NORFOLK, Neb. – As a child, Paul Muncy’s favorite holiday was Halloween.
And it wasn’t because he liked putting on a costume or getting candy – although many U.S. children like the holiday for those reasons.
Muncy, who is from California, liked the holiday because it represented the weather changing and the holiday seasons approaching, including Thanksgiving, Christmas and the New Year.
“My memory, particularly being a kid, was Halloween was when you started putting the decorations up in your classroom. The seasons are changing. I am a fan of the nighttime – not a big fan of the sun,” he said.
The Northeast Community College history and geography instructor was the latest speaker featured in Hawk Talk, which is a periodic event at the college where college instructors provide information on a topic, event or hobby.
Muncy, who has been teaching history since 2010 and at Northeast since 2017, gave a lecture on “A History of Halloween.”
The start of human awareness of the calendar included humans being aware of the equinoxes and solstices. There are a lot of archeological records of the equinox in late March, usually close to when things started to get planted, Muncy said.
The summer solstice in June usually coincides with wheat harvest, the autumnal equinox usually marks the beginning of most of the harvest season, and then the winter solstice arrives, with the shortest day of sunlight.
Before grocery stores, people had to store items for the winter, with the harvest representing the last time in months where people could count on plenty of food before depending on stored items.
Herds were culled to save on feed during the winter, so there was plenty of meat in the fall. This all represented the time for a good party, Muncy said.
“For a large chuck of humanity, these celebrations have been about life,” Muncy said.
In China, there’s the Chinese Moon Cake Festival. The moon is associated with women, femineity and fertility. The Mooncake Festival and India’s Diwali Festival are recognition that the light is getting shorter, but it will be coming back.
“Europeans have celebrated this season differently. European society, for a few thousand years now, have associated this time of year with death. It’s an unusual little quirk,” he said.
Europeans, especially the northern ones, received even less sun. The Celts, whose descendants include the Irish and Scottish, among others, had festivals associated with the equinox.
One of the festivals, Samhain, a three-day festival in late October and early November, included the observance that the earth was not fertile now, and the belief that ancestors or dead could come back and visit the living.
“The veil between this world and the next world got thinner during this period,” Muncy said. “A common thing to do during Samhain was to light bonfires, with the indication we have is that they were trying to keep the sun alive a little longer, to give the sun a little more heat.”
The deceased people roaming the earth were thought to have knowledge. Coming from the other world, a deceased grandmother might know if a grandchild should marry a particular person or a son should buy a plot of land.
“This (Samhain) would be a good time to ask those types of questions,” he said. “And when people were out at the bonfires at this time, you would leave your doors open and you would leave food and drink and the door open.”
The idea that was when people were out trying to keep the sun alive, their deceased ancestors might want to visit. It was also thought that it was a time when fairies might come out – not the cute kind but the mischievous ones who might be up to tricks. It was also thought that the demons might come out.
There was a thought by people that they could darken their faces to trick the demons. If a person was out and about, they dressed up like ghouls to disguise themselves from demons.
Then there was evidence that people out and about would come to a house, then perform a silly routine or dance in exchange for the food or drink set out for the deceased visiting ancestors. This would have been some of the earliest hints of trick or treating.
Muncy also talked about Christianity, pagan traditions, and how some of the pagan traditions got transferred over to Christianity. Christianity, when it began, originated in the cities, where people were more willing to change.
The last people to convert to Christianity in Roman times were the rural people. Pagans at that time was a term that referred to rural people, sort of “hick” in today’s world. The meaning of words changes over time, but then pagan meant rural.
Rome also celebrated an All-Saints Day on March 13. In 837 AD, Pope Gregory IV proclaimed for all Christians that Nov. 1 would be All Saints Day.
Some people, including some historians, like to believe that it was done to counteract Samhain, fitting with the theme that a lot of Christians took holidays and celebrate them on pagan holidays so they could take them over.
“That sometimes is overstated,” Muncy said.
In this case, the Irish and the Scottish were not listening to the pope then. So, it probably was not the idea to replace their Samhain traditions.
“We in history sometimes get a little too obsessed with seeing coincidences,” Muncy said. “Sometimes it is purposeful, but you should not automatically assume that everything is purposeful.”
In the 1100s, the Irish were conquered by the Catholic faith. They then accept the Catholic All Saints Day on Nov. 1, and some of the traditions start getting mixed together.
