Creative Bloom | Volume 8: Stories from Artists

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Tradition of Turnips and Hollowed Pumpkins

By Laura Campbell

The aroma of cider and spiced cinnamon fill the common room as a conjuring crowd gather around on the floor, a hushed silence falls upon the members as the lights dim by flickering candles and casting monstrous shadows onto the walls. An ominous aura fills the space like the leading ambiance to a macabre tale. Is it a conjuring circle? Ceremonial offering? Or sacrificial right? If you said yes to any of those three you would be correct. Concealed in the center of the group, shrouded by the shadows of flickering candles are the poppets ready to be carved and offered. A blade is then drawn as sound of a buzzing drill deafens the silence in the room. The first offering is brought to the center of the circle, ready to be gutted and hallowed. It offers not a word or begging for mercy as it can’t, for it is a pumpkin.

Laughter suddenly breaks into the room as the lights flick back to life as the children scramble into the room excited to begin carving out their jack-o-lanterns for tonight’s Halloween festivities, including dressing in their costumes and trick-or-treating. Someone brings out a tray of hot apple cider as the first pumpkin is cut and carved. Kids squeal in delight as they squish out the pumpkin guts as the parents help to sort out the seeds to be roasted. Preparing Jack-o-lanterns for Halloween is a timeless tradition, just as much as dressing up and trick-or-treating, a common practice recognized by all who celebrate this frightful holiday.

Yet what brought about these traditions? Who first started the notion of dressing as spooky ghouls and goblins and going door to door asking for candies. Just like the questions of why gut and carve pumpkins. What was the root that started all these traditions?

The answer relates to a holiday that has been reserved and protected for over thousands of years, to a time when before pumpkins there were turnips.

It is the celebration of Samhain, a night when we respect the thinning of the veil honoring our ancestor while laboring in traditions of ending the harvest and bringing in the new year. A time to honor the doorways to the past as we move forward into the new year with a new vision and wisdom.

Samhain is an old pagan holiday celebration by Celtic tribes in honor of the new year, ending summer (autumn equinox) and the beginning of the harvest leading to winter (winter solstice), falling between October 31 (Halloween) and November 1 (All Saints). According to this pagan tradition, during the month of October the thinning of the veil opening the gap to the spiritual world occurs, therefore managing passage between the realms of the living and the dead are more translucent. Celebrations of Samhain honored ancestors, including honoring many gods and deities that honor the dead through feasts and festivals. Many of these spiritual practices involved leaving offerings of food or providing place settings at the dinner table for the deceased (known as dumb dinners) and divination communication rituals (Oracle and tarot readings). Other tokens of respect included decorating family altars with various food offerings, trinkets, and candles. These practices were also used to worship deities in honor of Samhain for offering wards of protection.

According to the pagan belief, with the thinning of the veil also opens the portal for malevolent spirits. Which is why it was just as important to set up tokens of protection rather than just offerings to dead relatives. These offerings of protection included hosting bonfires, candle vigils, smudging, incense cleansing rituals, and dressing in masks to ward off evil spirits. The idea of dressing in costume is not so far off from today’s standard practice of treat-or-treating. However, trick-or-treating was not something adapted until after colonizers settled into the new world, the same for the adaption of the pumpkin Jack-O-Lantern.

Popular Celtic Samhain traditions to ward off evil spirits were to use root vegetables carved of faces and to decorate around the home in wards of protection. The adaptation of the pumpkin to use as Jack-O-Lanterns did occur until the early settlers into the new world, and that was only because pumpkins were a lot easier to carve than turnips. Mentioned earlier with trick-or-treating, which was not a practice until it was adopted in the 1930’s to ward of vandalism during the night of Hallows Eve. Using candy and sweat treats to incentivize the youth from destruction which then slowly turned into a more capitalized tradition.

