Besides Thanksgiving, the other holiday in modern North America in which pumpkins figure is Halloween. Pumpkins have become iconic of Halloween. Carved, hollowed out pumpkins with faces and candles inside gleam on many porches and window sills on the night of October 31. These days you can buy tiny orange decorative gourds that look like miniature pumpkins for table decorations, and strings of orange pumpkin lights to trim your hedge or house front. The orange colour of the pumpkins is paired with the black of night time to make the emblematic black-and-orange of Halloween of 20th and early 21st century America. Black cats and bats are other ethnobiological elements of Halloween.
The night is configured as scary, a time of evil forces- witches, ghosts and a host of more recent evils like vampires- but contained by play-acting. We pretend to be scary/scared, and enjoy the pretense. It becomes a time for children, a way perhaps of taming fears of death and darkness by turning them into fantasy and games. Halloween is an excuse to have fun. It is a time of inversion, where people dress in costumes even at places of work, indulging in fantasy and collectively evading the norms of humdrum respectable daily roles. Children go house to house and are given candy...something that happens on no other day of the year.
Why are pumpkins, cats and bats associated with Halloween? For years I had heard vaguely that jack-o-lanterns were originally hollowed out turnip lanterns, but in North America, people switched to using pumpkins, which were readily available and already hollow if you cleaned out the seeds. Finally my partner and I were able to track a reliable source that actually documents turnip lanterns: The Hallowed Eve: Dimensions of Culture in a Calendar Festival in Northern Ireland by Jack Santino, 1998, University Press of Kentucky, which discusses turnip lanterns on pp. 49-50:
“Rough lanterns hollowed out of turnips, having a lighted candle inside, and holes cut in the turnip for eyes, nose and mouth, and carried by a string handle was deemed sufficient to scare people out of their wits.” (Santino 1998: 49, quotation from a fieldwork notebook, of a collector for the Irish Folklore Commission.)
A black and white photograph of such a turnip lantern labelled “turnip lantern, Bangor, 1991,” is found on page 50 of the book, and can be viewed by following the link below to the Amazon.com preview and scrolling to page 50
http://books.google.ca/books?id=6RvKav1WFmgC&lpg=PP11&ots=8qJ4UwvQqw&dq=turnip%20jack-o'lantern&lr=&pg=PA50#v=onepage&q=&f=false
In Halloween, Fun and Spooky Images from the Past (Pictorial America) (Lantos 2009) the author asserts “The tradition of carving pumpkins originated from the legend of ‘Stingy Jack’. Jack was doomed to wander endlessly in the dark nights with only a burning coal ember in a turnip [that had been hollowed out] for light.” [No. 7, page 9]
This source also asserts that people carved scary faces into turnips and potatoes in Ireland to keep “jack-o-the-lantern” away. [No. 8. page 10]
This source is : Lantos, James 2009. Halloween, Fun and Spooky Images from the Past, Applewood’s Pictorial America, Vintage Images of America’s Living Past. Bedford, Mass: Applewood books
http://books.google.ca/books?id=JfFGdhilmKUC&lpg=PA4&ots=faDZnl4mko&dq=turnip%20jack-o'lantern&lr=&pg=PA4#v=onepage&q=&f=false
My economic botany book (Economic Botany, Plants in Our World by Beryl Brintnall Simpson and Molly Conner-Ogorzaly, McGraw Hill Publishing 1986) informs me that turnips are the roots of Brassica campestris. Swede turnips or rutabagas are the roots of a related species Brassica napus. Simpson and Connor-Ogorzaly (1986:226-227) suggest that this species is a hybrid between cabbages (Brassica oleracea) and B. campestris, the white turnip. Neaps is a medieval word for this vegetable. I was surprised to find that Simpson and Connor-Ogorzaly also include a figure of two turnip lanterns, accompanied by the following caption (figure 8-17, p. 227):
“The first Jack O’Lantern was carved out of a turnip, The Irish, who started our Halloween tradition explain it this way. One night Satan came to a local pub to claim the soul of Jack, a drunken miserly fellow. Jack suggested that they “have one for the road,” but when the Devil turned himself into a sixpence to pay the barkeeper, Jack grabbed the coin and put it in his wallet. After some bickering, Jack agreed to set the Devil free with the promise that he be left alone for another year. Each year thereafter, Jack managed to outwit the Devil. Finally, Jack grew old and died of natural causes. Heaven refused to admit him, and the Devil was not about to offer his adversary a resting place so Jack’s soul was stuck between Heaven and Hell. Satan gave Jack a burning coal to light his way, and jack fashioned a lantern from a turnip he was eating to hold it.”
