Samhain

Jason, over at The WIld Hunt Blog, has a good post up about the reactions of some Christian groups to the pagan traditions of Samhain as seen now in the modern holiday of Halloween, in a post he calls De-Paganizing Halloween (Again).

It would be a good idea to take a look at the fairly recent past history of Halloween in order to understand this phenomenon. The truth of the matter is, Halloween has been celebrated for quite some time in this country. In fact, a couple of my ancestors got married on Halloween-no lie-in the 1850's. Of course, I don't know if that was coincidental or not.

But the main thing to remember is, it has long been a traditional night of hi-jinks, hooliganism, and in some cases all out bedlam.

Any person who ever lived in more rural areas has doubtless heard the stories, if not lived through the times, of the old outhouse, before the days of indoor plumbing. On Haloween night, no more than four decades ago, and longer, in some cases, it was common for gangs of roughnecks to, just for fun, dislodge a persons outhouse from it's resting place. Not so hard to do when you consider they were never buildt on a foundation, they were in fact little more than a wooden frame building with one or two commode seats over what amounted to holes in the ground.

Other types of fun included soaping house windows and egging windows and cars. This kind of "trick" was mostly reserved for those tightwads who failed to come through with the requisite "treat".

Other things were more serious in nature. A not all that uncommon event would be the felling of a large tree across a road, which would then be set on fire. When a driver approached to find the way of his car blocked, another fire would be set with kerosene that had been strategically spread across the road in a line.

A personal favorite of mine was the old "cow shit in a paper bag" routine. Once you deposited the bag on a persons porch, you set it on fire and knocked loudly on the door. Once the person opened, he or she almost invariably stomped out the fire, ending up with cow or dog shit all over his shoes.

In time, it got more serious in nature. And more dangerous. By the 1960's and on into the 1970's, people had started in some areas to dole out tricks of their own to the Halloween visitors, most if not all of whom were small children.

Poisoned candy and razor blades stuck into apples became a kind of Halloween fad amongst the disturbed minds of the day, and this resulted in quite a few illnesses and injuries, and possibly a small number of deaths. Nor was this limited to one or two isolated areas and years, but seemed to be a growing and very disturbing trend.

As such, it became necessary in time to regulate the hours of Halloween, and in most areas there is an unwritten rule more or less that the tradition of trick-or-treating should be limited to the very young, usually up to the age of twelve.

It wasn't up until the last two decades ago, or three, that Hallween came to viewed by Americans as a pagan holiday, which in fact originaly it was. Most pagans assert that it was the Celtic New Year, and modern pagans think of it in this way as well, as the Modern Pagan new Year. (Personally, I prefer Yule as the Pagan New Year, but hey-that's just me).

At any rate, a good many Christians view Halloween as a time of evil spirits and devil worshippers, and so they jump on the Wiccans and Pagans celebration of the day as a kind of evidence that we are all in leaque with the demonic forces of darkness and death, which is of course absurd.

But to this end, they have, as Jason suggests, taken to the attempt at co-opting the holiday as a means of protecting the innocent youth of America from corruption by the occult forces which they see as prevalent through the holiday.

What they seem to have missed is that in the entire history of the mischief, and yes, evil, that has been perpetrated on the holiday, the vast majorityof the perpetrators were of Christian heritage. Note that I am careful here not to say they were all actualy Chrisitans, though a good many of them may well have been.

Certainly, the notion of the evil black cat, which is a Chrisitan tradition, has lead to the torture and/or murder of many innocent felines, not all of whom were necessarily black.

What it all boils down to is the simple fact that Halloween wasn't really hi-jacked by Christians. Nor was it used by Wiccans, Pagan, Satanist, otc, as an excuse to do most of the mischief and evil I have described. Even the incidents of the abuse of animals, while based on an old Chrisitan belief from the Midle Ages, I would not lay on the doorstep of a true Chjristian. I would guess it's more likely a small number of assholes that just want to hurt something that can't do anything to protect itself.

And there you have it. Halloween, like so many other holidays and traditions, has frankly just been hi-jacked by assholes. By creeps.

It's actually a fine religous tradition of honoring and respecting the dead, and of taking stock in your life and doing a kind of spiritual inventory of all those negative aspects of your life that you need to discard, in preparation for the coming New Year. After all, it is the "last harvest", that time of year when the sun has started to dim to it's weakest point, before it once again waxes stronger beginning on Yule.

From this day forward, the days get ever shorter, the nights ever longer, and colder, as the earth rests from it's toil in order to reinvigorate itself for the next planting season, when it too shall be "reborn".

Therefore, take this time to celebrate. Dress up, visit your friends and family, and party down. Take the time to take that inventory of your life. If some little ones come to your door, give them a little something to contribute to a hopefully pleasurable memory of the occassion of this holiday.

But, be careful. Take especial care for your animals. Especially your cats. Like I said, assholes abound on this night. And take care for your children, and your selves. There will always be assholes, but whether you are Pagan or Christian, you have a right to celebrate this night according to your traditions . Don't let the assholes hijack it any more.