The Original Jack-o-Lanterns Weren't Made Out of Pumpkins

Nov 01, 2024

Plus: cake was also a major part of the tradition.

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Halloween is just one day away, and if you haven't carved that pumpkin yet, don't worry. There's still time. However, this is an instance where your procrastination may pay off as you can choose to carve something more traditional instead. Yes, we're talking about carving the mighty turnip, the OG of Old Hallow's Eve.

Sure, you may think jack-o'-lanterns have always been carved out of those plump, orange gourds. But, you'd be wrong. Smithsonian Magazine reported that turnips were the chosen vegetable to carve throughout the 19th and 20th centuries in Ireland and other Celtic nations. That's because this is where Halloween really began. As History.com explained, Samhain, a "pagan religious festival originating from an ancient Celtic spiritual tradition," inspired much of what is now modern-day Halloween. History.com added that Samhain "is usually celebrated from October 31 to November 1 to welcome in the harvest and usher in 'the dark half of the year.' Celebrants believe that the barriers between the physical world and the spirit world break down during Samhain, allowing more interaction between humans and denizens of the Otherworld."

As part of that thinning of the veil, people believed certain spirits could also make their way through, including Stingy Jack, who, Cydney Grannan for Encyclopedia Britannica, wrote, “tricked the devil for his own monetary gain." Stingy Jack, Grannan added, was banned from both heaven and hell and doomed to “roam the earth for eternity.”

However, as National Geographic added, the devil took pity on him and gave him a piece of coal for his turnip lantern to light his way as he roamed forever, which inspired the name "Jack-of-the-Lantern."

“It was also used as a cautionary tale, a morality tale, that Jack was a soul trapped between two worlds, and if you behaved like he did, you could end up like that, too,” Nathan Mannion, the head of exhibitions and programs at EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum, in Dublin, shared with National Geographic. So, to protect themselves from a visit from Stingy Jack, the living would carve faces into different produce items, usually turnips, placing candles or coal inside to light their path and always stay out of the darkness, and frighten Stingy Jack away for good.

“Metal lanterns were quite expensive, so people would hollow out root vegetables,” Mannion added. “Over time, people started to carve faces and designs to allow light to shine through the holes without extinguishing the ember.”

While the tradition of carving faces into food is still going strong, there is one more tradition we'd love to see come back: the Dumb Supper. History.com explained that with all those carved turnips, people also hosted "dumb supper," where they invited the souls of their ancestors in, allowing families to interact with those who had passed one more time. Adults would update their relatives over the meal, and the door and windows would remain open for both the living and the dead to come through, with cake left out all night for anyone who wanted a nibble in this life or the next.