In Northern Irish Halloween customs, there was also apparently an association with cabbages, which doesn’t seem to have found its way to this side of the Atlantic :
“A piece of testimony from 1943 describes Halloween pranks as a means of social redistribution as well as a way of publicly calling attention to greedy and miserly individuals : “An old custom that still prevails was the stealing and throwing of cabbages at doors. The cabbages were generally taken from those who were most greedy for the goods of this world. It is suggested that these cabbages were thrown at the doors of those who had none and could not afford to get them.” (UCD)” (Santino p. 49)
It is generally held that the origin of the carved pumpkin jack-o-lantern in North America was an adaptation by Irish immigrants to newly available plant materials in the 19th century. The iconography of Halloween in America also includes stooks of dried corn stalks, again showing the association of Halloween, as Thanksgiving, to the harvest of the major crops of the Americas adopted by European settlers to New England. Apples are also a part of the Halloween tradition; I remember bobbing for apples as a girl.
Reading various references on Samhain and Halloween garnered through Google Scholar, I see one describing bobbing for apples as a remnant of a once serious water ordeal.... That quintessential European fruit, borrowed as the symbolic fruit consumed by Eve and Adam from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in Genesis, which figures in various Greek myths [the Golden Apples of the Sun] and which is symbolic of all good “Mom and apple pie”. The author writes:
"There are two main apple rites that survive; one involves ordeal by water and the other ordeal by fire. The act of going through water to obtain apples could be the remnants of the Druidic rite symbolizing the passing through water to Emain Abhlach or Apple-Isle. Apple-Isle is where Manannan Mac Lir prepared the Otherworld feast for the eternal enjoyment of those who have passed on. The Ordeal by Water survives in Scotland in such Samhain traditions as “Dookin’ for Aipples.” A large wooden tub is filled with water and set in the middle of the floor into which apples are placed. The master of ceremonies has a porridge stick or some other equivalent of the Druidic wand, and with this he keeps the apples in motion. Each participant get three tries, and if unsuccessful, must wait until the others have had their turn. If a participant captures an apple, it is either eaten or kept for use in another of the divination rites.
The modern form of the Ordeal by Fire is known as “The Aipple and the Can’le.” A small rod of wood is taken and suspended horizontally from the ceiling by a cord. After it is fairly balanced, a lit candle is set on one end and an apple at the other. The rod is then set whirling around. Each of the company takes turns leaping up trying to bite the apple without singing his or her hair. Touching either the rod or apple with the hands is not permitted.” (Weinberger, Stacey. A Druid Missal-Any Samhain Y.R. XL, Vol. 18 Number 7 Oct. 29th, 2002 c.e.) S Weinberger - orgs.carleton.edu
When I was a girl, we simply filled a wash tub with water, and tried to bite an apple, generally resulting in lots of splashing and laughter (and few successfully bitten apples). I can’t really remember exactly where this occurred...possibly a Halloween party for girl scouts.
We learned in school that Halloween is a contraction of All Hallows Eve, and is the night before All Saints Day, November 1. November 2 is All Souls Day, or, in Mexico and Hispanic areas of North America, the Day of the Dead [el Día de los Muertos]. In Mexico when I was there as a university student in the late 1960’s, you could buy sugar skulls with names on them at the Sanborn’s restaurant, and there were festive gatherings of families in cemeteries, sharing food with their dead relatives...a communion of the living and dead.
I remembered marigold flowers as associated with the Day of the Dead. Floral offerings are very important in Mesoamerican cultures, deriving from indigenous religions traditions. Looking up confirming evidence for my memory, I found the following in a blog linked to a Mexican tourist site:
"While English North Americans celebrate Halloween with costumes and candy, ancient tradition in Mexico calls for family reunions with the dead. For three days, from October 31st to November 2nd, specific rites are observed faithfully. They occur in the home and in the cemetery amid bouquets of flowers, banquets of bread, and ghostly candies ornamented with skulls.
These candies are called Muertos, and are given out much the same as parents dispense candy bars and chewing gum to costumed children demanding trick or treat. But among Mexicans, the dead are considered supernatural guardians. Not only do the dead visit during this time, but they also enjoy their favorite food and drink, called "ofrendas," lavishly laid out on home altars and shrines.
