HISTORY OF HALLOWEEN

So what is Halloween’s history? Well, contrary to what a lot of people believe, Halloween isn’t traditionally an American custom, although our US friends have certainly adopted it as their own. The origins of Halloween date all the way back to the ancient Celtic pagan festival of Samhain.

More than 2000 years ago, people would celebrate this harvest festival by lighting bonfires to ward off ghosts and evil spirits; they were deeply superstitious and afraid of the dark and the entities that were said to be walking the earth.

Well, this is an easy one. It’s fun! Those who whinge that Australia is just giving in to US commercialism by celebrating Halloween – well, you don’t hear them saying we should ban McDonald’s, Starbucks or Apple. In fact, Halloween isn’t a new arrival into Australian culture either: Scottish, and potentially also Irish, immigrants also brought the tradition with them when they settled here in the 1800s.

According to Hallozween magazine columnist and Halloween historian Mark Oxbrow, Halloween has been celebrated in Australia longer than you may think!

He writes: Was it celebrated here before the founding of either the NRL or AFL? Was it here before the Sydney Harbour Bridge? Did people dress up for Halloween in Australia before Federation? 

Here are the facts – Aussie rules was first played in Melbourne in 1859; NRL was founded in 1997; the Sydney Harbour Bridge opened in 1932 and Federation was in 1901.

And Halloween? It was first celebrated in Australia in Castlemaine, Victoria, in October 1858. 

Halloween had its origins in Scotland and Ireland thousands of years ago as the festival of Samhuinn – marking summer’s end. When the Scots emigrated to America during the Highland Clearances, they took their Halloween traditions with them. When the Irish left their homes behind because of the potato famine, they carried their Halloween superstitions over the seas.

Scots arrived in Australia with the First Fleet but it wasn’t until the Australian gold rush that newspaper reports appeared as written evidence of the Scots’ Halloween Balls.  

On Friday, October 29 in 1858, the ‘puddlers’ of Forest Creek presented the Castlemaine Select Scottish Ball celebrating Halloween at Red Hill Hotel. Tickets admitted one gentleman and two ladies. 

‘Puddlers’ were named after the puddling machines first developed in the Victorian goldfields that sped up processing of clay to find gold. 

In Tam O’ Shanter, a farmer named Tam staggers out of an epic drinking session in a tavern and stupidly rides home past a haunted churchyard. Tam sees a witches’ dance with corpses bearing candles and the devil playing the pipes. 

Halloween balls and revels appeared across Australia, from Alice Springs and Parap in the Northern Territory to Launceston in Tasmania. You’d find Halloween celebrations in every state including Rockhampton, Brisbane and Cairns in Queensland; Adelaide, Mount Gambier and Balaklava in South Australia; Bendigo, Melbourne, Williamstown, Sunshine and Dandenong in Victoria; Kalgoorlie, Perth, Fremantle and Dangin in Western Australia; and Broken Hill, Glen Innes, Lithgow and Lismore in New South Wales. 

Halloween Balls remained popular across Australia into the 20th Century. In 1937 in Mudgee, there was a grand Halloween Ball held in the Mechanics Institute Hall. This was a masked ball with a prize of half a guinea for the best costume. A witch was advertised and a real Scots ‘spaewife’ – a fortune teller – would read your future. The advert reads: “Midnight is the hour of mystic spell and weird enchantment when ‘ghaists and bogles’ are about.”

World War II saw American GIs arrive in Australia. They chewed gum, played basketball, danced the jitterbug and brought their own version of Halloween celebrations. But it’s American movies and TV shows that have made most Australians think that Halloween is a recent import from the USA. 

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Mean Girls, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Friends, The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror, Brooklyn 99, John Carpenter’s Halloween, Stranger Things and Halloweentown are just a few of the US Halloween TV and movie imports you might have seen. 

But Halloween is not some American thing that only arrived in Australia a handful of years ago. Halloween has been celebrated in Australia for more than 160 years; before Australia became a nation, before Waltzing Matilda was written, before Vegemite and thongs, before Ugg Boots and Mad Max, AC/DC and Kylie, and before the first Aussie Rules football was kicked. 

Sure, it’s taken us a lot longer to embrace it than the Americans, but more and more people are starting to realise that Halloween is a fun celebration that the whole family can take part in.

You can get to know your neighbours and wider community through well organised, and of course, fully supervised, trick or treating events and what kid (or adult!) doesn’t like to dress up in a cool costume?!

They don’t have to be horror themed either … you can go as a superhero, a TV or movie character or a famous person in history. Heck, you could even go as your next door neighbour or boss if you wanted to – it’s all about having fun! And well, the lollies too 😉