On Samhain, Irish Celtic pagans extinguished the fires in their homes and lit a large bonfire in their village, around which they danced and acted out stories. death, rebirth and survival. Entire villages took part in dances, and animals and crops were burned as sacrifices to the Celtic gods, giving thanks for the previous year’s harvest and encouraging goodwill for the coming year.
It was believed that during this period, the veil between this world and the spirit world was at its thinnest, allowing the spirits of the dead to pass through and commune with the living. The sacred energy of rituals was believed to enable communication between the living and the dead and gave druids and Celtic shamans a heightened sense of perception.
And this is where the dress-up element came into play. Costumes and ugly masks were worn to scare away malevolent spirits believed to have been released from the world of the dead. This was also known as “mumming” or “gazing”.
Early Samhain costume rituals began to change when Pope Gregory I (590-604) arrived in Britain from Rome to convert the pagan Anglo-Saxons to Christianity. of The mission of the Gregorian calendar Bayliss said he decided that the festival of Samhain must include Christian saints “to ward off spirits and evil creatures of the night.” All Souls’ Day, November 1st, was established by the Church “so that people may ask for help from the dead.” Also known as All Hallows, October 31st later became All Hallows Eve and later Halloween.
“There’s a long tradition of certain types of costume that goes back to the Holy Mass, when people prayed for the dead,” explains Nicholas Rogers, a history professor at York University in Canada. “But they also prayed for a fertile marriage.” Centuries later, church boys’ choirs began dressing up as virgins, he says. “So the All Hallows Eve ritual involved some degree of cross-dressing.”
