The history of American Halloween
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- Опубликовано: 23 окт 2023
- The history of American Halloween. Let's talk about its strange roots in the late 19th century. Video sponsored by @SurfsharkAcademy Get an exclusive @Surfshark deal! Enter promo code JJMCC for an extra 3 months free at surfshark.deals/jjmcc
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In addition to "Halloween in America," by Stuart Schneider, I also relied on the excellent book "Pumpkin: The Curious History of an American Icon" by Cindy Ott
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5000 videos, 5000 awards. This guy is killing it
The shade thrown at Europe's "crappy little vegetable lanterns" compared to the "so much better" pumpkin ones is hilarious haha
I don't really care about mispronunciation of words if it's not your native language because languages are hard and people try their best but the fact that you pronounced Samhain correctly made me unexpectedly very happy.
Well it's such a weird word I just had to be certain
Balanced out by "macabre" XD
@@slusarv "Macab" would have been a better choice for sure.
Sounds like you cared if it elicited such a reaction...
I remember there was an episode of the show supernatural that mentioned Samhain a few times. They always said it like "sam-hane" and it drove me nuts because it reminded me that these were just actors reciting lines they read. But then I thought "well maybe the characters themselves don't know how to say the word. That would actually make sense" 😂
Any excuse for a party is an old American tradition.
Indeed, and that's one reason I consider Halloween to be just another Hallmark holiday.
Not sure if you've seen it but the mini series "over the garden wall" has been a traditional viewing with my friends for years now which references so many of these classic Halloween tropes that were super interesting to hear the origins of!
I think he has seen it. I'm pretty sure he talked about it in a video describing what constitutes American culture
❤
I feel bad for mentioning it too if he has covered it before 😅
I forgot about that show! I intended to make it a bit of a tradition since I saw it last year. I hope it is live streamed again this Halloween.
It is such a relief to hear someone admit “No one knows. It be like that.” Especially when discussing cultural history.
It’s partly why I get frustrated with the weird, contemporary phobia of cultural diffusion. It’s something we all do over time and there’s nothing inherently wrong about that.
The Scottish version of Halloween seems to have been more about young people getting together in a sort of courting ritual. The Robert Burns poem 'Halloween' describes a number of the 'magical' rituals that took place. The author explains a number of these in the footnotes to the poem. This is footnote 8:
"Burning the nuts is a favorite charm. They name the lad and lass to each particular nut, as they lay them in the fire; and according as they burn quietly together, or start from beside one another, the course and issue of the courtship will be."
Yes, there was a lot of romantic stuff in American Halloween too, in the early days.
No, it was about parties too. Guising etc existed and still exists. Burns was a horny lothario so of course he focused on courting.
Though I think his imagery of the likes of Tam O Shantel etc also is foundational in modern Halloween imagery.
I’m surprised you didn’t talk about The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, since that’s one of the most iconic old Halloween stories in America.
What always gets me how recent these seemingly longstanding traditions are. Christmas is one of course, but Halloween is even more recent. There haven't even been 100 "traditional" Halloweens celebrated yet.
That's a great point
My grandma is 100 years old and tells us stories about her parents doing "tricks" on neighbors and having parties for Halloween when they were teens (PA and IL), so I'd argue that yes, it has been at least 100 years.
Christmas is pretty old, but it's celebration had differed a lot. Until recently in most of Catholic Europe the whole deal at Christmas was to go to the Church at midnight and then have a nice lunch at home, while presents were exchanged on the 6th of January.
In reference to the good points about these holidays having longer roots, certainly. I just mean the main traditions of the holidays we're familiar with. Christmas has been celebrated a long time, but not with boar's head and yule logs for a while. The Christmas stocking, Christmas tree, Santa Claus Christmas with a Turkey dinner most people are familiar with stretches back at longest to the 1880s. Halloween is much newer, with decorations, the traditional monsters coming from the 1930s and 1940s, trick or treating, etc. I doubt, if Halloween is even still celebrated, that it will be very recognizable in 2123.
Horror movies being released in October or around Halloween are shockingly new. Even the famous rereleases of Frankenstein and Dracula in the 1930s and 50s weren't in October. It took until the 1970s for there to be a steady stream of horror movies released for the season.
