NIGHT OF THE DEAD by Ann Joyce

Halloween, All Hollows, All Saints, All Souls, Day of the Dead have their origins in the great Celtic festival of Samhain, the festival celebrating the dead. In Celtic Ireland, Samhain was the most important of the four Celtic festivals. It was the division of the year between the lighter half (summer) and the darker half (winter). This divide between the two halves of the year gave it a unique status in time – it did not belong to the old or the new, a time when the division of the world was at its thinnest, allowing spirits to pass through, a time when the family’s ancestors were honoured and invited back home. Windows were opened to allow the spirits enter the house. The natural order of life was disturbed and the earthly world of the living became entangled with that of the dead.

Food was prepared and places were set at table to welcome home the spirits. This form of welcome ensured that only spirits with good intentions entered the house. In England special cakes known as ‘soul cakes’ were made for the wandering spirits. If the spirits were not offered food then another side of their character came to the fore and bad luck befell the house for the coming year. To avoid this, people dressed in costume so they wouldn’t be recognized. This may be why children dress up on Hallowe’en and where the origins of ‘trick or treat’ originated.

Since Samhain was the boundary between summer and winter, all boundaries were dangerous places to be on the night. Ghosts were to be found at gate-ways, gaps in hedges, bridges and crossroads but especially burial grounds were to be avoided as the dead roamed the countryside mingling with the living.

The Celts were fascinated with tracing their ancestry back as far as possible and often identified their earliest ancestors with the gods. So when they died they went to the house of the ancestor or the god of the underworld. In Irish Celtic mythology, Oweynagath or the Cave of the Cats in Co. Roscommon is believed to be the entrance to the underworld. In recent times, the local heritage group have organized tours of the cave at this time of year. The cave is underground and has attracted a new interest in the rituals of a bygone era.

Christian missionaries attempted to change the religious practices of the Celtic people and Samhain became the Halloween we are familiar with today. The Celts practiced an elaborate religion through their priestly caste, the Druids, who were priests, poets, scientists and scholars all at once. You might say they resembled the monks and missionaries that replaced them. The Druids and their gods were then deemed to be devil worshippers and evil forces.

The Christians made great efforts to wipe out the ‘pagan’ holidays and practices and they started with the ‘pagan’ festivals which has a huge influence on the people. In 601 A.D. Pope Gregory 1 issued a now famous edict to his missionaries concerning the beliefs and customs of the people they wished to convert. Rather than trying to obliterate these customs and beliefs, the missionaries were instructed to ‘rebrand’ them. So, if a tree was worshipped, then the tree should be consecrated to Christ and the people could then continue to worship it.

This proved rewarding for the missionaries. In Ireland we have many places that Christians now worship which were once sacred places for the Celts and those that came before them. Our holy wells are a good example. Wells and natural springs were sacred places where people gathered. Each well had its own significance and the cleansing, purifying water cured many ailments. Nowadays, religious ceremonies take place at these wells. They have become shrines where people come with their petitions and prayers.

The Christian feast of All Saints was assigned to November 1st, a substitute for Samhain in the hope of replacing it in the minds and devotion of the Celtic peoples. This has not happened, but the traditional Celtic deities diminished in status. They went underground becoming fairies or leprechauns or ‘bean sidhe’. The old beliefs associated with Samhain have never died out entirely. The powerful symbolism of the traveling dead, the ancestors, was too strong, and perhaps too basic to the human psyche. In 9th century, the church again made another attempt to subsume the original energy of Samhain under its own control. It established November 2nd as All Souls Day -a day when the living prayed for the souls of all the dead. This practice of once again honouring the dead ensured that the traditional belief system of Samhain lived on in the hearts and minds of the people.

To-day, Halloween still retains some features that harken back to the original harvest holiday of Samhain, such as the customs of bobbing for apples, carving vegetables, feasting with fruits, nuts and the special barmbracks containing rings and coins. Farmers mark the time of year by bringing cattle down from the high ground. The harvest is complete, fruits gathered from the orchards and a general easing of the workload takes place.

Houses are decorated with witches, ghosts and strange beings. Candlelit jack o'lanterns find their place on windowsills and both adults and children dress in costume complete with masks that challenge, mock, tease and appease the dread forces of the night, of the soul, and of the otherworld. Death, as part of life is being reaffirmed and both are celebrated with a certain touch of both magic and religion.