HOWICK HAPPY WANDERERS, CLUE #5

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HOWICK HAPPY WANDERERS CLUE # 5

The Howick Happy Wanderers team gathered together to work on Clue #5. We decided that carving one pumpkin would be enough to put our creative abilities to task, and make it a true team event.

We had researched the origins of pumpkin carving and Hallowe’en, to get some background information. We discovered that what had begun during ancient times in England, Scotland and Ireland has certainly changed to how it is done these days in North America.

Hallowe’en comes from the term “All Hallows’ Eve”, which is the day before “All Saints’ Day” on November 1, a day to honour all “hallowed” or holy people. November 2 is “All Souls’ Day”, a day to remember the souls of all those who died. So, “ All Hallows’ Eve” was celebrated on October 31.

It seems that our early ancestors, in preparation for “Hallowe’en” carved scary faces into turnips( a very plentiful and nutritious food that was eaten during winter) to resemble demons and devils. They would place candles into the carved turnips and light them at night. The glowing carved faces were thought to keep demons and nasty neighbours away. The shining turnips were called “punkies” and “Jack o’Lanterns” and were named after ghostly lights rumoured to be seen in the marshes and bogs—a place that they believed contained the spirits of the dead.

While today we celebrate Hallowe’en in a more fun and festive way, with carving out pumpkins with scary faces as a fun activity rather than to scare away demons, it does still have a bit of merit to remember the origins of this event. Although we do not necessarily believe in demons and evil spirits, there are a lot of bad things in this world today that we would like to scare away. So, our team came up with a list of “bad” things we would like to have “gone”. They are: Poverty, Racism, Hunger, War, Unkind Thoughts, and Covid.

We dressed up in costumes, with the team captain as a witch. We had a black cauldron which we were using as a “back up”, in case the pumpkin wasn’t scary enough to chase away the evil things. As we were putting the “evil things” into the pot, we were chanting “ Double Double, Toil and Trouble” and hoping to get rid of these evil things.
Happy Hallowe’en!

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