Would LOVE if you did a breakdown on the history of creepy Victorian Christmas cards.
While it seems a lot of the traditions of Halloween are similar in age to those of Christmas, it might be interesting to contrast the statuses of their "cultural canons". You've mentioned that the Christmas "cultural canon" has mostly shut now, having gotten a lot of the bulk of it immediately after WW2. Halloween meanwhile seems to have newer iconic facets like '80s slashers, "Nightmare Before Christmas" and the remix of "Spooky Scary Skeletons".
Agreed on this. In addition to the things you mentioned, I'd throw in Halloween-themed foods and haunted houses, both of which seemed to start taking off in the late 70s/early 80s and were fully entrenched by the early 90s. The movie Trick r Treat does a nice job celebrating the 80s contributions to the holiday.
A JJ video? On a weekday? Quite spooky indeed!
The witch switch is interesting, because for centuries upon centuries witches were depicted as beautiful, like Circe, Sybil, and Medea. That was part of their power, being so beautiful they could "bewitch" you. By MacBeth we have old crones that are women but not look like it.
I think the devil had a similar switch to his modern depiction as a (usually good looking) human. In contrast to the picture in the codex gigas and the painting The Devil Presenting St. Augustine With the Book of Vices by Michael Pacher.
This is entirely speculation, but perhaps this came about from the church trying to dissuade people from engaging in sinful practices, the idea that indulging in the occult would result in you becoming hideous and wicked. To remain holy made you beautiful, pure, and worthy of God's love.
While Christianity focuses on salvation through worship, the Greek mythos seems a lot more keen to make the supernatural seem more powerful than humans, and show that we're ultimately at the mercy of the gods and mythical creatures, so having sirens and witches be beautiful and seductive plays more to the weaknesses of man.
Also, witches in Greek myth weren’t inherently evil like witches in christianity.
Of course the notion of beauty being equated to goodness is nothing new at all, and it makes sense that switch would be made, though I think it is more powerful and a better reminder that 'the Devil hath the power to assume a pleasing form'.
@@Neotenico Of course the notion of beauty being equated to goodness is nothing new at all, and it makes sense that the Church would want that switch to be made, though I think it is more powerful and a better reminder that 'the Devil hath the power to assume a pleasing form'.
I applaud you for not feeding us some BS about the witches hat. I cant tell you how many times I look stuff up that I "learned" from RUclips only to find it wasn't actually true 😅
Um, what BS about witches hats?
@@MatthewTheWanderer Last I heard about bullshit, everything was about jews
@@MatthewTheWandererWatch the actual video if you want to understand it.
@@MatthewTheWanderer No BS. That's JJ's way!
@@LiveFreeOrDieDH Halloween seems to produce more claims than any tradition desides Christmas. i'd love a video that talks about these claims, like you know how every country has a holloween like festival, or that our traditions came from the druids and stuff like that
The amount of detail dedicated to those "parties" images at 6:47, despite being only 10 seconds of content, is why all of J.J.'s videos are award-winning. Also the squeaky toy noise at 15:48.
the pointy hat thing could have something to do with jewish stereotypes in fairytales, medieval jews in europe used to wear pointy hats. I know this may also be the origin of wizard hats so im wondering if its the same situation
The RUclips channel Tasting History with Max Miller does a Halloween episode where he makes a homemade vintage vinegar candy (yes I know) and he delves into the history of some modern Halloween traditions and what some kids would do for “tricks” in the US. It’s a wonderful video/channel. Highly recommend his work
Was about to mention that as well as how towns did parades and trick or treating as a "sane" alternative to kids pulling pranks on neighbors.
I was also going to mention this! It'd be dope to do some collab with Max, JJ!
Yes didn’t Max say something like trick r treating was a way to offer an alternative activity for mischievous children?
My theory on witches' hats is that they probably come from the kind of tall, but non-pointy hats a lot of people used to wear in the 16th/17th centuries anyway. That was the peak of the witch craze.
I think that's the most plausible theory, but hats back then usually had flat tops, like a Pilgrim, not a point.
