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dutchwonder t1_itk6wnp wrote

Reply to comment by Nougattabekidding in Halloween in Scotland: 13 ancient customs and concepts of Celtic Halloween by MeatballDom

Eh, I would be a little skeptical on celebration first mentioned in the 9th century as being influential on Christianity given that Christianity took hold in the 5th century.

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Nougattabekidding t1_itk7ey3 wrote

Sorry, which festival are you talking about? Do you mean Samhain? Isn’t the reason we don’t have mention of it being celebrated earlier than the 9th century because we have very little written record of Gaelic traditions pre-9th century?

Additionally, I am no expert on early Christian traditions but was halloween part of early Christian traditions? Or did it come later?

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dutchwonder t1_itk8adr wrote

Probably later and much more recent than the 9th century, at least in whatever guise we see it today. This goes for a lot of trying to back date modern traditions to things more than a thousand years ago.

There is kind of a period in the 19th century where many "folklorist" thought they could parse out pre-Christian traditions from their modern day practices and thus tease out over thousand year old beliefs and traditions, which is a bit dubious and as fraught with mistakes as it might sound.

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Nougattabekidding t1_itk9imd wrote

Yes, that was my thinking. But doesn’t that lend further credence to my post and contradict what you said earlier? Or have I completely lost the plot? I have been up since the early hours with a poorly 2 year old so maybe I’m just not making any sense!

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dutchwonder t1_itkafp0 wrote

Is the comment that Samhain is a pagan tradition that somehow survived 400 years as pagan?

Halloween as we know it today generally seems to not have been part of early Christian celebrations, only really seem to be getting into swing the past couple hundred years.

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Glaic t1_itkb5r2 wrote

In America? Because it was in its swing far longer than a couple of hundred years in Scotland (and I'm sure Ireland, but I'm not Irish so don't know for sure).

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AramaicDesigns t1_itkz9fh wrote

The very first recorded instances of anything like the modern secular Halloween celebrations ("guising"/costumes, etc.) is in the late 1700s early 1800s. The first solid example in the west is a newspaper article from Canada in the 1910s.

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Glaic t1_itl18gi wrote

Wait... you mean the time Martin Martin and the like actually started visiting these remote regions and writing down their customs..? Funny that.

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Nougattabekidding t1_itkb9t0 wrote

What? No my comment is that halloween was based on a Roman celebration and Samhain. The Roman festival also incorporated pagan traditions like Samhain, but that’s not what I focussed on, I was talking about Halloween.

I’m not sure what 400 years you’re talking about. I think we might have crossed wires. I took your original post to mean that halloween was a Christian tradition and Christianity began 400 years before the first mention of Samhain, therefore how could it be based on Samhain. But now I think that’s not what you meant?

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AramaicDesigns t1_itkzjkx wrote

Yes. Samhain customs that people point to are far too young to have genuinely influenced the Christian celebration. There is little evidence that the "ancient" observances that were "always that way" are actually ancient. Primary historical documents do not support it.

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Nougattabekidding t1_itl35qt wrote

But we have been discussing how the Christian celebrations of halloween are a lot younger than Christianity itself, and we don’t really know how old Samhain is, right? We only have a record of it from the 9th century but that’s because we don’t have really have a written record of Gaelic Ireland before then.

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AramaicDesigns t1_itl58of wrote

>But we have been discussing how the Christian celebrations of halloween are a lot younger than Christianity itself,

Halloween wasn't a foundational observance of Christianity, so in that sense it's "younger." But we do have strong records of its origins, where it fell on the calendar, what basic liturgical observances there were, and how these customs evolved over time, step by step. The Celts really didn't have a say in it.

>and we don’t really know how old Samhain is, right? We only have a record of it from the 9th century but that’s because we don’t have really have a written record of Gaelic Ireland before then.

It's the perfect thing to project upon – which is what happened in the 19th century: The era of romanticized history that gave us the tall tales about pagans and figures like Christopher Columbus. And we can see how accurate those were (i.e. not).

And we know through a large number of anthropological studies the idea that "it was always this way" is always flawed without an historical record to compare it to. Customs change over time, and many of the customs that we associate with Samhain today were not even mentioned until well after the genuine pagan Celts had all died out. There is only so far one can honestly extrapolate back.

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AramaicDesigns t1_itkyz3u wrote

>Additionally, I am no expert on early Christian traditions but was halloween part of early Christian traditions? Or did it come later?

Halloween is the vigil of All Saints Day – and with how old Christian holidays were celebrated the vigil was the first part of the feast.

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AramaicDesigns t1_itkytvd wrote

Precisely. There's a lot of "well it was always this way" with folk who want to link Samhain to Halloween –– but it wasn't. The trappings of observances that folk are insisting are "ancient" simply aren't, and do not pre-date Christian celebrations and customs.

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