Halloween is a time when we let our imaginations run wild and explore the dark and scary or indulge in fantasy, but Halloween hasn’t always looked the way it does now.
In fact, it’s a pagan tradition dating back thousands of years. Sabina Magliocco, professor of anthropology at the University of British Columbia Vancouver campus, says that the origins of Halloween go back so far that they cannot be dated precisely because they were passed down as oral traditions.
“The origin of Halloween is an Irish and Scottish festival called Samhain and that word means summer’s end,” said Magliocco.
“Long ago before the advent of Christianity, this was an important time of year because their crops were harvested and they were bringing their livestock back from the pastures that were far away from the inhabited areas. They were bringing them closer to the inhabited area for the winter and so some of them could be slaughtered and to be put up for winter supply and they have something to live on.”
Magliocco says that the farmers would then drive them between bonfires to purify them from “disease and to drive away evil spirits.”
When Christianity became more prominent by the ninth century, rituals to honour dead ancestors and celebrate harvest began to change, combining All Hallows Eve, Samhain and All Saints Day.
Magliocco says that trick-or-treating was born from mischievous neighbours.
“People would play pranks and tricks and often they were going door-to-door begging in groups and asking for whatever the people in the household could hand out, drinks, soul cakes (a special kind of bread) and people felt they had to give them something because of this ancient belief that your beloved dead might be visiting and they might visit in the guise of somebody else,” said Magliocco.
Today, those disguises are less deceiving and its a chance to be whomever you want for one night.
To this day there are modern pagans who are returning to the more traditional roots of Halloween.
“These are new religious movements that are trying to reclaim pre-Christian pagan practices associated with the Indigenous people of Europe,” said Magliocco.
“Many pagan families create an ancestor altar where they grab photographs of their beloved dead and leave out food offerings.”
On the other side of the scale, Halloween enthusiasts are being drawn the gorier side of things.
“It basically helps us see a new world but it’s not necessarily like the world that we are living in today,” said Ervin Malakaj, assistant professor of Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies at the UBC Vancouver campus.
“It’s an escapism of sorts that is facilitated through particular gory scenes that jolt us out of our everyday and I think people enjoy being jolted.”
You can now eat, drink and be scary now that you are armed with a Halloween history lesson you can sink your teeth into.