You beat me too it.
In the 18th Century the high “Sugarloaf” and pointed Hats were much in fashion.
It is now, somewhat retroactively, part of the National Costume of Wales.
This would correspond to the birth of modern Halowe’en; especially if you consider that older Women (“Crones”) might still be wearing what used to be their best fashionable Hat, now long gone out of style.
The jack o lantern people at 18:18 also made an appearance in the cartoon network special "over the garden wall" which is one of my favorites to watch at the start of fall
one of the best series ever
It’s interesting that early Halloween was less horror and scare centric, and more centered on the fall season and harvest themes with some supernatural stuff mixed in. Speaks to the cultural shift from a farmer centric culture to a more urban culture perhaps.
Great observation!
To this day scarecrows are common Halloween decorations
Great video, but I would offer a correction that November 1 is still All Saints Day in the Roman Catholic Calendar. It’s a holiday not often widely celebrated culturally in places like the US and Canada, but is still a holiday nonetheless. Also, the scheduling is significant because the date was moved from the spring/summer (8 weeks after Easter)
In the UK, Anglican churches still do All Saints' Day services, so I assume the Episcopalians in the US do as well.
I get off for it it's even a public holiday
@@leontrotsky7816 some Catholic churches here in the US celebrate All Saints Day
@@leontrotsky7816the Episcopal church I attend observes All Saints on the first Sunday in November
@@DarthHasturAll Catholic Churches everywhere celebrate it. It’s a Feast day and holy day of obligation
I love all this old timey turn of the century fall stuff! It really puts you in the halloween and thanksgiving spirit
In Scotland and Ireland there was a tradition of 'guising' which involved dressing up, singing and dancing for cakes and fruits. This was actually common in many old fashioned festivals (e.g. wassailing at Christmas) and not specific to this one. It's hard to know but trick-or-treating may well have been an organic off growth of that among immigrants that mutated into something more modern, maybe copied in a garbled form. What's more surprising is how these house-to-house celebrations have died out in other festivals.
The Victorian fad for spiritualism was transatlantic too - many spiritualists plied their trades in both the US and UK. Infamously Arthur Conan Doyle of Sherlocks Holmes fame was heavily into spiritualism. It would seem the original impetus was the grief occassioned by the Americam Civil War that then had few socially sanctioned outlets back then. After WW1 there was a new upsurge for similar reasons.
I do wonder how Halloween in the US became more of a Generic Pop Culture Reference Dress-Up Day than a spooky tradition. Here in the UK at least, the people that dress up at least somewhat keep to the horror aesthetic, generally speaking.
I think because people got tired of always dressing up as the same old things
I blame commercialization
I work at a brewery and I was told that witch iconography came from the tradition of “Alewives” - medieval female brewers who brewed beer in black cauldrons, kept cats to keep rodents away from the grains, and wore tall pointed hats so customers could find them in a crowd.
I’d love to see a video diving into the historicity of alewives.
Terrible sequel?!?!? I loved Return to Oz ❤❤ One of my favorite childhood movies. Along with the 1976 English dubbed Japanese version of Jack and the Beanstalk 😊
It’s objectively awful
I loved it too! Alternate universe imagination. Definitely shared it with my son, and will also share it with my grandchildren!
It's not bad as a fusion adaptation of two Oz books. But it makes a terrible sequel to the 1936 movie musical.
I like how dude is just like "hey I found this super interesting book, let me tell you what I've learned"
For anyone else using this video with students, here is a list of comprehension questions:
1. With what country is Halloween most strongly associated nowadays?
2. Where does the name 'Halloween' come from?
3. Why did the Christian church schedule All Hallow's Day for November 1st?
4. Where was Samhain celebrated, and by what group of people?
5. Why/How did people in the US in the late 19th century incorporate the occult practices of Samhain into their lives?
6. What was Halloween imagery in the US originally based on?
7. How did pumpkins originally become involved with Halloween?
8. What sort of costumes were originally worn on American Halloween?
9. When was the first documented mention of trick-or-treating?
10. Why does candy seem to have become associated with Halloween?
11. Before candy, what foods were associated with Halloween?
12. What event does All Hallow's Eve traditionally mark?
13. Why did witches become associated with Halloween?
14. When and why did monsters like mummies, Dracula, and Frankenstein's monster become associated with Halloween?
15. List three reasons why skeletons may have become associated with Halloween.
16. What monster used to be associated with Halloween but is not seen much anymore?
Btw, another name for “All Hallows Day” is All Saints Day. It very much still is celebrated mostly by Catholics
Oh. “Northern Britain”? I can feel the island beneath me writhing in pain.
