It seems to me that Halloween has grown darker over the years. Growing up in Michigan, we dressed up as beggars and yelled "Help the poor." I don't remember anyone wearing scary costumes. Another place where you probably wouldn't have seen werewolves or zombies is in the Old West.
In the Old West, Halloween dances
were held in schoolhouses, barns or churches. Guests were required to jump over a broom upon
arrival to assure future happiness.
Masquerade balls were popular, too, but mostly held in the east.
Apples played an important part in
these Halloween rituals but so did tin soldiers. An article in the El Paso Daily paper in 1899
described the ritual of melting tin soldiers.
A young woman would then drip the melted tin from a spoon into cold
water. The tin would harden in all manner of shapes, thus foretelling a
maiden’s future. If, for example, the
tin looked like a shoe, she would marry a shoemaker. A ship meant her future husband would be a
sailor and a hammer foretold a carpenter in her future.
Some enterprising hostesses who owned apple trees went one step further. While the apples were still green they glued the initials of single males onto the apples. When the apples ripened, the paper was washed off revealing the green initials on the rosy cheeks. Upon arriving at the party, female guests would draw an apple from the tub to find out the name of her dance partner.
Another popular game involving apples required careful paring so that the peels were cut into one long strip. These were then thrown over the left shoulder. The initial the peel made on the floor was the initial of a future love.
Peelings were also hung from barn doors and female guests were given a number. If for example you got number two, then the second male through the door was your true love.
Another crowd-pleaser was the cobweb game. Guests were each given two bright colored threads attached to a cardboard heart in some remote corner. The threads ran through the room in an intricate pattern. The idea was to unravel your thread by bobbing under a red thread or slipping through a tangle of green or blue threads until you reached the heart which named your partner for the night.
Halloween games also included the
game of Proposal. Each woman was given a
stack of cardboard hearts and lemons.
The males had to go around the room and propose to each woman. He had
thirty seconds to convince her to marry him. When the bell rang she would
either give him a lemon for no or a
heart for yes. At the end of the game, the man with the most
hearts won.
With all the ghosts and goblins of today, it’s hard to imagine a time when Halloween was just another word for romance
How are you and your family planning to spend this pandemic Halloween?
I don't care for Halloween so I don't decorate or anything for it. I will buy a small bag of candy in case my granddaughter comes calling. When my children were young, we used to let them go to a church alternative, then we would buy them some candy and go for a pizza that night.
ReplyDeleteI really like the cobweb game idea!!! Thanks for posting.
Hi Connie, I'm not much of a Halloween person, either. I don't like scary stuff. I do give out candy to the youngsters in the neighborhood, but that's about all. Thank you for sharing.
ReplyDelete