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2006 (Archived) - The gnarled toothed
witch, jack-o'-lanterns with a menacing
glare and trays of caramel apples are all
Halloween traditions, but many people don't
know the symbols of this fright night began
with religious intent.
"Halloween is All Hallows Day, a
holy day, and people should notice
that," said Father Mark Inglot, a
priest at St. John's Student Parish, 327
M.A.C. Ave.
Halloween is based in the Celtic Pagan
festival Samhain, which marks the final
harvest, the darkening of days and
commemorates the dead.
In the eighth century, Pope Gregory III
adopted Halloween to convert pagans and
attempted to replace the darker aspects with
celebrations of saints, said Jason Mankey,
former member of Green Spiral, a pagan group
on campus.
Dawne Botke-Coe, co-owner of the Triple
Goddess Bookstore, 2142 Hamilton Road in
Okemos, said the rituals of Samhain have
been overshadowed by the modern symbols that
came from them.
Originally, the witch was a goddess,
mourning the death of the Crown God at the
end of the last harvest. An important
feature of this image is the presence of the
cauldron.
"She's like a Halloween witch, stirring
her cauldron, which was part of the Celtic
belief that the soul goes to the cauldron to
wait for reincarnation," said
Botke-Coe, who identifies as a neo-pagan
goddess worshiper.
The idea of the goddess as a healer and holy
person was destroyed with witch burning and
Christianity, she said.
Household items such as brooms, chalices and
cauldrons were used by some Celts to
continue their religious rituals.
Today, however, these items are symbols of
darkness and are generally viewed as
instruments of evil.
"Some things that survived, that were
really used, have been vilified and are only
hauled out on Halloween, but it's simply
history," Botke-Coe said.
The religious origins of the jack-o'-lantern
are harder to pinpoint.
Botke-Coe said Celts used to hollow-out
gourds to keep negative spirits away during
the night when the veil between the living
and the dead world is weak.
The pumpkin was introduced when the Irish
immigrated to the United States in the 1800s
and replaced the gourds with the larger
vegetable.
But Mankey said the jack-o'-lantern is more
of a Christian tradition than pagan,
representing a soul trapped in purgatory.
Inglot agrees that the jack-o'-lantern could
be viewed as a Christian symbol, used to
convey a religious message.
The idea has been put forth, Inglot said, of
the emptied-out gourd as a metaphor of a
human being.
The candle placed within is supposed to be
the soul placed by god, illuminating the
vessel.
Celebrating the harvest is the main
explanation given for the presence of apples
during Halloween festivities.
"The Celts used to observe Samhain by
celebrating the harvest - all of the things
we use to decorate for Halloween are harvest
symbols," Mankey said.
"You're thanking the Earth for the
abundance given to us."
Apples were also used by the Celts for
divination, which was often done to predict
a girl's future spouse.
Botke-Coe said she prefers to use tarot
cards to communicate with her dead loved
ones. During Samhain she performs
divination, which includes a solitary
reading to her ancestors.
There is also the idea that bobbing for
apples was a version of baptism for the
Celts, placed in a cauldron, which was
viewed as a homely and holy item, Botke-Coe
said.
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