Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing Company, 1998. Halloween: An American Holiday, an American History. Overall, Bannatyne offers an excellent study of Halloween and a better understanding of how ethnic groups like the Irish influenced how Americans celebrate Halloween.īannatyne, Lesley Pratt. The divination worked best if the kale was stolen it was most telling if practiced on Halloween.” (72) The foods were plentiful throughout the British Isles, and young people pulled up kale plants to judge the nature of their future spouses from the taste, the shape, and amount of dirt clinging to the root. “Cabbage and kale, unlikely magical tools that they may seem, were assumed by the Irish to possess great fortune-telling power. Their concerns were similar to all who seek out the future: Would they be healthy or ill? Would they have a life of wealth or poverty? Most important of all, whom would they marry? (71). While the men were out sounding their horns and drinking strong ale on Halloween night, young Irish women gathered and summoned up the realm of the spirit. What were weird ways people conjured spirits in Early America?īannatyne explains some interesting ways people tried to predict their futures:
Irish Halloween begging always involved a masquerade and some sort of good-natured bribe, but who did the begging and what they were after varied from region to region.” (66) Once charitable in nature, “souling” took a popular turn as it evolved over the years. The custom of begging for food from house to house on Halloween came from the old Catholic soul-cake custom. While Bannatyne cannot fully explain why we allow our children to become panhandlers during Halloween, she does offer this interesting description: The fat orange harvest vegetable was quickly substituted for the turnip, and the carved-out, snaggle-toothed Halloween jack-o’-lantern was born.” (78) Bannatyne claims, “When the Irish immigrants arrived in America, they delighted in the size and carving potential of the native pumpkin. How did the pumpkin become a popular Halloween symbol?īannatyne argues that once upon a time “Irish villagers” made lanterns from turnip or beet roots. Here are a few of my questions and the answers I was able to find:
Her book spends little time discussing Halloween’s medieval roots, opting to focus more on how Americans have celebrated the holiday. Instead, she’s showing how the holiday evolved in America. Now, before our Wiccan patrons get bent out of shape, Bannatyne is not arguing Americans invented Halloween. I was lucky enough to find Lesley Pratt Bannatyne’s Halloween: An American Holiday, and American History. Halloween seems more popular than ever, and even though I’m not a big fan, I am curious to find out how all of these traditions started.
This weekend thousands of children will dress up and walk door-to-door begging homeowners for candy.
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