Ghoulish Genealogies

Samhain by John Anster Fitzgerald

Halloween is upon us—and with it, various histories “explaining” the origins of the holiday. This time of year, it’s not uncommon to hear an emphatic, “Did you know that Halloween is actually a pagan holiday?” Or, for Christmas, “Did you know Christmas is just the appropriation of Roman Saturnalia?” (Hint: this isn’t true.) While it can seem that genealogical thinking is an obscure academic exercise, these histories of the origins Halloween and other holidays indicate how common genealogical thinking is. Take, for instance, this genealogy of Halloween from the History Channel:

Halloween evolved from the ancient Celtic holiday of Samhain. Over the centuries, Halloween transitioned from a pagan ritual to a day of parties, costumes, jack-o-lanterns and trick-or-treating for kids and adults.

This account represents what is typical of so many of these pop genealogies, which take a major contemporary Christian holiday, disregard its underlying meaning and centuries of practice, and then solemnly pronounce that its origins were [fill-in-the-blank] pagan holiday. This one begins with a supposed factual claim about the pagan Irish origins of Halloween and then gives the delightful elision “over the centuries.” What was going on during these centuries of transition? How could a pagan practice from an insignificant island (I can say this because I am Irish) manage to transition to its current billion-dollar consumerist extravaganza?

This passage is also part of the History Channel’s longer description of Día de los Muertos. Whereas the origins of All Hallows’ Eve in the Celtic holiday of Samhain are at best implausible, Día de los Muertos’ connections to Aztec religious life are clearer. Yet even here the genealogical relationship insists on erasing 500 years of Christian life. The writer awkwardly alludes to Christianity (that “over the centuries” part) but again cannot imagine that it has any real importance except as a machine for appropriating pagan practices. Going back to Europe, we find that Halloween (and Día de los Muertos) have connections not to Samhain but to Roman religion:

'El jarabe en ultratumba' Zinc etching by José Guadalupe Posada, c.1910

Some of these customs survived even after the rise of the Roman Catholic Church, which (unofficially) adopted them into their celebrations of two minor Catholic holidays, All Saints Day and All Souls Day, celebrated on the first two days of November.

What is striking is the insistence on the relative unimportance of Christianity. Based on the wholly inaccurate claim that All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day are “minor Catholic Holidays,” there is zero attention to the theology or liturgical and cultural practices central to those days. There is attention to the theological claims of Aztec religions, and the writer gestures to what the ancient Irish and Romans were up to. The only indication of a concern with Catholic beliefs or practices is that Catholics have a “darker view of death,” presumably because Catholics were somehow unaware that death is an “integral, ever present part of life.” This would be news to almost any of the saints or the doctors of the Church.

Of course, All Saints’ Days is one of six Holy Days of Obligation and thus considered one of the major Catholic feast days. While All Souls’ Day has faded in its importance as a feast, it remains the reason why Catholics spend the entire month of November praying for the dead. Inasmuch as the article recognizes any important features of these two days celebrated by one billion people annually, it insists that they exist and are important if they can be connected to religious practices celebrated by almost no one for hundreds of years. I don’t dispute the claims in such genealogies. As a Catholic, I don’t find the idea that Catholic festivals have connections to pagan practices to be a problem. People often act as though Catholic festivals are cheapened by the connection to paganism. But in fact, these connections are good and fruitful forms of incarnated theological practices.

So why pick on the History Channel? In the first place, the History Channel both shapes and is shaped by pop genealogies. Genealogical thinking is not esoteric at all; people bandy about these ideas all the time. We do so because the questions of origins and developments arise not out of the academy but out of the deep-seated human desire to know. True knowledge in this sense is archaeological and teleological, grounded in the knowledge of origins and ends.

In this sense, holiday genealogies are interesting and important. The problem with the History Channel (and many others), is the shoddy way they are practiced. To understand Día de los Muertos and Halloween requires attention to Christian practice and theology. Even if it is true that Halloween is just the transmission of a pagan religious practice, we should be trying to understand why Christians carried over these practices. How did they reshape them? And what is the meaning of these practices for Christians?

Various by Fra Angelico

These pop genealogies insist on origins without attending to development or why there is such overlap between religious holidays. Perhaps these holidays actually arose in and from the Christian faith. If so, this would require attention to how Catholics celebrate such major holidays as All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day, while also attending to how these days developed “over the centuries.” Further, rather than just making unsubstantiated claims about the origins of a holiday, we should look at why it might be the case that multiple religions celebrate festivals of death in the fall. Perhaps it is a shared sense that death is an “integral, ever present part of life” and that different religions have thoughtful ways of engaging with this reality. It is not that Catholicism appropriated these festivals; it is that many people see an insight into the human condition in the dying light of autumn.

So far, I have been treating these genealogies as perhaps amusing or shoddy approaches to thinking about the origins and meanings of holidays. But I think these historical accounts are not all that benign. Each is based on dubious claims of holiday appropriation, each downplays or ignores the theological and liturgical importance of Christian festivity, and each claims that the “fun” elements of a holiday are from pagan religions. Why such an insistence on appropriation? Precisely because our contemporary holiday practices are themselves appropriations. With both Christmas and Halloween, a consumerist culture has taken over holidays and transformed them. Note that Samhain “over the centuries” became a day for parties, costumes, and trick-or-treating for adults and kids. In other words, the only contemporary practice is consumption. The rival practices of prayer for the dead and imitation of the saints is ignored. Almost no one celebrates Samhain, and so it cannot offer a serious rival or critique to our purchasing of costumes, candy bars, and booze. In contrast, Catholicism orients these holidays in directions that can (and should) challenge the ways we celebrate them today.

Accusing Christians of appropriation distracts from the appropriation taking place or justifies it. Consumer capitalism colonizes certain holidays, and it does so in a way that is fundamentally banal. By evacuating the holiday of any kind of transcendent meaning, it can only substitute an infinite consumption of stuff. We should not be surprised that pop genealogies arise conterminously with the commercialization of a holiday. Día de los Muertos has developed from a rural Mexican celebration to a facet of global films, Corona advertisements, and mass-produced costumes. Simultaneously, its connections to Mexican Catholic life has been downgraded. Pop genealogies distract us from the present appropriation that takes place when Halloween changes from a localized practice of communal celebration that ties into a broader religious tradition to a placeless and meaningless celebration of buying Skittles.

At this point, I probably seem like a grump and perhaps something of a conspiracy theorist. So, I will end on a more positive note. I think it is great that Celtic religious practices have influenced our contemporary Halloween practices and that the Aztec concern for the dead has shaped Mexican Catholicism. Part of the reason pop genealogies become popular is because we do not celebrate the deep meanings of holidays. So we should embrace these past celebrations while also recognizing or even embracing the current religious meanings of the major feasts. If Catholics still fervently prayed for the dead and celebrated All Saints’ Day as the major feast that it is, it would be harder to pretend that Halloween, All Saints’ Day, and All Souls’ Day are “minor” celebrations. To counteract pop genealogies and consumer banality, we need rich and diverse cultural practices. This year, I’ll be baking Irish bread and carving pumpkins. I’ll celebrate the Saints that I should model my life on, and I will visit a cemetery to offer prayers for the dead. I’ll leave the pop genealogies and cheap costumes for another year.