Halloween Colours

The main colours (or "colors" in the US) of Halloween are without doubt black and orange. Use of these colours seems to go back quite some way. But why? Why are Haloween's colours orange and black?

Black

The use of black is easy to explain. Black has always been associated with the night and the occult. Darkness used to be a scary time - and in some places it still is. The dead walk the earth on Halloween and they like the dark.

Black also represents the darkness of winter, the sun retreating from the world until spring and the Beltane fires of May.

Orange

Orange is more difficult to equate with Halloween. I've heard three possible explanations:

Some people associate orange with the colour of the pumpkin and the Jack o'Lantern. That would make sense so long as we assume that the use of orange for Halloween is relatively recent. The Jack o'Lantern originated in Ireland and was initially carved from a potato or turnip. It only became a pumpkin after the custom travelled to modern America with Irish immigrants.

A second possibility is that orange represented the Halloween fires - or more precisely the dying embers of those fires. As the fires died away the summer turned into winter. Eventually even the glowing orange embers would go out and the people would shiver in fear.

The third symbolic interpretation of orange is with the autumn (fall). Many of the leaves would be turning orange at this time, so the use of orange would fit in nicely with the pagan origins of Halloween and its associated links with nature. This is the theory I personally prefer.

Site Information