trick or treat

Trick-or-treating is a custom for children on Halloween. Children proceed in costume from house to house, asking for treats such as confectionery, or sometimes money, with the question, "Trick or treat?" The "trick" is an idle threat to perform mischief on the homeowners or their property if no treat is given.

In the United States, trick-or-treating is now one of the main traditions of Halloween and it has become socially expected that if one lives in a neighborhood with children one should purchase treats in preparation for trick-or-treaters. The National Confectioners Association reported in 2005 that 80 percent of adults in the United States planned to give out confectionery to trick-or-treaters,^[1] and that 93 percent of children planned to go trick-or-treating.^[2] The tradition has also spread to Britain, Ireland, and other European countries, where similar native traditions have been influenced by the American Halloween customs. The activity is popular in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland, Mexico, Central America, South America, Western Europe and Scandinavia, but over the recent years has become popular in Australia and New Zealand.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Origin 1.2 Increased popularity 1.3 Introduction to the UK 2 Local variants 2.1 Guising 3 See also 4 References 5 Further reading 6 External links

History

Origin

The practice of dressing up in costumes and begging door to door for treats on holidays dates back to the Middle Ages and includes Christmas wassailing. Trick-or-treating resembles the late medieval practice of souling, when poor folk would go door to door on Hallowmas (November 1), receiving food in return for prayers for the dead on All Souls Day (November 2). It originated in Ireland and Britain,^[3] although similar practices for the souls of the dead were found as far south as Italy.^[4] Shakespeare mentions the practice in his comedy The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1593), when Speed accuses his master of "puling [whimpering or whining] like a beggar at Hallowmas."^[5]

However, there is no evidence that souling was ever practiced in North America, where trick-or-treating may have developed independent of any Irish or British antecedent. There is little primary documentation of masking or costuming on Halloween — in Ireland, the UK, or America — before 1900.^[6] Ruth Edna Kelley, in her 1919 history of the holiday, The Book of Hallowe'en, makes no mention of ritual begging in the chapter "Hallowe'en in America."^[7] Kelley lived in Lynn, Massachusetts, a town with about 4,500 Irish immigrants, 1,900 English immigrants, and 700 Scottish immigrants in 1920.^[8] The thousands of Halloween postcards produced between the turn of the 20th century and the 1920s commonly show children but do not depict trick-or-treating.^[9] The editor of a collection of over 3,000 vintage Halloween postcards writes,

There are cards which mention the custom [of trick-or-treating] or show children in costumes at the doors, but as far as we can tell they were printed later than the 1920s and more than likely even the 1930s. Tricksters of various sorts are shown on the early postcards, but not the means of appeasing them.^[10]

Thus, although a quarter million Scots-Irish immigrated to America between 1717 and 1770, the Irish Potato Famine brought more than a million immigrants to North America in 1845–1849,^[11] and British and Irish immigration to America peaked in the 1880s,^[12] ritualized begging on Halloween was virtually unknown in America until generations later.

The earliest known reference to ritual begging on Halloween in English speaking North America occurs in 1911, when a newspaper in Kingston, Ontario, near the border of upstate New York, reported that it was normal for the smaller children to go street guising (see below) on Halloween between 6 and 7 p.m., visiting shops and neighbors to be rewarded with nuts and candies for their rhymes and songs.^[13] Another isolated reference to ritual begging on Halloween appears, place unknown, in 1915, with a third reference in Chicago in 1920.^[14]

The earliest known use in print of the term "trick or treat" appears in 1927, from Blackie, Alberta, Canada:

Hallowe’en provided an opportunity for real strenuous fun. No real damage was done except to the temper of some who had to hunt for wagon wheels, gates, wagons, barrels, etc., much of which decorated the front street. The youthful tormentors were at back door and front demanding edible plunder by the word “trick or treat” to which the inmates gladly responded and sent the robbers away rejoicing.^[15]

Trick-or-treating does not seem to have become a widespread practice until the 1930s, with the first U.S. appearances of the term in 1934,^[16] and the first use in a national publication occurring in 1939.^[17]

Increased popularity

Almost all pre-1940 uses of the term "trick-or-treat" are from the western United States and Canada.^[18] Trick-or-treating spread from the western United States eastward, stalled by sugar rationing that began in April 1942 during World War II and did not end until June 1947.^[19]

