Wishesh Magazine November_2018 Wishesh Magazine November 2018 | Page 30

COVER STORY
What does the
name even mean?
30
Been wondering where the
name “Halloween” even
popped up from? It literally
stands for hallowed evening
and back in the days, a
number of decades back, it
was mainly known as the All
Hallow’s Eve for the date of
October 31st and then All
Saint’s Day on November
01st. The days were mainly
observed to commemorate
and pay tribute to the saints
and eventually with the
passing days, the name of
the festivity was cut down
and shortened to Halloween,
the one that we are familiar
with today.
Why Do We
Celebrate It On
October 31st?
Majority of the believers
state that Halloween is
mainly celebrated on the
31st of October because
of the ancient Gaelic
festival of Samhain which is
believed to be the root of the
festivities of Halloween and
it occurred on this day.
This time of the year is
when the seasons changed,
transitioning towards the
fall season but apart from
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that, the observers even
found that during that time,
the boundary between this
world and the next became
especially thin, which enabled
easy connection to the dead
and hence the spooky theme
behind the occasion.
While Halloween is more or
less celebrated by majority
of the Western Countries,
especially in the United
States and United Kingdom,
the same also has a similar
kind of concept in the Jewish
culture, known as the Yom
Kippur which is also observed
during the month of October
and involves offering prayers
to the dead.
Halloween
Costumes and
Trick or Treating –
History
While the concept of treat or
treating as well as wearing
different kinds of costumes
during Halloween has become
a raging trend now, the same
was not a trend but a ritual
back in the initial days when it
started.
Many of the people would
dress up as saints and recite
poems and songs from door to
door on that day. Not just that,
even the small children in the
town would go from house to
house asking the owner of the
house to treat them with soul
cakes which is something a
lot similar to biscuits. This
concept was what eventually
evolved as what we now
know as the trick or treating
that children do.
For the concept of the
costumes, they technically
evolved too. While the ritual
of dressing up as a saint
did die down, the same was
brought back when Scottish