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Hey, Brainheads, Hallowe'en is Not A Pagan Holiday
clipped by: wiccantexan

clipped from blogs.citizen-times.com

When my nephew Michael was little, his favorite insult was to call someone a "brainhead."

I say this every year at about this time--in fact, I say this so often that I should probably have it printed and hand it out to strangers every day of the world--Hallowe'en is not a Pagan holiday.

Not.

Hallowe'en is a perfectly lovely American holiday that came over with the immigrating Irish who escaped An Gorta Mor (what we were taught as the "Irish Potato Famine") in the 1840s. They brought some folk traditions connected with the evening before All Saints Day or All Hallows.

Many modern Pagans celebrate Samhain at the end of October.

It is rather a big deal...but it is not Hallowe'en. It's an important harvest celebration and a time to remember those who have died, whether in the last year or long ago. The Ancestors.

So, all these cranky churches and schools who refuse to celebrate the perfectly American (okay, Irish-American) holiday called Hallowe'en are brainheads.

Tags: halloween, pagan, holiday, irish

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4 Comments

by williamwhitlow on 10-26-2009 11:05 PM

Thanks for that tidbit of the true meaning of Halloween.

I never knew this. I shared your thread with my network.

Thanks again,
William Whitlow
Home Business On Line Marketer
http://www.williamwhitlow.com

by blueridge on 10-27-2009 12:18 AM

To limit the historical consideration of this festival to the Irish Immigration is absurd. There is evidence of a much longer historical tradition for a "day of the dead" by all civilizations as relating to a Global Deluge (also testified of by all ancient civilizations, including American Indians)--i.e. the Flood:

Col. J. Garnier writes in his book, "The Worship of the Dead" (1904), "The mythologies of all the ancient nations are interwoven with the events of the Deluge . . . The force of this argument is illustrated by the fact of the observance of a great festival of the dead in commemoration of the event, not only by nations more or less in communication with each other, but by others widely separated, both by the ocean and by centuries of time. This festival is, moreover, held by all on or about the very day on which, according to the Mosaic account, the Deluge took place, viz., the seventeenth day of the second month—the month nearly corresponding with our November."

Would this not be an expected "tradition", originally to remember the mass of humanity that died in a universal flood?

by wiccantexan on 10-27-2009 10:19 AM

Yes, the influences are much older. However, what modern Wiccans celebrate today as Samhain is not the same as what was done in Ireland, and has nothing do with with a flood tradition.

by boniface on 10-27-2009 8:59 PM

The Mexican "Day of the Dead" also has nothing to do with the "flood." The natives of the region equated butterflies with souls, so when the annual migration of Monarch butterflies occurred, they felt the souls of the dead were paying them a visit and they celebrated. The migration usually happens between Aug and Sept every year, however the day was moved to Nov 1 & 2 by Christian missionaries when they came on the scene.