Regarding trick or treating, I'd be curious if/conjecture that it was partially inspired by the older tradition of star singers where children would dress up as the three wise men and go from door to door to sing and ask for money.
It took trick-or-treating a while to catch on. When it was new, someone from the Boy Scouts of America wrote an angry letter to the editor somewhere, insisting that American children (especially Boy Scouts) do NOT beg for candy or anything else door-to-door. I'm sure homeowners everywhere were like, "Why does this involve me?"
I live in the deep south. South Louisiana, it is very catholic here and November 1 is always celebrated as All Saints Day. People visit the cemeteries and place flowers on all of the graves. Specificly mums, mums are sold everywhere leading up to All Saints Day. Graves are decorated also with Halloween lights and pumpkins. All Hallow's Eve is supposed to be when the plane between the spirit world and the living world are closest to being open.
i love when jj videos connect like some cultural shared universe
17:30 Keeping with Mexico, Dia De Muertos has also seen a resurgence in recent years due mostly to the Mexican diaspora living in the US. Traditionally the holiday was seen as a rural holiday rarely celebrated outside of rural Southern Mexico. During the 20th century it would have been seen as strange for middle class Mexicans, or Northern Mexicans in general, to celebrate the holiday in any deep religious sense, such as building an altar. The mass embrace of the holiday as part of mainstream Mexican culture can really be seen as a 21st century product, such is the case that the main reason why Mexico City even has a Dia De Muertos parade is mostly due to a James Bond movie, with the movie Coco also contributing to the holiday's popularity amongst the middle class.
I remember Disney got into trouble when they tried to trademark "Día de (los) Muertos)" when Coco was in production. I've heard there was a huge backlash in Mexico, though I'm not sure if the backlash came majorly from Mexicans or by people of Mexican descent living in the U.S.
I'm saying this because after the huge success of Coco in Mexico, a Mexican studio made an animated movie called "Día de Muertos", and despite the fact that some people in Mexico said that they couldn't name the movie after the holiday, it seems the filmmakers found a loophole because there was a brand of beer called "Nochebuena" (Christmas Eve) so naming the movie after the holiday was okay
Despite all of that, Día de Muertos was a box-office failure in México
@@pablocasas5906 From my understanding it was mostly the Mexican American community but i think it was more so due to the community here being more in touch with what Disney was doing due to closeness. I feel that if Mexicans had found out about it they would have been equally upset
@@nemesis962074 Mexicans, and plenty of Latin Americans in general, got more upset at the teaser trailer for the new Disney cartoon, Primos, that was uploaded into RUclips a couple of months ago
It really is crazy just how complicated Halloween is when you break it down. We take it for granted, but it's a testament to how ingrained in our culture the holiday is that we can look at such random things as skeletons, candy, pumpkins, spooky night time atmosphere, the demonic and occult, death, costumes, children, witches, parties, black and orange, ghosts, knocking on neighbors doors, and (recently) horror movies and pop-culture monsters and say "oh yes, that's all Halloween".
It's awesome that you've made over 500 videos and every single one won an award
With how traditions change, come into being, and fall out of fashion I've often thought it would be funny to have a movie or horror story take place on some curse of Halloween in the future, butt people by then have generally forgotten about Halloween, leaving the ghosts confused and frustrated.
I greatly respect your ability to say "no one knows for sure" instead of propping up some urban legend.
Visuals are so good. Would love more seasonal or other stuff where you show a bunch of older cool iconographic stuff.
