The History of Pumpkin Carving

Around the beginning of October, we begin to see pumpkins being sold everywhere. Whether they’re ceramic jack-o-lanterns, foam ones for one to craft with, plastered on t-shirts or real ones—there’s no escaping them. During this festive time of year, real pumpkins are even sold in places where they aren’t native to the land and therefore are shipped in to be sold in stores to meet consumer demand. Pumpkins only symbolize the holiday that is Halloween, but also the fall time harvest season. Some folks prefer to carve funny or scary faces into them, and others often make pies out of the “guts” that can be found once the pumpkin has been cut into. But where did all of these ideas originate? Where did pumpkin carving come from? Who made the first jack-o-lantern? These are the questions that we’ll be answering in this article.

The Evolution of the Jack-o-Lantern

Creating jack-o-lanterns is a custom that’s actually been around since about 10,000 years ago. However, it was not merely a pumpkin that was being carved into. The first vegetable carving was actually created by the Maori people who are indigenous to the Polynesian people of New Zealand. Vegetable carving first began when they had a need for creating lanterns, and they did so by cutting into beets, turnips, overgrown potatoes, or other hardy vegetables; namely the gourd. Once a hole was carved into them and the vegetable was gutted, a candle would be placed into the hole and it would serve as a source of light to enable them to journey wherever they wished during the nighttime.

The Irish took to this over the course of a couple thousand years, and by the early 1800s, they, too, were carving into hardy vegetables. However, as is standard with most “borrowed” cultural practices, the Irish changed up the Maori’s vegetable carving ideas a little bit. They would cut into and remove the insides of the vegetables in the same way, but the difference was that they began carving scary faces into theirs in order to ward off demonic presences and bad energy. After the face was carved into the vegetable and deemed to be spooky enough, a candle was placed inside of it, the top was put back onto the vegetable, and the jack-o-lantern was sat outside of their front door for the duration of the night. This is also the time that the term “jack-o-lantern” was officially introduced. It was a phrase that meant “Will-o-the-wisp” which was a phrase used to describe late night traveler lanterns that are able to be seen from a distance.
However, pumpkins were something that simply did not grow at all in Ireland, so they, like the Maori, used whatever sturdy vegetables were at their disposal. This was something that was then added to Samhain-- or, the very first version of Halloween which was specific to Irish Gaelic culture.

Once more and more people of Ireland began immigrating into North America and England, they were incredibly pleased to find these enormous, round, orange vegetables to carve scary faces into rather than the small beets or turnips back home. At the time, it was extremely common to see these jack o lanterns outside of their homes during the fall harvest season. Europeans and other immigrants living alongside the Irish had already taken very well to Samhain and had since re-titled it with Halloween, and to them, carving faces into large pumpkins was just something else to be celebrated and included within their new holiday. It simply made sense. Everyone was already dressing up for Halloween in costumes anyhow, so it’s no surprise how carving scary faces into pumpkins and illuminating them took off as well as it did in North America and England. From there, pumpkin carving competitions on city-wide levels began to be held, the Legend of Sleepy Hollow was written, and even great and renowned poem in 19th century British Literature were being comprised about the tradition. It is believed that it was and still is such a beloved part of Halloween because children enjoyed partaking in the act so much. Many pamphlets and newspaper articles in the 19th century feature articles titled “Fun Halloween Ideas for Children” and “Halloween Sports & Customs”, and the like.

Pumpkin carving is still just as, if not more, celebrated today as it was when it first came to the western world. It’s beloved by people of all ages, and it shows no sign of going anywhere anytime soon. It’s a well rounded tradition that’s safe and fun for children, teenagers, adults, and even senior citizens, so it is truly no wonder at all that it took off the way that it did.