- Dear Steemit Friends
When we think of Halloween immediately come to mind frightening costumes, parties, candy, pumpkins or horror movies. All successful television series devote a chapter to this holiday, and perhaps because of this has become popular in Europe and generally in the rest of the world. But the origin of the celebration of the Night of Witches goes back more than 2000 years and comes from the Celts, a warrior people that inhabited the zones of England, Scotland, Ireland and France.
No, Halloween is not an American invention, its celebration has almost two thousand years of history.
- Then: what is its origin?
The origin of this celebration is in Samhain or Samagín. A millenary Celtic commemoration in which the druids of ancient Briton asked for the souls of the deceased to the god of death; gigantic bonfires lit up to ward off the evil spirits, and human sacrifices were made to see the future. The barbarity to which it arrived was such that, when the Romans arrived at the islands, they prohibited part of the activities.
However, the origins of the party have been blurred over time causing the interpretations on what the heck was done in that celebration are many. In fact, the exact moment in which it began to happen is unknown.
It so is only known that it had as protagonists the British sorcerers and that it was already practiced before the Roman conquest of the islands. A military campaign that began with Julius Caesar in 55 BC. and that it began to materialize definitively in the 43 with Claudius. Regardless of the specific date, all sources agree that the Samhain revolved around the druids, the priests of the Celtic people.
"The Celtic people lived in the north of France and the British Isles. He practiced the occult arts and worshiped nature, to which he attributed animistic or supernatural qualities, "explain authors John Ankerberg and John Weldon in his book" Facts on Halloween. "
For his part, the archaeologist and nineteenth-century historian Henri Hubert explains in his work "The Celts and Celtic civilization" that this town was held together thanks to, among other things, the druids, who were given great importance as to please the gods. "They were a class of priests expressly charged with the preservation of traditions," the expert says.
- Samhain y Belenus
As a people who based a good part of their existence on nature, the Celts gave a paramount importance to the seasonal cycles. For them, the year was divided into two great periods: winter and summer. The first, associated with death; the second with life. And, to commemorate the passage from one to another, they celebrated two feasts in honor of the respective gods to which they associated each one of them. "The Celts worshiped the sun god (Belenus) especially in Beltane, the first of May. And they worshiped another god, Samhain, the god of death or the dead, on October 31, "the authors determine in his work.
Of the second celebration that was carried out in honor of this deity is the one that comes the present Halloween. According to most sources, the festival of Samhain lasted three days and three nights and marked the "beginning of the dead season of the year, in which fields and living creatures slept waiting for the next spring" ( as explained by the doctor in history Margarita Barrera Cañellas in her thesis "Halloween, its projection in American society").
It might seem that this celebration was understood as a celebration of second category, but nothing further from reality. After all, the Druids themselves considered their civilization and the British people descended from the god of death. Yet, as true as this is that there are proponents of Samhain being only the name given to the feast, and not that of any deity. "Of the 400 names of known Celtic gods, the most mentioned is Belenus. Samhain, which is the specific name of the lord of death, is uncertain. However, it is possible that he was the main druidic deity.
- The beliefs
The beliefs of the Druids claimed that, on the night of October 31, Samhain summoned the dead to pass "on the other side." That is, from the world of the deceased, to the world of the living. However, these spirits could come to the "here and now" in two different ways, depending on whether they had been "good" or "bad" in recent months.
"The Celts believed that on 31 October the veil between the present, the past and the future fell"
If the god considered that they had not fulfilled their duties, it made them reincarnate in animals after sunset. On the contrary, those who had acted according to what the deity wanted were free to visit their relatives with their human form and spend a few hours in their old homes before returning to limbo.
Also, the night of the 31st was considered especially esoteric by the Druids. "They believed that the veil between the present, the past and the future was falling, and this was the reason why it was considered the most propitious moment for all sorts of magical arts, and especially divinatory and predicting the new year, "adds the expert in her thesis. It was, in short, a magical journey in the most literal sense of the word in which the fear of the dead mingled with the hope of remembering a relative who had left this world.
- Sacrifices and bonfires
During the celebrations, the Celts practiced several rituals. One of the most basic was to extinguish all the fires that had ignited in the houses with two objectives. The first was to prevent the wandering spirits (the evil ones) from entering the homes as cold. The second, symbolize the arrival of the "dead" and dark season of the year. In this way, the different villages were completely obscured and were only illuminated by one thing: the gigantic bonfires that the druids lit in the hills.
"The Druids or Celtic priestly class ignited new central fires in the hills as a symbol of the rebirth of Nature and life during the night of Samhain. In these new fires were burned mainly oak branches, sacred tree for the Celts, and offerings of fruits, animals and even humans. The next day, in the ashes and remains of calcined bones, the druids read the future of the community in the new year that began.
These fires were lit with all kinds of objects that the young people gathered in the days before the celebration. How did they do it? Through a tradition that continues today: asking for materials from house to house for the big bonfire.
The fires were a central element of the celebration, as it was believed that with them it was possible to frighten away the evil spirits who, angry at being punished by the god of death, were dedicated to tricking the living. "People would wear grotesque masks and dance around the big bonfire pretending they were being pursued by evil spirits," the English authors add.
However, the gigantic bonfires and masks were not the only thing that prevailed during this festivity. In addition to all this, this party was considered a propitious moment to ask for the spirits of the deceased and to practice magic and the divining arts. This last praxis was performed by the Druids, who considered that they could find out the future using vegetables ... or sacrificing human beings to the gods. An outrage that, to this day, has fallen into oblivion during Halloween night. Or not?...
- Forbidden and changed
The barbarism of Samhain continued until the first century AD., when the Romans arrived until Britania from Claudio and his legions Augusta, Hispana, Gemina and Valeria Victrix. After treading on island lands, they "civilized" the holiday by eradicating human sacrifices. Instead, they changed the condemned by effigies. Subsequently, in an attempt to romanize the celebration even more, they changed it for the Pomona festival (in honor of the goddess of apples and autumn). The party was accepted, but the people never forgot their beliefs ancestrals.
"People would wear grotesque masks and dance around the great bonfire pretending to be persecuted by evil spirits"
Over the years, and using Roman civilization as a way of entry, the Catholic Church tried to give a further twist to the festival to finally end the Celtic beliefs. Thus, in 610, Pope Boniface IV inaugurated the feast of the "Christian Martyrs" on 13 May.
This measure did not have much success, reason why in Century VIII AD. Pope Gregory III, introduced the feast of Christian Martyrs on November 1, making it coincide in this way with the date of the celebration of Samhain, and later, Pope Gregory IV extended this celebration to all the saints of the Christian pantheon. In those years it was when the name of the festival was changed to "All Hallow's Eve", term that would later derive in the present Halloween.
To be continued...
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