Ever wonder why we celebrate Halloween? A whole day devoted to candy, costumes, and scary movies seems too good to be true, and yet every year in October, Americans spend hours decorating and finding a costume. The yearly estimate for money spent on halloween candy alone is $2 billion, making it a huge commercial success.

But where did this celebration come from? Grab your time machine, and buckle in for a whirl through the history of Halloween.

Samhain

Welcome to 10th century Ireland. This is a world of Druids, ghosts, and the underworld, a world before Christianity. It is a world of superstition. Samhain marked the end of the Celtic year, when the sun begins to weaken and darkness gets stronger. It was a harvest festival, a time to gather food for the upcoming winter. It was also the feast of the dead.

The ghosts of the Celtic world were wanderers, strongest during the feast of Samhain, because of the precarious balance between the light and dark on that night. Bonfires, known as Winter Fires, which symbolized the strength of the sun and the victory of light, were lit to guide family ancestors home, to warm themselves by the fire, and eat food offerings. This ensured that the spirits would be benign, although not necessarily pleasant. To withhold offerings would ensure bad luck to the household, as unappeased spirits were unpredictable and cranky, more likely to curse a family.

All Saint’s Day and All Hallow’s Eve

Ultimately, Christianity found its way into the world of the Druids. The pagan feast of Samhain horrified Christians, but it was recognized that the feast was too central to the people’s lives to be removed. Instead, it was tweaked (similarly to Christmas, but more on that another week) and morphed from a Celtic harvest feast into a Christian celebration of the dead. The celebration was actually on November 1st, and was called All Saint’s Day, as a remembrance for the dead, who were known as “saints” in the church. This fell on the same day as Samhain, making for an easy transition from the religion of the Celts to Christianity.

In those days, most major Christian feasts had some sort of vigil on the day or days before it. All Hallow’s Eve, October 31, became the day for reflecting on and honoring the dead, and praying for recently departed souls. It was customary to make and give out “soul cakes” to people knocking door to door in exchange for prayers for the recently dead. It is thought that the tradition of trick or treat comes from that. It also became a custom to light candles in windows or burn bonfires to guide the dead back to visit their earthy homes.

Sometime later, churches began to warn people of the danse macabre which took place when the dead rose from their graves on All Hallow’s Eve. It has been suggested by historians that people took part in pageants depicting this, which would have included dressing in costume as corpses and other manners of death. This may have been where modern dressing up came from.

El Día de los Muertos and the Festival of Hungry Ghosts

In other parts of the world, cultures celebrated the dead with certain festivals and feasts, just how the Druids of Ireland celebrated the bridge between worlds in the 10th century, and later the Christians adopted All Saint’s Day.

In Mexico, El Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is a huge festival celebrated on November 1st and 2nd. It is believed that the souls of dead loved ones come back from the grave to visit and bless their family on these two days. On November 2nd, the festival is taken to the cemetery, where the grave is swept, many special foods are eaten, and the family reminisces about their dead relatives. A common symbol of Día de los Muertos is the sugar skull, found at many small shops and markets, and depicting beautiful colorful patterns on delicate sugar skulls.

On the other side of the world, the Chinese celebrate the Festival of Hungry Ghosts, during the seventh month of the Chinese lunar calendar. This stems from Daoist and Buddhist religious traditions involving the feeding and care of ghosts, specifically family ancestors and wandering spirits. Offerings to the ancestors include food, alcohol, money, and paper goods to be burnt and sent into the next life for ancestral use. Meals are served and plays are performed, with empty chairs for the ancestors. Wandering ghosts are treated much more cautiously, however. Their food offerings are put at the backdoor of homes, because inviting in random spirits can cause bad luck. And, as with Día de los Muertos, there is a grave cleaning ceremony, in which ancestors are honored with a cleaned grave, and family members come back together to celebrate their ancestry.

So how does all this relate to modern Halloween?

Halloween today is nothing but a modern extension of what the Druids were already doing a thousand years ago, except we no longer believe in ghosts. The draw of Halloween, the reason that it’s still going strong today after hundreds of years, is that people have always been fascinated with death, and Halloween is the one day a year that the line between the living and the dead is blurred. Even if superstition has waned into nothing but tall tales and legends, and ghosts are found more often on the silver screen than in your living room, humans still question death and the afterlife.

Truthfully, Halloween today is a day more for children and fun than for hungry ghosts and bonfires. However, it is the rich history of the holiday that gives it its lasting power. And while we may no longer fear our ancestor’s wrath, Halloween will always be a day to celebrate the dead, in one form or another.