Halloween Guising
By the 1800s, the Irish Potato Famine brought thousands of Irish refugees to the United States. They carried the Halloween traditions with them. These blended with the earlier colonial traditions. Halloween had evolved into a secular celebration, with treat-filed parties, hand-made costumes, fortune telling, and pranks galore. Costumed adults or children would go door-to-door, asking for coins. In return for the coins, they would perform a dance, skit, or sing a song, continuing the mumming tradition from England and Ireland.
In the new United States, this practice of guising was a popular Halloween tradition as children dressed up in costumes and masks. They would visit neighbors, singing songs or reciting verses to earn treats. Halloween was also called “Beggar’s Night” due to these roving performers demanding coins or treats. But Halloween was descending more into a prank night than what we would recognize as “trick or treat.”
