With each passing year, the craze of Halloween is growing in India and elsewhere. It’s time to throw some light on Halloween. Celebrated on October 31, the Halloween is quite popular in the United States. It’s a family friendly holiday and has become a 7 billion dollar industry only next to Christmas. It’s estimated that an average American spends 75 dollars in costumes, home decor and candy.
So, what exactly Halloween means? And where did it come from? Well, it dates back to thousands of years and connected to several religions, agrarian rituals. Predominantly, Halloween belongs to 2000-yr-old Celtic festival of Samhain (sou-win).
The Celts, who lived in Ireland, the UK and France, believed October 31st as end of the harvest and the death of the year. On this day, they believed the earthly and spiritual worlds connected, created passage to spirits, ghosts to earth.
They believed that ghosts, spirits are kept below ground burdened by the weight of crops on fields that were now barren. Fearing of these ghosts, Celts began wearing spooky masks, disguises to confuse and ward them off. That’s how the tradition of wearing costumes came from.
Over the years, this festival was influenced by other cultures. When Romans conquered the Celts around 49AD, the Samhain Celtic festival merged with two Roman festivals that celebrated death. Thus it took several shapes, forms and finally evolved as it’s today.
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