - the threatened "trick" to be prevented by the offering of a "treat."

How about carving pumpkins?
Jack O'Lanterns were originally carved turnips. It was in America, where native pumpkins are plentiful this time of year, that Halloween revelers changed the vegetable.

How have Halloween traditions changed in the U.S. over the years?
One hundred years ago, the focus of Halloween was on fortune telling (especially in the name of divining one's future husband) and on courtship. It was not until the 20th century that it became primarily a children's holiday, and now that too seems to be changing, with adults' private parties on the increase.

In the 20th century, gay communities in many U.S. and Canadian cities such as Philadelphia and Toronto staged drag parades that asserted their right to public space and celebrated their sexuality. Newer traditions include the "Hell Houses" constructed by some evangelical Christian churches that depict the "horrors" of drug use and other condemned practices in an effort to frighten attendees into religious conversions.

The most famous Halloween-related occurrence in the U.S. is probably Orson Welles' radio production of War of the Worlds. This notorious broadcast on Oct. 30, 1938, reported an extraterrestrial invasion. Listeners believed, and panicked.

The episode seems to have ushered in an era that emphasizes the frightening aspects of Halloween....Or is it all about the candy?