In the mountains of Oaxaca, there is a much deeper meaning to the festivity, which begins weeks, perhaps months, before the ordained days, with the collecting of the special dishes and treats which the departed spirits loved most when alive: the best chocolate for mole: fresh eggs and flour for the bread, Pan de Muerto; fruits and vegetables; even cigarettes and mescal. Lux Perpetua votive candles flame day and night, illuminating the decorative wild marigold flowers, Flor de Muertos, which adorn the altars and the graves.
And everywhere, La Calaca, the skeleton carved from wood and dressed for a party, watches with amusement." ( from A journey with La Calaca- A Day of the Dead Experience by Bill Begalke)
Published on January 1, 2000 by Bill Begalke © 2000 To access the article and images, see
http://www.mexconnect.com/articles/382-a-journey-with-la-calaca-a-day-of-the-dead-experience
In his Zapotec Natural History, ethnobiologist Eugene Hunn also describes the floral offerings of wild marigold “Flor de Muerte” in San Juan Gbëë, a village in Oaxaca near the place Begalke had his 1999 Day of the Dead experience (Hunn 2008:201).
In neo-Pagan circles, Samhain [an ancient Celtic holy day usually pronounced Sowan, to rhyme with rowan], is the eve of the New Year, and a time of especial potency as the veils between the worlds of the living and dead, or of the mundane and faerie, are thin. In the Reclaiming Wiccan tradition, rituals are held to commemorate the dead and this is one focus of the Samhain rites.
It is clear that, whatever relationship contemporary neo-Pagan Samhain rituals may have with ancient cultural practices, the eve of All Saints Day has been conceived as a time of risk and potency in the Celtic world and I think this is how our contemporary Halloween came to be associated with ghosts [spirits of the dead] and malevolent witches...and their familiars, owls and black cats. The traditional Child Ballad “Tam Lin” narrates the story of a youth captured by the Faerie Queen and his rescue by a mortal lover...one verse goes...”For tonight is Halowe’en, and the faerie folk ride, those that would let true love win, at Miles Cross they must bide.” William Blake’s late18th century print of Hecate [ a witch or evil spirit] shows her with a large owl perched beside her (William Blake, Tate Gallery London, 1966, no. 9). [For modern Wiccans, Hecate is instead one of the manifestations of the Goddess or female divinity rather than a figure of evil].
Whether because of their nocturnal habits, their ghostly silent flight, their large staring eyes or their unnerving unseen calls, owls and their hooting are associated with death in many places. In northwest British Columbia, hearing an owl at night is a portent of death. The title of I Heard the Owl Call My Name by Margaret Craven (1973, Dell), is an reference to this belief and tells the story of a missionary to Kingcome Village on the British Columbia Coast and his death. In Halloween, Fun and Spooky Images from the Past (p. 12, image no 10), Lantos states that “nocturnal bats and owls, as well as black cats, are omens of bad luck. With the next image (No. 11) the text continues, “It was believed on Halloween night that owls would swoop down and eat the souls of the dying. (Lantos 2009, p. 12, see web link above) underscoring European Christian anxiety about owls and association with death as well. Bats are famously anomalous, with erratic seeming dusk or night time flight, and black or brown leathery wings and apparently grimacing fanged faces, unlike the colourful beauty of beaked (and toothless) diurnal birds, and more like the grotesque gargoyles of European cathedrals. They are neither bird, nor normal [quadrupedal, non-flying, fur covered potentially cuddly] mammals. (see Mary Douglas’ 1966 classic work Purity and Danger for a discussion of anomaly and un-cleanness, or Aldona Jonaitis 1986 Art of the Northern Tlingit for a discussion of anomaly in the symbolic associations of animals in Tlingit iconography). Bat wings are often associated with depictions of the diabolical in European iconography, as in Satan Smites Job with Sore Boils, another print by British poet and artist William Blake (William Blake, Tate Gallery, London, 1966 no. 23). So the animals symbolically associated with All Hallows’ Eve also reinforce its perception as a kind of inverted time, where the forces of darkness, the anomalous and the unnatural appear to have a transitory victory, followed, in the Christian calendar, immediately by the day of all hallows, All Saints Day, a day of holiness, in which right order is restored and risk has been averted. And now turned into a cultural fun day where adults and children masquerade, pranks are played, and candy is distributed and eaten while leering or smiling pumpkin lanterns grace front yards and porches.
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