FROM OÍCHE SHAMAHNA TO HOP TU NAA

Oct 23
3 min read

Updated: 6 days ago

I never knew anything at all about Halloween, other than the fact that folks in different places celebrate differently or not at all. The details are pretty interesting.

The pagan festival of Samhain (pronounced SAH-win) originated with the Celts of ancient Britain and Ireland. Samhain was the festival marking the end of harvest time and the beginning of winter. Halfway between autumn equinox and the winter solstice, marking a transition between the lighter half of the year and the darker half, the festival day was set on November 1st. Most celebrating took place on the evening prior, known as Oíche Shamhna (EE-hyeh HOW-nuh). The Celts believed that on this particular night the boundary between the dead and the living became murky or even bridgeable and, thus, this was considered a favourable time for divination on important matters such as health, marriage, and death. They would also would light bonfires, wear costumes and affix crosses to their doorways to ward off evil spirits, and would leave a place at the table along with offerings of food for the dead.

In the Eastern church, a feast of all martyrs was held on May 13th (as attested to by Ephraem Syrus who lived in the 4th century). Near the beginning of the 7th century, perhaps 609 AD, Pope Boniface IV established May 13th as the Feast of All Martyrs. This celebration was broadened to include not just martyrs but all saints as well sometime during their reign of Pope Gregory III (731-741). Around that same time the date of the feast was moved to November 1st. Some suggest the day was selected in an effort to supplant the pagan holiday of Samhain with a Christian observance. (I have my doubts about this, given that the Romans conquered the Celts way back in the 1st century. I haven't been able to find anyone explaining why they would have held off for so many centuries or why the attempt to purge pagan festivals took place at this time...) In 837 Pope Gregory IV ordered that the Feast of All Saints be observed generally, everywhere the Church had influence. In medieval England the November 1st festival was known as All Hallows, and the evening prior, thus, became All Hallows Eve or Hallowe’en. The period from October 31st to November 2nd, as you may know, is sometimes called Allhallowtide, with November 2nd being All Souls’ Day.

Okay, but where did trick-or-treating come from? Some suggest getting dressed up and offering candy evolved from the Samhain practices of food offerings and wearing costumes. Others say there’s a more direct connection to Souling. During the Middle Ages, on All Souls’ Day children and the poor would collect food, often cake, and ale or money in return for prayers for the dead. A third origin hypothesis offers that trick-or-treating evolved out of the German Christmas tradition of Belsnickeling (which is just a great term) in which children would disguise themselves and go from door to door in their neighborhood. If adults were unable to guess their identity the child was rewarded with treats. But, as far as I can tell, the phrase "trick-or-treat" is a new thing. Seems like it emerged in Ontario, Canada, in 1917. The first published use of the phrase appears in 1927, in The Blackie Times, a newspaper from the hamlet of Blackie, Alberta. Another usage arrived nearby at the same time, in an article in The Lethbridge Herald. Both note youthful pranksters going door to door and demanding "trick-or-treat" at local homes on the evening of Halloween.

The tradition of pumpkin carving is often said to have arrived from Hop tu Naa (pronounced hop-chew-NAY). Celebrated on the 31st of October, Hop tu Naa is the equivalent of Halloween in Manx (the Gaelic language of the insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family) and the oldest continuously-existing tradition in the Isle of Man. It involves the hollowing and carving of turnips. Love it! If you ask me, we should do away with the pumpkin thing and carve turnips. Maybe with regional variations using beets and parsnips in different parts of Canada...

So go gather yourself a fine specimen from the turnip family, set a place for the gone-but-not-forgotten, gift kids cake for prayers, and celebrate nouveau-Samhain.

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