But there is more to this holiday than honoring the dead, warding off evil spirits all while carving pumpkins and collecting candy, there is also the magic. It is an entity that surrounds us, especially on a night honoring the opening of a realm devoted to spirits and other illusive phenomena. However, by definition, the word magic is also an elusive term, for what truly defines magical. Is it the fairy twinkling lights bespeckling the foggy path leading to the next neighbor’s house, decorated in creepy jump scare animatronics, is it communicating through the oracle with ancient deities, or perhaps conjuring spirits in the middle of the hemlock woods when the clock strikes midnight. All very resourceful and understandable definitions of the term magic, yet, from my experience magic isn’t a definition, but rather a feeling.

“What do you want to be for Halloween?”

Witch, vampire, monster, zombie, superhero, princess, a highland cow? A question, like the thinning of the veil, opens the portal to imagination and fantasy. Halloween thrives not just on the spooky vibes and the thrill of fright, but also the possibility of creation. The transformation of inquisitive wonder to manifest, create, or build something from the depths of your most inner wildest dreams. Thus, during the thinning of the veil opens the gateways to stronger magical connections, yet the strongest magic that I have witnessed is the manifestations of our own desires. As we get older sometimes it is hard to realize or see these manifestations come to light. However, on a night like Halloween, when you witness something as simple as a child dressing as their favorite superhero, princess, or animal, something that they have been desiring all month you can feel the excitement.

Honoring this enthusiasm, I like to reference and my all-time favorite Halloween film, “A Nightmare Before Christmas”, during the opening musical number all the residents of Halloween Town gather in the town square singing a chanting (and very catchy) melody of Halloween. As they proceed to gather around a ghoulish green glowing fountain, singing praise as their lead enters the crowd. The pumpkin king, Jack Skeleton arrives in through town at the top of straw drawn horse (straw horse/offerings and bonfires in reference to Samhain practices). While mounted on top of his flammable stead dressed as a scarecrow with a befitting jack-o-lantern on top of this skull head, Jack rides into town surrounded by those who honor and adorn him. Then during the finale of the song Jack very theatrically lights himself on fire with a flaming torch before commencing an eloquent dive in the ghoulish serpent fountain. Jack disappears into the bubbling water as the singing builds in tempo as all who gathered sway and chant in a very ritualistic and worshiping manner (very Samhain-like).

The Halloween townspeople joined together, circling around the fountain as they continue to sing their praise to honor the rebirth of their pumpkin king. Jack Skeleton then slowly reemerges from the water; however, he is not the scarecrow he once was but rises anew. Dressed in the iconic blank and white pin tripped suit with bat wing bow tie, rising out of the serpent fountain, Jack welcomes the town in final honor of closing out the Halloween ceremony. In this scene we watch as the townspeople of Halloween honor their traditions, with the small macabre elements of strife and sacrifice as Jack the scarecrow is brought the altar lit in a flame to then to be brought back to life as the pumpkin king. Death and rebirth, life and death, transformation and creation all while honoring the traditions of Samhain during a night when the veil between the realms is the thinnest.  

Transformation and creation, to be one thing then manifest into another.

“What do you want to be for Halloween?” which the answer is, anything you wish to be, for the magic is of the mind, forward protection into reality. Like the spirits passing the veil and into the land of the living, as we manifest to transform and create, we honor those that have passed onto us the knowledge of said traditions.

Samhain is a great time to mediate and reflect on said traditions, to honor how those who have passed when then honor how we live, as above so below. Doesn’t matter if you honor the traditions of Samhain through ancient pagan rituals, gather around a bonfire with friends sipping hot apple cider, or take the kids trick-or-treating, you are honoring the traditions of your past and forward protecting in making memories into the future, as within so without. So, carve your pumpkins or your turnips, wear the witch costume of go dressed as an inflatable t-rex, pick your poison, when we practice these traditions, we are honoring the traditions of our own creation. As the veil thins, we transcend into the realm of magic, and into the suspended disbelief of our own imagination for we create what we crave just as we manifest what we desire. What a powerful notion to believe on a night when specters haunt and spirits roam, as we trail the path of magic and the thrill of fright, we create what we seek and we manifest what we believe, so mote it be.