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Oct 26, 2003
What’s New About Halloween and What’s Old?”
There’s a lesson in multiculturalism here; a way to change culture and blend beliefs and traditions. (Info)



Halloween began as an ancient Celtic ceremony called Samhain. It was their major celebration, a festival of the dead but also the beginning of winter.

It was time for them to harvest their crops and store them, and round up the cattle and sheep and move them in closer. They believed at this time the ghosts of the dead mingled with the living.

Then Christian missionaries arrived to convert them to Christianity. Pope Gregory I issued an edict on how this was to be done—the missionaries should not obliterate the native religion, but rather use it. If they found the Celts worshipped a tree, they should not cut it down, but rather consecrate it to Christ, and let the worship continue.

Christian holidays were also set to coincide with local holy days. All Saints Day was assigned November 1st and meant to substitute for Sawhain, but still it continued.

Jack Santino says, “The powerful symbolism of the traveling dead was too strong, and perhaps too basic to the human psyche, to be satisfied with the new, more abstract Catholic feast honoring saints.”

The Church tried again in the 8th century, naming November 2nd as All Soul’s Day, but Sawhain continued, and with time, All Hallows Eve (the night before) became Hallowe’en. People began to dress in costume to seek gifts of food and drink, which had originally been set out to appease spirits, and to masquerade as spirits, and tour traditions of Halloween evolved.

There’s a lesson in multiculturalism here; a way to change culture and blend beliefs and traditions. “Worship” was the constant in the equation, and dealing with dark spirits, which they kept and modified. The new was accommodated without changing the old too much. Remember this when you’re changing a household or office custom.

Contributed by:
Susan Dunn
©2003 Susan Dunn
Email: sdunn@susandunn.cc
Website: Susan Dunn, The EQ Coach