23 seconds ago is crazy
Terrific work as always and I enjoyed the shade thrown towards your competition at the end. Also like that you acknowledge culture isn't static
I thought this was interesting, but my parents are Baptist Christians and we don't celebrate Halloween, and my parents' explanation is that it is a pagan tradition. And they think that the origin of the jack-o-lantern is from a Roman tradition of carving Christian skulls and putting a candle inside.Now that I have seen this video it has really made me think if what they said is real.
I can at least tell you as a fellow Christian that the idea of carving pumpkins from Roman Christian Skulls is 100% false. Never heard of that before. Sounds like your parents were lied to about the origins of Halloween and never corrected themselves.
Watch the video on the history of Halloween by Ryan Reeves, and maybe even show it to your parents!
@@K_H__ thx for letting me know! will check it out
based parents. as muslims we dont celebrate halloween because innovation of islam is major sin (meaning adding or removing stuff from islam) so even if it is christian its still innovation and against islamic teachings to celebrate since your not allowed to innovate islam and its also not allowed to imitate a non muslim so we would be imitating non muslims if we celebrated halloween
Seeing those harvest costume characters explains a lot about the Over the Garden Wall town of Pottsville
My culture teacher played both of your old fauthenticity videos in class yesterday
JJ, this was such an excellent video. To me, your videos covering the American cultural canon and its history/development are some of the most engaging and interesting content out there!
PS, loving the current long hair with a touch of gray. Very handsome :)
Thanks so much! Any suggestions for a future vid?
@@JJMcCullough One about Canadian patriotism and how it differs from US patriotism, such as often being done in a contextless manner like slapping maple leaves everywhere and that's heavily used in corporate imagery.
Dressing up like "nisse"/"tomte" (a kind of spirit of folklore, wearing a pointy red hat and looking like a garden gnome), going door to door and singing to get treats is a well-established Christmas tradition in Scandinavia. It called "yule goat" (julebukk, julbock, julebuk). People used to dress up as actual goats (usually one goat, with several "star lads" trailing him, going door to door). As Halloween has increased in popularity in Scandinavia, fewer people participate in the yule goat tradition at Christmastime.
Recently, there has been fusion with Dia de los Muertos, the Latino Day of the Dead. It is currently more at the level of Tchotchkies and food items.
I kinda was surprised you never mentioned over the garden wall, its a cartoon that's visuals are heavily inspired by victorian era halloween imagery
Hey! Around the same time there is also the feast of St. Martin in Europe (on November 11th), and it is celebrated, at least in The Netherlands, by making a "lampion" out of a piece of root (a beet, most notably, but a pumpkin can be used too), and then go door to door, singing songs and then getting rewarded for that by getting candy. I feel very strongly that that got into the American Halloween celebration and is the explanation of why there is the "treat" in Trick or Treat.
This sounds like it was influenced by the American tradition rather than vice-versa.
@@JJMcCullough The candy part, yes (we used to collect fruit, actually). But the phenomenon of the "beggar's feast" is very old in Europe, and the story of St. Martin is about a beggar. There's a bunch of old European traditional feasts where people go door to door begging for stuff.
@@hogweed1975 How old?
@@JJMcCullough M. Kruiswijk (Dutch author) describes in his book on old feasts that beggar's feasts were a very important part of the social fabric and very necessary for the poor, and that middle class people didn't like to be seen participating in them until the 1920s. Furthermore Kruiswijk describes how, celebrating Epiphany (which is called Three Kings in Dutch), boys in Amsterdam in the 19th century would go door to door singing songs. One of them would carry a stick with a crown on top. The others would carry lights that they made. When someone at one of the doors would give them something, they would sing a song for him. When that person would decline to give, he would be cussed out by them. It seems to me that that isn't 19th century Dutch boys incorporating American culture. Rather, I would say that Halloween just organically came to combine all kinds of elements from winter-feasts from Europe (as you already say in your video).