Early national attention to trick-or-treating was given in October 1947 issues of the children's magazines Jack and Jill and Children's Activities,^[20] and by Halloween episodes of the network radio programs The Baby Snooks Show in 1946 and The Jack Benny Show and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet in 1948.^[21] The custom had become firmly established in popular culture by 1952, when Walt Disney portrayed it in the cartoon Trick or Treat, Ozzie and Harriet were besieged by trick-or-treaters on an episode of their television show,^[22] and UNICEF first conducted a national campaign for children to raise funds for the charity while trick-or-treating.^[23]

Although some popular histories of Halloween have characterized trick-or-treating as an adult invention to rechannel Halloween activities away from vandalism, nothing in the historical record supports this theory. To the contrary, adults, as reported in newspapers from the mid-1930s to the mid-1950s, typically saw it as a form of extortion, with reactions ranging from bemused indulgence to anger.^[24] Likewise, as portrayed on radio shows, children would have to explain what trick-or-treating was to puzzled adults, and not the other way around. Sometimes even the children protested: for Halloween 1948, members of the Madison Square Boys Club in New York City carried a parade banner that read "American Boys Don't Beg."^[25]

Introduction to the UK

Before the 1980s, trick-or-treating in its American form was little known in the UK and when introduced was often regarded as an unusual and even unwelcome import, but the influence of American popular culture caused it to rapidly take hold, to the extent that one British reporter has called it "the Japanese knotweed of festivals".^[26]

Local variants

In Ireland and Scotland guising is traditional, and the American jocular threat is not practiced, just "treats" (in the form of "apples or nuts for the Halloween party") given out to the children dressed up as ghosts and witches. Up until circa 1960 children used unusual clothing and face make-up for stunning effect,^{[citation needed]} but with the growing commercialism, theme masks and theme outfits became more popular. In 19th and early 20th century Ireland the costuming was often much more extravagant — for example, slates were placed over the chimney-pots of houses filling the rooms with smoke and field gates were lifted off their hinges and hung from high tree branches.^{[citation needed]}

Until the 1990s, Irish children said "Help the Halloween Party," but are now more inclined to use the American "Trick or treat" due to the influence of American popular culture, movies, and television. In Waterford, the phrase "attin far Halloween" is still commonly used, being the vernacular pronunciation of "anything for Halloween".^{[citation needed]}

In Quebec, Canada, children also go door to door on Halloween. However, in French speaking neighbourhoods, instead of "Trick or treat?", they will simply say "Halloween", though in tradition it used to be La charité s'il-vous-plaît ("Charity, please").^{[citation needed]}

In Ohio, Iowa, and Massachusetts, the night designated for Trick-or-treating is referred to as Beggars Night since moving the date from Halloween in a successful effort to end the vandalism that had often accompanied Halloween activities.^{[citation needed]}

In Sweden children dress up as witches and go trick-or-treating on Maundy Thursday (the Thursday before Easter) while Danish children dress up in various attires and go trick-or-treating on Fastelavn (or the next day, Shrove Monday)and In Norway kids go trick-or-treating between Christmas and New Year's Eve. In parts of Flanders and some parts of the Netherlands and most areas of Germany and Austria, children go to houses with home made beet lanterns or with paper lanterns (which can hold a candle or electronic light), singing songs about St. Martin on St. Martin's Day (the 11th of November), in return for treats.^{[citation needed]}

Children of the St. Louis, Missouri and Des Moines, Iowa area are expected to perform a joke before receiving any candy.^[27][28]

Guising

In Scotland and parts of northern England, a similar tradition is called guising because of the disguise or costume worn by the children. Although traditions of seasonal guising stretch back at least as far as the Middle Ages,^[29] it became an exclusively Halloween practice only in the twentieth century. However there is a significant difference from the way the practice has developed in the United States. In Scotland, the children are only supposed to receive treats if they perform for the households they go to. This normally takes the form of singing a song or reciting a joke or a funny poem which the child has memorized before setting out. Occasionally a more talented child may do card tricks, play the mouth organ, or something even more impressive, but most children will earn plenty of treats even with something very simple. However, guising is falling out of favour somewhat, being replaced in some parts of the country with the American form of trick-or-treating. Such a practice is in use in certain regions of the United States, as well.

See also

• Halloween costume
• Hop-tu-Naa
• Poisoned candy scare
• Samhain
• Fastelavn

References

Further reading

• Ben Truwe, The Halloween Catalog Collection. Portland, Oregon: Talky Tina Press, 2003. ISBN 0-9703448-5-6. Contains a particularly well-documented history of trick-or-treating in America.

External links

• Halloween Treats