It was only when the Catholic Church tried to supplant Samhain and other native holidays that the church branded practitioners of rival religions as devil-worshippers. Contrary to some accounts, there was no human sacrifice. They made sacrifices in honor of the dead, but those sacrifices more often took the form of burned crops rather than animals. And all this business about goblins and jack-o’-lanterns and all that all comes out of demonic rituals of the druids and the people who lived in England at that particular time.”Īctually, the devil wasn’t part of the Samhain festival celebrated by the Celts - or the druids, who made up their priestly caste. “The whole idea of trick-or-treating is the druids would go to somebody’s house and ask for money, and if they didn’t get money, they’d kill one of their sheep. “Halloween is a festival for demonic spirits,” Pat Robertson said this month. This is a concern especially for some evangelical Christians. It was Irish immigrants in the 19th century who were responsible for bringing many Halloween customs to the United States. It was and remains a family celebration in Ireland.įew early American settlers observed Halloween. It featured feasts, the blessing of the hearth, and the lighting of candles and bonfires to welcome wandering souls. 1 became All Saints’ Day, or All Hallows Day, and the eve of All Hallows became known as Halloween. Patrick and other missionaries converted Ireland to Christianity, Nov. And so they associated the fruits of the harvest with death, the afterlife and the supernatural. They believed that the souls of the dead mingled among the living at that time. 1 marked the end of the harvest and the beginning of the new year. But the origins of the holiday can be traced back to a pre-Christian Celtic festival called Samhain (pronounced “SAH-wen”).
Traditions focused on accumulation and consumption may seem very American, and certainly an American-style Halloween has evolved. Halloween is a quintessentially American holiday. While it should be reassuring to know that contaminated candy falls squarely into the category of urban legend, it’s a sad commentary on our society that homemade treats are considered suspicious and only mass-produced candy bars are seen as safe.Ģ.
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