By SJ Otto
Happy Samhain/Halloween, etc! Most people know this holiday
as a time for dressing up, and children getting candy from “trick or treating.”
But this was the most important holiday
of the year, before Christianity came to Europe. The Druids, witches,
Wiccans and other pre-Christian religions saw this day as a kind of New Year
day. It was the most important holiday of the year, in which people celebrated
the end of the harvest and the beginning of the new year. It was also a time
where people believed that spirits could visit the living. That is why many
people wore masks. They carved pumpkins out of fruits, such as turnips.
(Pumpkins came from the new world, so Europeans didn’t have them).
It is amazing that any of these traditions remain, since
Halloween can be viewed as a non-Christian holiday. At one point the Christian
Church came up with All
Saints Day, for a holiday after Halloween, where people were supposed to
dress as their favorite saints and go to mass.
Here are some good Halloween tunes:
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