With Halloween around the corner, people around the world are preparing to don their eerie-looking outfits, bringing out the Michael Myers and Pennywise within them. They will play trick-or-treat with family and friends, and throw Halloween parties. One inevitable thing is a surge in global pumpkin sales.
Growing up, I rarely missed a chance to look cool among friends, and organising a Halloween party back in 2018 was my most brilliant move. The first thing I ensured featured in my soiree was the spooky-looking carved pumpkins. But it was only much later that I asked myself a very valid question—how did pumpkins become a symbol of Halloween? Let’s find out.
Halloween dates back to the ancient Celtic festival called Samhain, which is celebrated as the summer and harvest seasons come to a close, making way for winter. This cusp was considered to be a time when the distance and boundary between the world of the living and the dead were thin. People began to fear the descent of their dead ancestors and wandering spirits and started looking for symbolic objects to protect their households.
Carved Pumpkins Can Guard You From Evil Spirits!
Pumpkins are a harvest crop and were abundantly available during late October. Thus, a logic-driven story suggests that people began carving spooky faces in pumpkins due to their easy availability during the liminal season.
However, it is the Irish legend of Stingy Jack that introduced most of us to Halloween. The story’s protagonist is a trickster named Stingy Jack who managed to outwit the Devil on multiple occasions. This left Jack without an entry to hell or heaven. All he was left with, to light his way, was burning coal inside a hollowed turnip. Over the years, this came to be known as Jack of the Lantern, and now it is commonly referred to as a Jack-o’-lantern.
The story also reinforces the idea of a carved vegetable as something protective, and thus, the ritual of placing it outside homes has become a tradition.
When this Irish folklore travelled with the Scottish and Irish immigrants to North America in the 18th and 19th centuries, the practice of carving lanterns from root vegetables, such as turnips, mangel-wurzels, beets, and rutabagas, was replaced with carving them in pumpkins. Various factors influenced this switch—the abundance of pumpkins, their fleshy nature that makes them easier to carve, and a flat bottom that makes it convenient to place a candle inside.
The association between the two is such that pumpkins have become synonymous to Halloween. So much so that various desserts and delicacies are prepared using the vegetable. Pies, pancakes, ice creams and even tea and coffee are prepared with pumpkin. In the West, even today most households have these carved vegetables placed outside their doors and Halloween parties across the world feature it as a part of their decor.
Read more: Here’s Where To Celebrate Halloween 2025 Across India
Also read: Social’s Spooktacular LIIT Is Perfect For Your Halloween Parties
