History of Halloween Nail Illustration

This post is my entry for the Halloween Nail Art Contest on NailNation by Maria Cheo Shen.

The History
From communion with the dead, the pumpkins and pranks. Halloween is a patchwork holiday stitch together with cultural religious and occult traditions that span centuries.


 It all began with the Celts, a people whose culture had spread across Europe more than two thousand years ago.
October thirty-first was the date they celebrated the end of the harvest season in a festival called Samhain. That night also mark the Celtic new year and was considered the time between years, a magical time when the ghost of the dead walked the earth. 


"It was the time when the veil between death and life was supposed to be at its finish.

On Samhain the villagers gathered in a huge bone fire to drive the dead back to the spirit world and keep them away from the living." 


But as the catholic church influence grew in Europe, it frown on the pagan rituals like Samhain.

In the seventh century, the Vatican began merged in with the church sanctioned holiday. So, November 1st was designated All Saints' day to honor martyrs and the deceased faithful.
"Both of these holidays had to deal with the afterlife and about survival after death. It was a calculated move on the part of the church to bring more people into their own."


All saints' day was known then as Hallowmas
Hallow means holy or saintly.
So the translation was roughly, mass of the saints.


The night before, October thirty-first was All Hallows Eve.
Which gradually morphed into Halloween.

The holiday came to America with the wave of Irish emigrants, during the Potato Famine of the 1840's. They brought several of their holiday customs with them, including bobbing for apples and playing tricks on neighbors, like removing gates from the front of houses.
The young pranksters wore mask so they wouldn't be recognized.


Over the years, the traditions of harmless tricks grew into outright vandalism.

Back on the 1930's it became a dangerous holiday and there was such hooliganism and vandalism. Trick or treat was originally an extortion deal. "Give us candies or I will trash your house."

Store keepers and neighbors began giving treats or bribes to stop the tricks. The children ran from door to door for treat as an alternative to trouble making.

By the late thirty, TRICK OR TREAT became a holiday greeting.


~o~o~o~
A very special thanks to NatGeo and David Skal (Author of Halloween History).


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