Samhain, Halloween, and Rage Against The Machine

Day 1,076, 15:29 • Published in Ireland Ireland • by Chris Cuthbertson

They rally round the family, wit a pocket full o shells...

One of my favorite times of year has once again sprang itself upon us and I must delve a bit into it's interesting history

Halloween, today as most of the world knows it, is a mix of All Saint's day and Samhain, in this article we will be discussing the latter.

Samhain is a Gaelic festival that is held upon October 31 to November 1. The Irish name Samhain is derived from Old Irish and means roughly "summer's end". A harvest festival with ancient roots in Celtic polytheism and due to its date, it overtime became associated with All Saint's day as I mentioned above.

Samhain is a harvest festival at this time of year to mark the end of the "lighter" half of the year ending and the "darker" half of the year beginning.



Due to the death of so many plants and animals around this time of year, it was believed that the border of this world and the "otherworld" of the dead became so thin that they (the dead) could reach through to communicate to the living.

The modern day wearing of masks and costumes pays homage to the ancient celts who wore masks and costumes during Samhain to copy the spirits.

Another popular gathering today in which a large fire is burnt, a bonfire, is also related to Samhain.

During the festival owners and their livestock would walk between two bonfires, cleansing their selves, while casting the bones into the flames, hence the name bonfire deriving from bone-fire.



It was also a tradition to carry home an ember after the largest bonfire had ceased burning

So, now that I have "kicked" some knowledge for some folks, it's time I start to partake in the festivities.



Chris Cuthbertson

Check out Rage below

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-58-36lSqG4