The traditional Western Halloween is coming, but why are they celebrating it?

Celtic Samhain Festival

The origins of Halloween can be traced back to the ancient Celtic festival - Samhain. The Celts lived 2,000 years ago, mainly in what is now Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France. They designate November 1 every year as New Year's Day.

This day marks the end of summer and the harvest season, as well as the beginning of a dark, cold winter. This time of year is often associated with death and the dead. The Celts believed that the souls of those who died the night before the new year would return to the world.

The Celts believed that the presence of supernatural spirits made it easier for druid priests (Druidism was the religion of the ancient Celts) and Celtic priests to predict the future. For a people totally dependent on the vagaries of nature, these prophecies were an important solace in the long, cold winters.

To commemorate the day, Druids built huge bonfires where people gathered to burn crops and animals as offerings to Celtic gods. During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes composed of animal heads and skins, and told each other's fortunes and predicted each other's fortunes.

By 43 AD, the Roman Empire had conquered most of the Celtic territories. During the 400 years they ruled the Celtic lands, two more festivals of Roman origin merged with the Celtic tradition of Samhain. The first festival is the Roman Ghost Festival, which is a day in late October when the Romans commemorate the dead; the second is a festival honoring Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit trees. The apple is a symbol of Pomona, which may explain the custom of biting apples on Halloween.

All Saints' Day - All Saints' Day

On May 13, 609 AD, Pope Boniface IV offered sacrifices to the gods at the Pantheon in Rome to commemorate the Christian martyrs. Later Pope Gregory III expanded the festival's offerings to include All Saints and martyrs, and postponed the celebration from May 13 to November 1.

By the 9th century AD, Christianity had spread in Celtic lands, where it gradually merged with and eventually replaced the older Celtic religions. In 1000 AD, the Church of Rome designated November 2 as All Souls’ Day, a day to honor the dead. All Souls' Day is celebrated in a similar way to Samhain. People lit bonfires, held grand ceremonies, and dressed up as saints, angels and devils. After Halloween (All Saints' Day) began to be called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse, meaning All Saints' Day). The night before Halloween, the Celtic traditional Samhain night, began to be called All-hallows Eve and eventually Halloween.

"Trick-or-treat" - "Trick-or-treat"

In Halloween traditions, some children dressed in Halloween costumes go from house to house asking for candy and food, and shouting the slogan "trick-or-treat".

This tradition, like All Hallow's Eve, also comes from Celtic beliefs. The Celts believed that gods and ghosts would appear on Halloween, offering them food in exchange for not being harmed by them.

In the 15th century, there was a custom of sharing spirit cakes at Halloween celebrations. Later, some poor people began to sing and beg for spiritual cakes outside the windows of their neighbors. By the 16th century, young people in Scotland began to dress up as gods or devils to ask neighbors for food. The custom later spread to other parts of the UK. As European settlers came to the North American continent, the custom was also brought to the United States and Canada.

The Development of Halloween in America

In the North American colonies, Halloween celebrations were initially limited due to strict Protestant beliefs. As the beliefs and customs of different European peoples and North American Indians merged, a uniquely American version of Halloween began to emerge.

Halloween celebrations in colonial North America featured ghost stories and mischief of all kinds. By the mid-19th century, annual fall harvest celebrations had become commonplace, but Halloween had not yet caught on across the United States. In the second half of the 19th century, new immigrants flooded into the United States. These new immigrants, especially the millions of Irish who fled Ireland because of the potato famine, played a big role in making Halloween popular across the country.

By the late 19th century, Americans began to frame Halloween as a festival of community and neighborhood gatherings, rather than a festival of ghosts, mischief, and witchcraft. In the early 20th century, hosting a Halloween party became the most common way to celebrate the day. The focus of the party is on games, plentiful food and festive costumes.

Newspapers and community leaders encouraged parents to remove any "scary" or "grotesque" elements from Halloween celebrations. After these changes, Halloween lost most of its superstitious and religious overtones in the early 20th century.

By the 1920s and 1930s, Halloween had become a secular and community-focused holiday. Dress up parades and Halloween parties across the town are featured entertainment. Despite the best efforts of many schools and communities, some celebrations in many communities have been plagued by acts of disruption and vandalism during this time.

By the 1950s, community leaders had succeeded in limiting trouble-making, and Halloween had developed into a festival aimed primarily at young people. During the American baby boom of the 1950s, due to the increase in the number of children, the meeting place changed from the center of the town to the classroom or the home.

Between 1920 and 1950, the centuries-old trick-or-treating was revived. Trick or treat is a relatively inexpensive way to celebrate Halloween for the community as a whole, and families can also deter their neighbors' kids from trick-or-treating by giving them treats.

Today, Americans spend about $6 billion each year on Halloween, making it the second-largest business holiday in the United States after Christmas.