The Hidden Origin of Halloween – Pleiades connections
Halloween, celebrated on 31 October, is a time for fun and pumpkin games, but not many people know its origin. These spooky festivities were derived from the Christian festival of All Hallows but its origin dates back thousands of years to when the Day of the Dead was widely observed
Samhain, the Celtic New Year festival, which also commemorated the dead, was celebrated at Tara, the ancient capital of Ireland, on 1st November. The Celts believed that on the eve of Samhain ‘the gates of the Underworld were open and the souls of the dead returned. When the Pleiades arose, the people celebrated a great fire festival. Fires throughout Ireland were extinguished and Tara was symbolically burnt.to represent the end of the previous age. A new fire was later lit and the Druids offered human sacrifice and enacted secret rituals near lakes. This is possibly because water was associated with cleansing, in many early cultures.
The Pleaides brightest stars.
The Toradja, in Sulawesi Indonesia, believe that they came from the Pleiades and that they return there when they die. Every three years, in August, they celebrate a second burial festival, called Ma’nene when the dead are dug up from their graves and relatives take them home, wash them, and dress them in a new set of clothes. Many Toradja save through their lives to pay for a burial in which water buffalo are sacrificed.
The Pleiades also played an important role in the lives of the Incas and there was a representation of them in the Coricancha their sacred temple. Also, kept in this temple were the mummies of past rulers and their wives. Around the time of the December solstice, summer in this part of the world, the Incas celebrated the festival of Capac Raymi when the dead were believed to return and when young boys were initiated This festival lasted for several days and it began when the ruling Inca arrived at the Coricancha .The mummies of the previous rulers were brought out from the Coricancha to play their part in the ceremonies and, on the 14th day of the month ,they were carried to a roped off square where a huge fire was lit and where various rituals were enacted. In another part of the ceremonies, boys being initiated, carrying lances, with attached replica trophy heads, raced down from Anahuarque to honour the mountain ‘which rose from the waters of The Flood’. (Ciera de Leon (1551) 1967 Chap7) The festival concluded within the ritual bathing of initiates in a sacred spring.
The Day of the Dead is celebrated in Mexico in the beginning of November and people prepare for it by cleaning and decorating the graves of their ancestors. The spirits of the dead are believed to return on 2 November and people visit the graves and offer presents to the deceased. This festival was celebrated in Mexico long before the Spaniards arrived 500 years ago but what was its origin? Well, in his book The Worship of the Dead or the Origin & Nature of Pagan Idolatry, Colonel J Garner explained that:
‘In Mexico, the festival of the dead was held on the 17th November and was regulated by the Pleiades. It began at sunset, and at midnight, as that constellation approached the zenith, a human victim, says Prescott, was offered to avert the dread calamity which they believed impended over the Human race. They had a tradition that, at that time, the world had been destroyed and they dreaded that a similar catastrophe at the end of a cycle would annihilate the human race:
At the end of each 52 year Aztec calendar cycle all flames in the empire were extinguished crockery was smashed and the country fell silent. When Mamalhuaztli, the Fire-Drill Pleiades linked constellation, appeared, the priests cut open the chest of a sacrificial victim and ripped out his heart. A fire was kindled in the chest wound and it was taken to the great pyramid in Tenochtitlan. Messengers, carrying fiery torches, carried off the awaited news that the new era had begun and crockery was replaced in every home. The reason why the Aztecs connected this constellation with fire is that it was associated with the end of an age’
Col.Garnier noted that ‘Mr Haliburton has some interesting arguments to prove that the festival in many nations was fixed by the first rising of the Pleiades above the horizon’ ‘The Society Islanders’ he adds ‘also held a festival of the dead and a first fruits celebrated on in the month of November connected with the rising of the Pleiades, called by them Matarii I nia or The Pleiades above which marked the commencement of their year’
Conclusions:
The Festival of the Dead, the origin of Halloween, was celebrated throughout the Early World and it often took place in November following the rising of the Pleiades These stars, which featured in numerous traditions, and which regulated some calendars, were linked with the Flood, the great civilisers of man, and agriculture. In my article The World in Upheaval 3,000 b.c.e. I showed that this was the era when the Flood occurred and that, according to the Sumerians, it was caused by the Annunaki because the people of the previous age became evil.
Bibliography:
Lawrence Blair and Lorne Blair.Ring of Fire.Bantam Press.1988.
James Bonwick. Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions.Dorset Press.1986.
Leonard Farra.The Pleiades Legacy (The Stone Age) Blurb 2010
“ “ The Pleiades Legacy (The New World).Blurb 2010
Colonel J Garnier.The Worship of the Dead.Chapman and Hall 1904
R.G.Haliburton. The Year of the Pleiades.
Siegfried Huber.The Realm of the Incas. Robert Hale. 1959
Rees and Brinley Rees.Celtic Heritage.Thames & Hudson.1961
Lewis Spence.The History and Origins of Druidism.Rider and Company.
by Leonard Farra author of the Pleiades Legacy series.
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