The Halloween

The word "Halloween" is a contraction of the English

expression "All Hallow's Eve". Literally means "Eve of All
Saints". Apparently, then, this macabre and humorous
celebration Anglo would be linked to a feast and considered
strict observance by the Catholic Church: the First of
November, feast of All Saints. But this is not entirely true.
What are the origins of Halloween? The true origin of this
festival is ancient Anglo-Saxon and varied backgrounds.
Halloween is a Celtic root and other Roman. The Romans
dedicated the feast called Feralia rest and peace of the dead,
making sacrifices and raising various prayers to their pagan
gods. The Romans also dedicated a festival to Pomona, the
goddess of crops and fruits, whose symbol is a block-note that
one of the traditional Halloween games is the game of biting
the apple. But previously, and the Celtic peoples of Ireland,
Wales, Scotland and northern France, celebrated the festival
called Samhain. Samhain or La Samon was a festival that
occurred between late October and early November, a rite in
which the end of the harvest season and the beginning of
winter was celebrated. The Druids, true priests or Celtic
shamans believed that in a given evening, October 31,
witches enjoyed greater vitality, the Druids themselves were
granted the gift of divining the future, the boundaries between
the world of living and the world of the dead disappeared
completely, and even the ghosts of the dead came from
another world to take with the living. So, on the night of
Samhain the Druids preparing huge bonfires and made spells,
trying to ward off evil spirits, and people left sweets or food on
their doorsteps, in the superstition that the deceased, whom
legends they attributed the authorship of the cruelest
atrocities, would leave happy and leave them alone. In those
nations, for which any fact of nature was nothing short of
prophetic, the night of Samhain opened the long, harsh winter
by wandering lost the ghosts of the dead last year in search of

bodies that have to travel to another world, until the arrival of

spring when the days are longer and darkness dwindle.
When Christianity reaches the Celtic people, the tradition of
Samhain does not disappear, despite the efforts of the
Catholic Church to eliminate pagan superstitions that might
connecting with Satanism or devil worship. However the feast
of Samhain undergoes a transformation. In the Gregorian
calendar, November 1 became the day of All Saints; Samhain,
the eve of All Saints, was renamed All-hallows Eve and,
currently, by contraction of the phrase, Halloween; and
meanwhile, the Day or All Souls Day All Souls became on
November 2. The three celebrations together, "Eve of All
Saints", "Day of All Saints" and "Day of All Souls" are called in
the Irish tradition Hallowmas.
A mid-eighteenth century, Irish immigrants began to arrive to
America. With them come their culture, folklore, traditions,
Halloween... Halloween Initially suffers severe repression by
the authorities in New England, rooted Lutheran tradition. But
in the late nineteenth century, the United States receive a
new wave of immigrants from Celtic origin. Halloween party,
in America, is mixed with other Indian beliefs and colonial
sequel, Halloween includes among its traditions, tell ghost
stories) and performing pranks, jokes or traditional dances.
People begin to make costumes or costumes for Halloween
Thus, in the United States, Halloween, evolving and evading
the Christian tradition. Halloween becomes a night with weak
aura of mystery, witches, ghosts, goblins, spirits, but without
the festive mood and good humor is lost. A night of sweet,
jokes, costumes and horror movies, and lost the atavistic fears
of the old Irish ancestors.