Samhain (pronounced Sah-ween), begins at nightfall on October 31st and is celebrated through November 1st. It is celebrated by all Gaels, the Irish, Scottish, and Welsh, as well as by Neopagans and Wiccans. Samhain is New Year's Day for the ancient Celts. It marked an end to the harvest and a beginning of winter.
Samhain means roughly in Old Irish “summer’s end,” and recognizes the fall harvest, and the separation of the end of the “lighter half” of the year from the beginning of the “darker half” of the year. November is the beginning of the “dark half” and is thus the beginning of half of the year, considered to be New Year’s Day for the Celts.
In Ireland, Samhain was the main festival of the year. At this time in Tara, a Royal gathering and gala were held for three days in celebration of Samhain. The gathering began with a huge bonfire being lit atop a hill in Tara as a beacon to signal to others on top of hills all around Ireland to light their ritual bonfires at the beginning of the festivities.
Samhain was celebrated by all Celtic cultures up until late Medieval times and was tied to Celtic polytheism.
Origins of the Festival of Samhain
As Samhain is the beginning of the “dark half” of the Celtic year, it was the Celtic New Year’s which was celebrated over several days from the end of October to early November.
Samhain is still celebrated as a sacred festival by the Neopagans. Samhain is still today the name of the month of November for the Irish and Scottish.
Samhain was also known as Féile Moingfhinne (meaning "festival of Mongfhionn”). Mongfhionn was a goddess who the pagan Irish worshipped on Samhain, among other gods and goddesses of surrounding festivals.
Samhain holds elements of a festival of the dead. The Gaels saw the border between our world and the otherworld to be very thin on Samhain especially as some plants were dying at this time. The spirits of the dead could easily reach back through the veil at this time and touch the living.
Bonfires have been associated with Samhain from early times as a cleansing ritual. A person would walk with his cattle between two bonfires to cleanse them, while the bones of slaughtered cattle would be tossed into the fire.
Other activities associated with Samhain are Guising, Divination, Apple Bobbing and Feasting.
The Origins of Halloween
The Gaelic festival of Samhain became associated with the Catholic Christian festivals of All Saint’s Day and All Soul’s Day, or All Hallows Day, thus making the modern secular holiday of Halloween which is the abbreviation for the 16th century Scottish term of “All Hallows Even.”
On Samhnag, turnips were hollowed out to make lanterns and faces carved on them, corresponding to Jack-o-Lanterns made of pumpkins in the U.S.A. The purpose of these vegetable lanterns was to frighten away evil spirits.
The Use of Costumes on Halloween
The use of masks and costumes was a practice of the Gaels who were mimicking the spirits in an attempt to quiet them. In Scotland young men wore masks, veils, or black painted faces while wearing white clothing. In the 19th and 20th centuries, children dressed in guises or costumes would go door to door seeking coins or treats. In Ireland and Scotland, many played pranks and dressed as guisers, which practice was transferred to the United States.
Resources:
Feast of Samhain/Celtic New Year/Celebration of All Celtic Saints - Celtic Christians in Massachusetts, USA.
Kondratiev, Alexei. Samhain: Season of Death and Renewal - Celtic Studies and Reconstructionism, 1997.
Photos of Samahain Bonfires from Tara .
Paula I. Nielson - Paula I. Nielson, Ph.D., holds credentials and interests in anthropology, archaeology, religion, the Middle East and Asia.