By the 1300s, Hallowtides became one of the more important holidays. The three-day festival began on All Hallows’ Eve, followed by All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day.
By this time, people started making bonfires on All Hallows’ Eve, not because they were trying to keep the sun alive, but because it was fun. Hallowtides was fun, but then came the Black Death and the Bubonic Plague.
When it showed up in Europe from 1347-1351, the Bubonic Plague killed about half of the European population. Death was seen everywhere, with people dying young and in their homes.
This was before germ theory, with the most common theory that people did something wrong, and God was punishing them.
The Protestant Reformation started on Oct. 31, 1517, when Martin Luther, a German monk and teacher, posted his Ninety-Five Theses on the door of a Catholic Church. He didn’t want to start a new religion, but he wanted to start a discussion because he didn’t think the popes were acting right, or that people should be buying their way out of purgatory.
Muncy said this growing movement noted that many of the Church holidays were not in the Bible. Many Protestants, particularly Calvinists, were of the mindset that if the festivals weren’t in the Bible, they should not be celebrated.
One of the festivals that was targeted was Hallowtide, with England becoming Protestant, and Ireland and Scottland remaining Catholic. In the north of England, near Ireland, the tradition existed where people would be going around and knocking on doors – and singing a song for a coin or a little something to eat.
For many centuries, Halloween was not part of the American culture. There are newspaper records of it starting with the Irish or Scottish practicing something like it about the 1850s. This was about the time of the Irish potato famine when 1 million Irish people starved to death and 2 million Irish left, many of whom came to the U.S. and Canada.
This was the first time there was a large influx of Catholics into the United States, bringing with them the custom of Hallowtide. They had the tradition of bonfires, wearing costumes and going door to door asking for gifts.
They also brought the tradition of Stingy Jack, who was known for ripping people off, including Satan. He told the Devil that he would give him his soul, if the Devil would buy him a drink. The Devil turned himself into a coin, but Stingy Jack took the coin and put it in his pocket, next to a crucifix and now the Devil was stuck.
Stingy Jack made another deal, he would let the Devil go if he never took his soul. The Devil agreed. So when Jack died, he couldn’t go to heaven, but he can’t go to hell, so he is stuck on earth. As a consolation prize, the Devil gave Jack a burning coal from hell to light his way as he wandered around earth.
During the festivities of All Hallow’s Eve, Irish revelers put candles in hollowed out radishes and beets. Turnips were good, but in the U.S., there was a much better gourd -- the pumpkin. Jack O Lanterns celebrate how stingy old Jack tricked the Devil.
Another practice among the poor in Scottland and northern England was souling. On All Souls Day, people would ask for food in exchange for saying prayers. This is where the practice of making soulcakes came from.
People who were a little better off would do guising. Young folks would dress up in costumes, asking for sweet treats for a little song or dance.
These and other traditions started to come together, including Guy Fawkes Night. It was celebrated in England on Nov. 5, commemorating when Guy Fawkes was arrested after trying to assassinate the Protestant king by blowing him up.
As part of that celebration, men would go around and play tricks on people. When these people came to the United States, there was no Guy Fawkes Night, but there was All Hallows Eve. By the 1900s, the tricks began to become a problem in some cities.
Droves of youngsters would go through neighborhoods and do things like pelt houses with vegetables while wearing masks. The term trick-or-treat appeared for the first time in a Canadian newspaper in 1927 and appears in the U.S. for the first time in Portland, Ore., in 1934.
“Young goblins and ghosts employed modern shakedown methods, effectively working the trick or treat methods in all parts of the city. It was, ‘Give me something or I am going to mess your house up,’ ” Muncy said.
The pastimes of young people on this night included such things as unhinging the fence gate of a house and hiding it in another part of town, or overturning outhouses, including when people were in them. Some young people splashed paint on buildings.
The trick of the trick-or-treat was basically a threat to give the person something good to eat or something bad would happen to the person’s house.
To start pushing back, community leaders began to embrace the treat and started offering more treats for young people, downplaying the hooliganism. The holiday then continued to evolve to where it is today.
It truly is a new holiday with parts of it that go back to the early days when humans started to create the calendar. And modern trick-or-treating is American, Muncy said.
History of Halloween
Paul Muncy, who teaches history and geography at Northeast Community College, discusses the history of Halloween during a Hawk Talk earlier this month at Union 73. (Northeast Community College)
###