THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 28, 1994 TAG: 9410280059
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Jennifer Dziura
LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines
DID YOU EVER, while carving the face of Al Gore into a gutted pumpkin, stop to think about why we Americans make art from vegetables every October and then display these orange orbs on our doorsteps like offerings to the Galloping Gourmet?
Well, there is an enthralling story behind the upcoming holiday called Halloween, wherein children, in some cases until the age of 38, dress up as Barney, a Mighty Morphin Power Ranger or just a person with a lot of scars and then solicit candy from possible drug dealers and axe murderers within a 25-mile radius of their homes.
By now, you should be wondering ``But how, Jennifer, did it all begin?'' or, at the very least, ``Why would anyone carve Al Gore's face into a pumpkin?''
Halloween is said to have originated among the ancient Druids, who believed that Saman, the lord of the dead, called forth evil spirits on Oct. 31. The Druids believed that the only way to ward off these spirits was to light fires and throw raw eggs at the huts of their neighbors. The Druids are also credited with the development of candy corn.
The ancient Celts also celebrated Halloween; they believed that the spirits of the dead revisited their earthly homes that night. The Celts are also credited with the development of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, whose hideous Spandex costumes scared the Druids into thinking they were evil spirits and egging each other's huts for absolutely no reason.
Unfortunately, the mighty Celtic civilization was conquered by the Romans, who oppressed the Celts by making them eat candy corn and use Roman numerals. The tolerant Romans allowed the Celts to continue observing Halloween as long as they also worshipped Pomona, the goddess of fruit and fruit trees. After all, what's one more god to the polytheistic? The Celts and Romans combined had more gods than there are small children who watch the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.
The particular deity honored on Nov. 1, which the Romans thought was close enough to Halloween to combine the two celebrations, was Pomona. It is from the Roman ``fruit and trees'' concept that we derive such traditions as bobbing for apples, pumpkins carving and toilet-papering trees.
Roman Halloween traditions that have been lost throughout the years are those of sending trees to workers in the fruit-service industry and sending fruit baskets to tree surgeons. The obliteration of the latter tradition, I think, is especially a loss because people today just don't appreciate how important health care for trees really is. If you appreciate trees like the Romans did, write to your congressman and demand that trees and shrubbery be included in the President's health care plan somewhere between the part about raising your taxes and the part about how managed care is rumored to have worked several thousand years ago in Nepal.
So that's the story of Halloween, told with little or no straying from the subject and with as many references to the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers as possible. If you didn't particularly care for it, console yourself with some candy corn and the fact that at least this Halloween story didn't start with ``It was a dark and stormy night'' or end with anyone's face being scraped off. MEMO: Jennifer Dziura is a junior at Cox High School. Her column appears
bimonthly in Teenology. If you'd like to comment on her column, call
INFOLINE at 640-5555 and enter category 6778 or write to her at 4565
Virginia Beach Blvd., Virginia Beach, Va. 23462.
by CNB