October 31, 2004

Horse 217 - Hallow-Irish-Een

The word itself, "Halloween," actually has its origins in the Catholic Church. It comes from a contracted corruption of All Hallows Eve. November 1, "All Hollows Day" (or "All Saints Day"), is a Catholic day of observance in honor of saints. But, in the 5th century BC, in Celtic Ireland, summer officially ended on October 31. The holiday was called Samhain (sow-en), the Celtic New year. This sounds suspiciously familiar, Christmas as we know is also a case of the Catholic Church stealing existing holidays and using them for their own ends.

The Jack-o-lantern custom probably comes from Irish folklore. As the tale is told, a man named Jack, who was notorious as a drunkard and trickster, tricked Satan into climbing a tree. Jack then carved an image of a cross in the tree's trunk, trapping the devil up the tree. Jack made a deal with the devil that, if he would never tempt him again, he would promise to let him down the tree. According to the folk tale, after Jack died, he was denied entrance to Heaven because of his evil ways, but he was also denied access to Hell because he had tricked the devil. Instead, the devil gave him a single ember to light his way through the frigid darkness. The ember was placed inside a hollowed-out turnip to keep it glowing longer.

One story says that, on that day, the disembodied spirits of all those who had died throughout the preceding year would come back in search of living bodies to possess for the next year. It was believed to be their only hope for the afterlife. The Celts believed all laws of space and time were suspended during this time, allowing the spirit world to intermingle with the living.
Naturally, the still-living did not want to be possessed. So on the night of October 31, villagers would extinguish the fires in their homes, to make them cold and undesirable. They would then dress up in all manner of ghoulish costumes and noisily paraded around the neighborhood, being as destructive as possible in order to frighten away spirits looking for bodies to possess. This again is a very Irish idea. The concept of evil spirits (in the case of Ireland usually Whisky or Poteen), drunkeness and destruction are very much associations we make with the Irish.

Irrespective of how the holiday came to be, Australia treats it with the utter ignorance that it deserves. As useful as Labour Day, Valentines Day, Queen's Birthday etc aren't, they still manage to be of significance to people. Halloween fails owing to one major reason... it's stupid (again also Irish).

And here I was thinking that All Saint's Day was the holiday for a late 90's girl band.

No comments: