Transcript Origins of Hallowe`en

Origins of Hallowe’en
Celtic Samhain
and
Catholic Day of the Dead
Who Were the Celts?
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The Celts were the Iron Age (ca. 1000 BC until
the Roman conquest in 52 BC) inhabitants of
Europe, whose homeland was Eurasia.
Celts shared a linguistic tradition, a similar
suite of economic skills (horse and cattle
raising, farming, gardening, hunting & fishing),
a variety of political formations that valued
democracy, and a religious tradition with deep
roots in European prehistory.
Geographical Extent of IndoEuropean Peoples
Indo-European Languages
Map of Indo-European migrations, 4000 to
1000 BC.
• The purple area corresponds to the assumed
homeland.
• The red area corresponds to the area
probably settled by Indo-European-speaking
peoples up to ca. 2500 BC, and
• The orange area was settled by 1000 BC.
Geographical Extent of Celtic
Peoples
http://www.csupomona.edu/~jcclark/ogham/ogh-orig.html
Celtic Social Structure
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Several social classes including farmers, merchants, artisans,
administrators, clergy
An aristocracy of two orders: knights (equites) and others with
special talents who governed and did not take up arms
These particularly gifted people were then educated to take up
one of three roles:
Bards composed and chanted hymns and were ‘diplomats’
who collected and carried information
Vates or Prophets gave sacrifices, studied nature in an effort to
presage, and served as local ‘clerics’
Druids were moral philosophers and the embodiment of
justice in the Celtic community, ‘judges’
Druids in Popular Culture
Celts were Great Warriors
Celtic warriors believed in the afterlife and did not fear for their lives
Women fought alongside men
Celts sold carbon steel weapons to the Romans beginning ca. 300 BC
Celts, naked and painted blue, were fierce in battle
Celtic Styles and Motifs Endure
after defeat by the Romans and the Appearance of
Christianity
Syncretism is the attempt to reconcile disparate, even
opposing, beliefs and to meld practices of various
schools of thought. It is especially associated with the
attempt to merge several originally discrete traditions,
especially in religion, and thus assert an underlying
unity.
Druids and the Imagination
Celtic Calendar:
The Wheel of the Year
Two divisions, each of four equal quarters, marked the pastoral and agricultural year
Samhain marks the Celtic New Year and entry into the year’s dark half. It is the
time for taking stock and for honoring the year’s dead. At midnight the Crack
Between the Worlds opens and the souls of the old year’s dead pass through.
In Catholic tradition, the following Day of the Dead is marked by family feasting
on the graves of the departed.
Coligny calendar
Gaulish Celtic Polities
The Druids’Annual Gathering
In the Land of the Carnutes
“These assemble at a fixed period of the year in a consecrated place in the territories of the Carnutes, which is
reckoned the central region of the whole of Gaul. Hither all, who have disputes, assemble from every part, and
submit to their decrees and determinations.”
Julius Caesar DBG 6.13
Chartres Cathedral
The Maze in Chartres Cathedral
The Celtic Severed Head Cult
Roqueperteuse, southern France
“Janus” heads look toward the worlds of the living and the dead
Watch Out!
The Past is in the Present