What is Halloween?
Halloween is an annual holiday observed on October 31. It has roots in the Celtic festival of Samhain. The Irish name Samhain is derived from Old Irish and means roughly "summer's end".
Samhain marked the end of the harvest, the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darker half". It was traditionally celebrated over the course of several days. It is the beginning of the Celtic year. The Celts believed that the border between this world and the otherworld become thin on Samhain; thus allowed the dead to reach back through the veil that separated them from the living. Bonfires played a large part in the festivities. People and their livestock would often walk between two bonfires as a cleansing ritual, and the bones of slaughtered livestock were cast into its flames.
The Gaelic custom of wearing costumes and masks was an attempt to copy the spirits or placate them. In Scotland the dead were impersonated by young men with masked, veiled or blackened faces, dressed in white and turnips which were hollowed-out and carved with faces to make lanterns — were also used to ward off harmful spirits and or invite friendly ones for a visit.
