Why do people carve pumpkins on Halloween?

Pumpkin carving has been around for a long time. It started with the Irish, who would do so during Halloween. However, they did not start out carving pumpkins. Instead, they would carve turnips. This is because Ireland did not have pumpkins readily available, so they used turnips, which is what they had.

The idea was that if they carved pumpkins, they would cast out evil spirits in their homes. As far as why pumpkins are carved now, one reason is that, in the United States, they are everywhere, especially during fall time. Stores have them on display, and there are pumpkin patches all over. Along with that, pumpkins are bigger, making it easier to carve.

The tradition that is imbibed whereby faces are carved into fruits and vegetables can be traced back to the Celts. Hundreds of years ago, the Celtic people built large bonfires in their fields, believing that light would guide them to and from the bonfires because the shadows of the bonfire have evil spirits lurked in them. So as to be able to place a candle in the vegetable, they would hollow out the inner part of it, and carved face on the turnip.

They believed the light shining through the carved face would provide illumination for their paths home and would also scare the evil spirits away. The Irish referred to these carved vegetables as Jack O'Lanterns. In the year 1584, a French explorer named Jacques Cartier traveled down to North America, where he said to have found "gros melons" around St. Lawrence region. This "gros melons" is what English refers to as pumpkins. However, they claimed pumpkins to be the best fruit for carving, and it's still in practice up to this day.

The Irish started the tradition of carving pumpkins during Halloween. The thing is, the carving was not done on pumpkins first. They were done in Turnips. There were no pumpkins that were available in Ireland, and turnips were what they used. They believe that by doing this, evil spirits will not go near houses.

This explains why this is still being done in other influenced places right now. In the USA, people carve pumpkins because pumpkins are readily available, especially during the fall season. They are also very big, so they will be easier to carve. They usually put a candle inside in order to make the pumpkins appear scary. As usual, this is done to cast off evil spirits during Halloween.