Halloween — “hallow” meaning saints and “een” meaning evening — is a celebration that is historically associated with the night before the Christian festival of All Saints or All Hallows on Nov. 1. However, in modern culture, it has been used as a social holiday to dress up in costumes, eat candy and party with friends.
Halloween was historically a Celtic holiday called Samhain, a time when the sun was setting earlier and it was getting colder, making people believe that the connection between the world and the underworld was more permeable. These beliefs evolved into some of the more common traditions that are used today.
“If you actually look at the way that Christmas was being celebrated in Puritan New England, where you had these roving bands of poor people going from house to house demanding people’s best food and drink, it kind of sounds like trick or treating,” said Brent Landau, an associate professor in the Department of Religious Studies specializing in Christian studies. “It ended up being a time of role reversal.”
There are a few cultures that have similar celebrations, the most prominent one being Día de Muertos in the Hispanic and Latino communities. Día de Muertos, translated to “Day of the Dead,” is a three-day celebration designed for families to welcome back the souls of their loved ones who have passed. Many people who are not informed about this Hispanic celebration refer to Día de Muertos as “Hispanic Halloween,” but there are significant differences between the two.
“I think it goes back to the costume aspect of (the celebrations), where you are dressing up as a skull (for Halloween), and you are dressing up as someone who has passed (for Día de Muertos) or certain different costumes,” said Erick Lara, a senior nursing major and president of Texas Fuego. “But I think those are also shared elements of both holidays.”
Texas Fuego, the first and only co-ed Latino spirit organization on campus, partakes in both Halloween and Día de Muertos celebrations. This organization emphasizes the importance of cultural awareness, noting that many members of the Hispanic community start off prioritizing Halloween traditions as children and Día de Muertos traditions as they grow and recognize the cultural significance.
Many modern day Jewish community members link the autumn festivals with the agricultural seasons, specifically the Jewish festival of Sukkot, and have many similar views to the Christian community in terms of Halloween’s origin.
“(Adam, the first human being in Talmudic materials,) started to see the days getting shorter and got very scared, and then essentially in that fear, created Halloween,” said Jonathan Schofer, an associate professor in the Department of Religious Studies specializing in Judaic studies.
Many evangelical Christians view Halloween as a sort of Satanism or devil worship, regardless of the idea that the festival doesn’t originate from any type of religion of the underworld. On the other hand, the traditional Jewish community has a cycle of holidays that all revolve around harvest themes, and views Halloween as a sort of European counterpart.
The University and many of its affiliated departments have Halloween-themed activities during the week prior to Oct. 31, such as Bevo BOOlevard and The Longhorn Haunt!. The University has a variety of communities that each choose to participate in celebrations in their own way, creating a shared yet independent understanding of Halloween and the activities surrounding it.
Anaparthy is a public health and Plan II junior.
