Page 4 - October 2018 Gears & Ears
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Gears and Ears
Journal of The Rotary Club of Lake Buena Vista
october 2018
What is Halloween and why it is celebrated?
Halloween or Hallowe’en (a contraction of All Hallows’ Evening), also known as All
Hallows’ Eve, or All Saints’ Eve, is a celebration observed in a number of countries
on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Saints’ Day. The practices
of Halloween mostly come from Celtic paganism in the British Isles, and their feast of
Samhain, the new year. They believed it was the time when ghosts and spirits came
out to haunt, and the Celts would appease the spirits by giving them treats.
Who came up with trick or treating?
As for the trick or treating, or “guising” (from “disguising”), traditions, beginning
in the Middle-Ages, children and sometimes poor adults would dress up in the
aforementioned costumes and go around door to door during Hallowmas begging for
food or money in exchange for songs and prayers.
Why is Halloween celebrated in America?
Many European cultural traditions hold that Halloween is a time when magic is most
potent and spirits can make contact with the physical world. Immigrants from Scotland
and Ireland brought the holiday to the United States.
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