@@JJMcCullough There were still some remnants of that when I did it in the late 70s, early 80s. We did not collect candy, but fruit. And we were obligated to give all that away to the local old people's home (something I wasn't aware of until we were forced to do it). Handing out candy at St. Martin's Feast is a relatively recent phenomenon in The Netherlands. Although my wife (who's from the city, while I grew up in the country) says she got candy when she was young, haha
Cool, I never connected the dots to All Hallow's Day! We actually still celebrate that holiday in my region of Bavaria, Germany. 😄 Although our version is a fairly drab event. The entire town will gather at the cemetary and everyone just stands at their relatives' graves. Then the priest will hold some kind of mass out in the open and bless all graves. That's kind of where it ends. Not much to it.
But afterwards, we'll all meet up with the extended family, drink wine, eat some cake, maybe talk about our late relatives. So it's still a nice day-of-the-dead, even though we sadly have to do without the Mexican razzle dazzle. 💀
The idea of witches flying on brooms actually does have a definitive origin. According to the book History of the Devil by Robert Muchembled, the poem The Champion of Ladies in 1442 was the first depiction of witches flying on brooms.
I wrote an essay in college on the history of anti-witch laws and it gave me a really fascinating insight into how the perception of witches has changed over the centuries
The Day of the Dead actually isn't so ancient as people commonly assume--the skeleton imagery goes to the political cartooning of Jose Guadalupe Posada, who satirized the corruption of the late Porfiriato with skeletons depicted as rich society ladies--this just before the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1917. The the huge national celebrations of the Day of the Dead came in under Cardenas in the 1930s as a national mythic holiday not connected to the Catholic Church, as Christmas and so many other holidays were. By the way, the movie Meet Me in St. Louis, made in the 1940s but depicting 1904 St. Louis, shows children not exactly in costume, but wearing old clothes and darkening their faces with soot to look like hobos or gypsies. Instead of trick-or-treating, they went to the neighbors to play tricks, like ringing the bell, and then throwing flour in the face of the person who answers the door. I think tricks like this were played on April Fool's Day as far back as before the Civil War, when tricks like taking someone's front gate off the hinges and hiding it were common.
Halloween (along with Twinkies), is one of those things that I never thought of as being particularly American (or even American at all) until I started using the internet and heard people from other countries discussing its American-ness. I always viewed it as the main part of a two-part holiday, with Dia de los Muertos being the less popular part 2. Maybe it's for this reason that I thought of it as being a bit foreign? I also would see foreign TV and movies that would have Halloween-themed episodes or scenes, so I assumed it was a fairly world-wide thing.
man, this video was absolutely fascinating, i'd love to see more of these kinds of videos for other holidays!
I’m glad you touched on the large amount of parties Americans threw (and still do in many circumstances). Maybe a video about that could be interesting
Almost had 1 million subs! Let’s go JJ! So good to see informative and educational content. Getting some much-needed attention. Love your stuff.
Love your videos JJ! Comment for the algorithms ❤️
In my country Belgium, Allhallows Day (aller Heilige) is still an official holiday. And the day after is also a holiday called Aller Zielen (All Souls Day). We mainly celebrate these days by going to the grave of a or more loved ones.
yep, as a Brit I can confirm that in the 60s and 70s turnips were what we hollowed out for lanterns. and yes they were crappy
I was using turnips all through the 90s until pumpkins caught on. I do think there’s something grotesque and shrunken head about turnips mind you, or Tatty Boggles haha. My poor fingers though!
You should do a video on the Harvard Classics, the compilation of books and poems that often used to be sold alongside encyclopedia sets in the US. The idea when the compilation was created in 1909 was to make a set of the most important books that could fit on a five-foot bookshelf, sort of a 'canon' of what was considered important by early 20th-century academics. Trying to come up with a modern American culture, or Canada specific, version would also be pretty interesting.
I love the historical honesty in this presentation. Never knew about the earlier thistle and tartan motifs. Also, love the Macintosh Plus Floral Shoppe album in the background. Have always loved your channel. Bill from Tampa.
Such a great channel.
Thanks for posting.
Another part of the Celtic angle is that the abbreviation of Hallowe'en comes from the Scots language, and the earliest examples of jack 'o lanterns found in Gaelic countries being made from the old world turnip. It would also be fair to say the practice of making jack o' lanterns to scare away bad sprits is of Celtic origin.
My father born in 1919 remembered Halloween primarily as a time for pranks which could get destructive. Tipping outhouses is a tradition which we lost,.
