Arrival of Halloween in America
Because of the rigid protestant belief the Halloween celebration was strictly limited in colonial New England. Halloween was much more popular in the Maryland and South colonies. Halloween customs developed and re-shaped according to the various customs of various places. In America the native changed the typical celebration and a new version of the festival emerged in its place. The earliest celebrations incorporated “play parties,” community events arranged to celebrate the harvest, where the neighbors would share tales of the dead, tell each other’s fortunes, dance and sing. Colonial Halloween festivities also attributed to the telling of ghost stories and mischief-making of all kinds.Scary Halloween Stories
The practice of celebrating Halloween is very old. If dug into the deep of history the Halloween’s origins date back to the very old Celtic carnival of Samhain (pronounced as sow-in). The Celts who lived about 2000 years ago, celebrated their New Year on the 1st of November. The day marked the arrival of cold, dark winter which is very often associated with the imagery of death. The Celts used to believe that on the night before (31st October) the new year (1st November) the boundary between the dead world and the earth does not exist. Therefore the dead persons’ spirits find it easy to enter the world and harm them as well as their crops. Thus, on the 31st evening they celebrated Samhain to protect themselves from the ghosts. That day the local priests also made prophesies of the future. In those days indigenous people lived totally depending on the nature and superstitions, so these things were very meaningful and important to them. They used to wear dresses like animal heads and skin and lit born fires probably to shun away the bad spirits. To commemorate the day in the eighth century, Pope Gregory III declared November 1 as a time to give tribute to all saints and martyrs; the holiday, All Saints’ Day, that included some of the traditions of Samhain.