Halloween is celebrated on the last day of October every year, which is October 31, 2025. The symbol of Halloween is pumpkins carved into imaginary faces.
Why does Halloween have pumpkins?
When moving from Ireland and England to the United States, people found that pumpkins, a typical agricultural product of this land, could easily be hollowed out and carved into scary faces. Then, they put candles in the pumpkins to light up and guide wandering evil spirits.
The pumpkin is also associated with the story of the stingy guy Jack-O’Lantern in the legend of the Irish people. According to Irish legend, the word “Jack-o’lanterns” comes from a man named Jack. Jack was a young man who died but his soul was not allowed to enter Heaven because when he was alive, he was a greedy, stingy person, often hiding money, and never giving alms to anyone. However, he could not enter Hell because when he was alive, he had been friends with the devil, so the devil did not take him.
The story goes that there was a devil who came to harass a residential area. Unfortunately, the alarm was raised, people came to ask the monks to bring holy objects to “curse” and “lock the doors”. So the devil was captured… Jack realized that it was the devil who was his friend and Jack found a way to remove the “curse” object to open the way for the devil to escape.
To repay the favor of saving his life, the devil promised not to take Jack’s soul to Hell. Therefore, when Jack died in an accident, Jack’s soul was rejected by Heaven. Jack immediately went to Hell, but the devil did not let him in… because of the previous promise. Seeing Jack cold and miserable, the devil took some hot coals from Hell and put them inside a pumpkin and gave them to Jack to warm up on the way back to the earth. To let air in to maintain the fire, Jack had to pierce the pumpkin and the fire from inside shone out to light up Jack’s wandering path.
Since then, pumpkins have been associated with the symbolic image of the Halloween festival. At this time, people will hang pumpkin lanterns in front of their houses in the hope that ghosts and spirits will not disturb them.
People also believe that on that day, the dead will return to the human world to find a body and enter it to be reincarnated the following year. That is the only way for those souls to be reborn. The Celtic people believe that that day is the day when the yin and yang are in harmony, the dead and the living can contact each other.
Halloween was introduced to the United States in 1840 by Irish immigrants. At first, it was only performed on farms, but today, like many other countries, Halloween has become a common holiday for everyone, especially for young people. Halloween has then been introduced to many different countries, but each country has transformed it to make Halloween its own.
Educational and Humane meaning of Halloween
Jack’s actions and life have become experiences for young people to learn a lesson about being human, which is:
• Live without being greedy, stingy, or mean
• Be charitable, compassionate, and help the needy
Let’s ask the question, why, in the light of science and technology, European and American countries still set aside a holiday for people from the “underworld” represented by Jack? When he died, Jack became a lonely soul, with no place to live… Heaven and Hell both refused! The European and American festival tradition has given Jack a day. A day to return to the living world. On that day, Jack can live happily and comfortably, because the living have disguised themselves as ghosts so that Jack’s soul can mingle in to ease its loneliness. This is the humane meaning of the Halloween festival.
With this humane meaning, Halloween and the 15th day of the 7th lunar month (Vu Lan Festival) of Vietnam can be seen as the day when the two worlds of Yin and Yang meet in immense compassion. (Source: khoahoc.tv; translated by Google)
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