As I understand it from watching some documentaries on the history of Halloween, community organizations of the 20's began looking for ways to distract children on Halloween as, while parents were at their parties, the kids were out causing trouble. Max Miller's video on Vinegar Candy has a great section dealing with the origins of trick or treating and children's activities during Halloween.
Worth noting Wales is also part of the Celtic countries , rather than saying “northern britain” which isnt really a term. 🏴 We still have some of the strange pagan traditions here too, like the White Lady ghost, carving turnips etc. As you say it merged around 9th C with christianity and the pagan harvest festival to form “Calan Gaeaf” in wales, and similar days in ire/scot
“Calan Gaef” means “Celebrating the (New) Winter’s Start”
If Ireland and Great Britain are the British isles,
if Scotland, England and Wales comprise Great Britain,
why wouldn't northern Britain be acceptable?
The way American culture always points to the Victorian era reminds me of how Let’s Ask Shogo always explains Japanese culture with the Edo period
Over the garden wall, a cartoon from a few years back, has the pumpkin goblin things. That show is a great representation of New England and American folk culture. Especially in the fall season. JJ, I'd recommend you check it out!
Great video! Keep up the good work!
”Crappy little vegetables they grow over there” had me laughing out loud.
I think I heard somewhere that the Day of the Dead has been around for a while, but has only been a large mainstream holiday in more recent times. I wonder if Halloween’s popularity played a role in the rise in popularity of the Day of the Dead.
Return to Oz is an underrated classic that far more faithfully depicts the themes and characters of L. Frank Baum's books than the 1939 Judy Garland film did. I love the 1939 film, and it truly deserves its place in the stratosphere on popular culture, but I do feel that people don't give Return to Oz enough credit because they compare it to The Wizard of Oz, rather than the original literary source material.
Trick or treat comes from the tradition in Scotland that children get dressed up and go door to door guiding. This tradition where the children would perform a song, poem or tell and in return receive a few sweeties. Now the term trick or treat as mostly replaced the traditional guiding. Enjoy your work thanks for putting the effort in.
Could you do a series on fantasy tropes of various cultures? In the English speaking world fantasy most often includes elements of medieval European culture, but it would be fun to learn about other fantasy tropes from around the world.
18:18 so that's where the designs of the residents of Pottsfield Town came from (Over the Garden Wall)
Samhain/Calan Gaef is also a “Cross Quarter” Day: halfway between the September Equinox and the December Solstice.
So these Celebrations have their Roots in Astronomical Observations.
The other three Cross Quarter Days are, in order: Groundhog Day (U.S.), May Day, and the Reaping Festival Lamas (Loaf Mass).
This video deserves an award. I award it one thumbs up 👍 Now no one can deny you saying that this is an award winning video.
I can't wait to see J.J.'s award winning video tour of his trophy room. Finally we would get to see all 500 of his awards.
Thanks, J. J.! I thought the part about vegetable lanterns was funny. It would be funny to see green pepper lanterns on Halloween. And I learned a new word: scrying! Thanks for that. I also thought about the movie Meet Me in St. Louis. In that movie, set in the early 1900s, the kids wear scruffy clothing and funny noses and carry bags of flour. They go door to door, "killing" people by throwing flour at them. Then they have a bonfire. I don't know if that was based on any reality, but it was weird and funny. Happy Halloween!😄
Great video J.J. !!!!!
I love the fact that you used the Fortune Teller theme from Zelda: LTTP when talking about fortune tellers. The perfect song.
Fascinating, I just saw for the first time a picture of my great-grandmother dressed in Scottish garb for Halloween 1923!
calling ireland northern britain is like calling america western mexico
He was referring to Scotland
The sitcom "Bewitched" had some Halloween-themed episodes over its run (1964-72). It was treated as something objectionable given the holiday's depiction of witches. But, less than 20 years after the end of WWII, the holiday looked pretty much the same as now although not as over-the-top as you'd see by the time "Roseanne" was on in 1988.
I appreciate your aside about the murkiness of history and the frustrating trend of reporting other people's speculation as fact! Just a few weeks ago, I had encountered such a situation specifically about witch hats, so it felt really apropos.
