Halloween 2023: Know the Connection Between Halloween and Pumpkin, know the secret of the ghostly getup on this day

Halloween is celebrated every year on 31st October. Halloween is mostly celebrated mostly in the countries of Europe and America, but the concept is catching up in other parts of the world as well.

So what comes to mind when we mention the word Halloween. Pumpkins! Yes pumpkin is closely associated with Halloween. Ghost faces made from pumpkins are the most popular sites during Halloween. People hollow out pumpkins, add eyes, nose, mouth or make it scary and place candles inside it, to make it look scarier in the dark. These pumpkins are called Halloween.

Among the Christian community, October 31 is considered the last day of the Celtic calendar and the following day is considered to be the beginning of the New Year.

It is believed that on this day, dressing up like ghosts is said to bring peace to the souls of ancestors. On this day, it is believed that the souls of dead people rise and appear on earth and create troubles for the living souls. Therefore, to scare away these evil spirits, people wear scary or ghostly clothes and dress up in Halloween getups. To drive them away, fires are lit everywhere and bones of dead animals are thrown into it.

It is in Ireland that we find the use of vegetables to scare away evil spirits. It was believed that on October 31st at the pagan feast of Samhain, which became Halloween over time, the spirits of the deceased could return to Earth. So, they had to find a way to keep evil spirits away.

On Halloween day, children say Trick or Treat and people go from door to door and gift candies to each other. On this day, special children come out wearing costumes, scary make-up and masks. On this day, children hold the hollowed out pumpkin in their hands and candles are placed inside it and all the pumpkins are later buried.

It is commonly believed by the farmers that on this day, evil spirits can come to the fields and harm their crops, that is why the spirits are shown the way by lighting a candle inside the pumpkin.

A Celtic tradition

One of the reasons pumpkins are used on Halloween is that it's easy to sculpt faces and drawings in this vegetable. But where exactly does this strange tradition come from? It is in Ireland that we find the use of vegetables to scare away evil spirits.

In the 19th century, when a lot of Irish immigrated to the United States, they brought the Halloween tradition of using vegetables to scare the spirits away. In America, the Irish discovered a new vegetable, the pumpkin, which is harvested in the fall, and began using it to scare the evil spirits. It was also probably easier to carve a face on a pumpkin than on a turnip!

The use of the English term Jack O'Lantern for a Halloween pumpkin is also believed to have come from Ireland. The story behind this is that a man named Jack managed to overtake the devil in a deal, preventing the devil from taking his soul. However, as Jack had been evil, stingy and selfish during his life, he was denied entry to heaven when he died and as promised, he was not summoned to hell. Therefore, Jack's soul was doomed to wander for eternity and people began to draw scary faces on their vegetables to keep him away from their homes. Another version of this story claims that it was an old word for the lights that appeared in cemeteries.