This week I will be discussing Halloween, because…. well…. it is Halloween. You may be wondering what the history of Halloween has to do with disability. To be honest, I’m not so sure myself. Hopefully by the time I have finished writing this I will have thought of a connection. Let us begin shall we? Muahaha!
Ancient Halloween
What we now know as Halloween began as a Celtic festival 2,000 years ago. The Celts lived in Ireland, Britain, and Northern France at that time (It’s a bit more complicated than that, but for our purposes, this will suffice). In their calendar, 1st November was the start of the new year. As such, they celebrated the festival of Samhain (a Gaelic word pronounced “sow-win”), from 31st October to 1st November.
There were some very interesting beliefs surrounding the event. For instance, it was thought that for that one day of the year, the souls of the dead would visit their relatives. This is because the barrier between the realms of the living and the dead had been removed. This also allowed for the souls of the deceased of the previous 12 months to pass over to the Otherworld. This all seems fairly pleasant, but the souls of the dead were not the only things that travelled between the two realms. Evil spirits and demons also made their way across to torment the living. I suppose that’s what happens when the gates of hell open. In order to combat this, Druids would light huge hilltop fires and people would disguise themselves as evil spirits, so that the actual evil spirits would leave them alone. Sound familiar? I could go on and on about Samhain and the Celts, but I still have to work my way up to the present day AND make something up about…. sorry, I mean tell you about how Halloween relates to disability.
Modern(ish) Halloween
So. How did we get from a Celtic harvest festival 2,000 years ago, to trick-or-treating and horror movies etc.? I will attempt to sum up 2,000 years in the space of a few short paragraphs.
Side note: It has just dawned on me that some readers may be mispronouncing the word Celtic. The ancient people discussed above are Celts (pronounced Kellt, like the name Kelly). Anything related to them is Celtic (pronounced Kell-tick). The basketball team, the Boston Celtics and the Scottish football team, Glasgow Celtic, are both pronounced Cell-tick. I have no idea why.
Anyway, in the 7th century CE Pope Boniface IV established All Saints’ Day, to be held on 13th May to honour saints and martyrs. A century later, when the pagan tradition of lighting hilltop fires etc. still continued, Pope Gregory III decided to move All Saints’ Day to 1st November in order to quash the pagan ritual. All Souls’ Day was also incorporated into the same period. This is where the name Halloween comes from. An alternative name for All Saints’ Day is All Hallows’ Day. This made the previous day All Hallow’s Eve. Over time this was shortened to the Halloween we know and (some of us) love today.
As you may have guessed, usurping Samhain and making it Christian didn’t do much to change the Celtic aspects of it. In fact, the church kept the aspects such as bonfires and dressing as demons, giving them Christian connotations. It is believed that trick-or-treating had its origins in early All Souls’ Day celebrations. Children would go door to door and would receive a ‘soul cake’ in return for praying for the occupant’s dead relatives.
After the Reformation, Halloween lost most of its religious meaning. The customs of Halloween were brought to America mostly by Irish immigrants after the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s. At first it was seen as a community celebration. However, in the early decades of the 20th Century there were problems with vandalism. People were taking the trick part of trick-or-treating too seriously, and the treats were almost like a bribe to prevent damage.
As you can probably tell, there is way more to the history of Halloween than what I have mentioned here. If you want to know more, you can check out some of the articles I have listed under further reading.
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| Bonfire celebration, Scotland |
Don’t Be Disabled
Ah. We have reached the point where I promised I would tell you how Halloween relates to disability. Simply put, if you are not disabled, your Halloween costume should not include a disability. Before I started to research this, it never occurred to me that disabled Halloween costumes were offensive. There are several examples I came across. This is one I made up on the spot. Say, for instance, as an able-bodied person you decide to dress as a wheelchair user for Halloween. The problem with that is that you can sit into a wheelchair for the night, pretend to be disabled and then stand up and walk off. People who need to use a wheelchair don’t have this option. There are also stories of disabled people being ignored or mistreated around Halloween as people assume they are just in costume. Another issue is haunted houses, particularly those with an asylum theme. To put it mildly, historically, asylums and institutions for the disabled were horrific places. They should not be used for entertainment purposes.
Wow. That was dark. Happy Halloween Everybody!!
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Next week, I will be returning to the world of the freak show by looking at P.T. Barnum in more detail.
The Wheelchair Historian
Further Reading
‘My Disability is Not a Costume’, Nov 2, 2017 http://www.universitytimes.ie/2017/11/my-disability-is-not-a-costume/ Accessed: 30 October, 2020.
History.com Editors, ‘Halloween 2020’, Last Updated: October 6, 2020, Original Published: November 18, 2009 https://www.history.com/topics/halloween/history-of-halloween Accessed: 12 October, 2020.
History.com Editors, ‘Samhain’ Last Updated: October 31, 2019, Original Published Date: April 6, 2018 https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/samhain Accessed: 14 October, 2020.
Leary, Alaina, ‘Disability Isn’t a Halloween Costume’ Wednesday, October 17, 2018 https://rootedinrights.org/disability-isnt-a-halloween-costume/ Accessed: 30 October, 2020.
McNamara, Brittney, ‘Why It's Not OK to Dress Up as Someone With a Disability for Halloween’, October 15, 2018 https://www.teenvogue.com/story/not-ok-to-dress-up-as-someone-with-a-disability-for-halloween Accessed: 30 October, 2020.
Smith Beitiks, Emily, ‘Disability History Gets Forgotten Each Halloween’, San Francisco State University, Paul K. Longmore Institute on Disability https://longmoreinstitute.sfsu.edu/disability-history-gets-forgotten-each-halloween Accessed: 30 October, 2020.
Smith Beitiks, Emily, and Conroy, James W., ‘Haunted Pennhurst attraction the 'final indignity'’, November 12, 2011 https://longmoreinstitute.sfsu.edu/disability-history-gets-forgotten-each-halloween Accessed: 30 October, 2020.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, ‘Halloween’, Last Updated: Aug 31, 2020 https://www.britannica.com/topic/Halloween#:~:text=Halloween%20had%20its%20origins%20in%20the%20festival%20of,calendars%2C%20the%20new%20year%20was%20believed%20to%20begin Accessed: 30, October 2020.
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