“Northern Britain” oh boy
Yeah. Shows Scotland and Ireland highlighted. “Britain” didn’t even exist at that time.
@@gerardacronin334Britain did exist, it’s the name of the island containing England, Scotland, and Wales.
The name of the island is Great Britain. This is a politically neutral term that makes no implications about the nations contained within
The original Inhabitants are the Bretons; the Celts came later, from Central Europe.
It's really interesting that some of the most iconic American Halloween traditions have suprisingly similar counterparts in old portuguese traditions for All Saints Day, some of them unfortunately lost to time.
In Portugal you see more and more children trick-or-treating on Halloween Night, but actually the most tradicional activity is asking the "Pão por Deus" (Bread for God) or "Asking the Saints". It's a lot like trick-or-treating but its done during All Saints Day, and people can give more than just candy, like fruit, money, or in some places a tradicional cake called "Santoro". In the past children would wear a white bedsheet as a costume to mimic a ghost.
Also, Jack-o'-lanterns have a portuguese counterpart called coca, but this one tradicional is very unknown nowadays. A "coca" is like a female boogeyman, sometimes represented as a old lady, but also has a flying pumpkin with burning eyes and a ghost body. On All Saints Eve and All Saints day people would also carve pumpkins and place a candle inside, making a "coca". People in certain portuguese regions would jab a fire pumpkin on a stick, in order to "guide the dead".
Aye JJ love ya vids!
I remember my Nonna talking about trick or treating as a child in Italy in the 40s. Of course, it was mostly stuff like dried figs and sultanas.
Return to oz is a seriously underrated and very enjoyable film! Great video though! Love this history!
Congratulations on all of the awards you’ve been winning lately!
Oidhche Shamhna sona dhuibh a J.J.! (Happy Halloween J.J.!)
I'm part of the (Scots) Gaelic community in Nova Scotia and we still do some of the old fashion traditions like carving turnips instead of pumpkins and making Fuarag to see the future. As well as telling our own flavour of Ghost Stories. A lot of people repeat urban legends about the Scottish Gaels inventing Halloween but in my experience it's very much the reverse. "Anglo-American" halloween has had a much bigger impact on our current traditions than the otherway around. Having said that, Samhain is still called "the Gaelic New Year" here and while festivities are minimal I do try to make it out to the country every year to be in nature for it (which luckily in NS is never that far away!).
Anyway, you probably won't see this but I just wanted to share my two cents, thanks for the video J.J.!
There is precedent for trick or treating in Scotland and I think Ireland. It’s called guising and before that there was souling in the Middle Ages. It seems to be linked to caroling in England and muming in Newfoundland.
Halloween is still weird. I loved it as a kid, but as a grumpy old man, am annoyed at grown people's fascination with this goofy event. I guess I'm a killjoy. Thanks JJ!
“Weird” is exactly what is about; as opposed to “Mundane”
Many, many adults are chronically stressed out, and some creative, silly, social fun is just the ticket for some. My personal fave thing on earth is "peals of adult laughter" so I love people's enjoyment of Halloween. It's also more of a "season of giving" than Christmas in some ways too, as you give candy to total strangers, with no expectation of anything in return. I love the neighborhood part especially, too.
In the 60's our grandparents LOVED our costumes and taking us trick or treating in their neighborhood, in the glory days of homemade popcorn balls, rice crispy treats, and candied apples. Fond memories for all generations ❤️
There's a whole lotta goodness for people of all ages in Halloween.
JJ your videos are amazing. And
In Denmark we've always called it "Alle Helgens Aften" which directly translates to All Hallows Eve. So my mind is blown right now.
As always, a very enjoyable essay. Your unique (award-winning!) presentation style is unbeatable. Keep on keeping on!
Thanks so much my friend!
What would you say makes my style “unique” compared to others who make similar videos?
If you want to see more content about the old-timey Halloween party traditions, Kaz Rowe made a video about it either last year or the year before
You and Max Miller of Tasting History👍👍
Goto for the history 📖 of things
And for that which is obscure, freely acknowledge the apocryphal possibilities!
😸