Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Tuesday's Folklore Photo: Pumpkins!

[799. Family] Boys Holding Pumpkin
circa 1920-1950
Courtesy of: United Church Archives - H.M. Dawe Photograph Collection

To celebrate the first day of October I focused on pumpkins for this Tuesday's folklore photo. At first I wanted to share an archival image of Newfoundlanders celebrating Halloween, but it seems these are few and far between. When I searched "pumpkins" on Memorial University's Digital Archive and came across these cute little guys, I couldn't resist sharing. These boys are absolutely beside themselves with excitement over this pumpkin!




Interestingly, it was once tradition in Newfoundland to carve turnips for Halloween rather than pumpkins. This is said to be a carry over from Celtic tradition. Pumpkins carved as jack-o-lanterns would not have been part of traditional Halloween festivals in Celtic Europe, since pumpkins are New World plants, but large turnips were hollowed out, carved with faces and placed in windows to ward off evil spirits.


If you happen to be growing your own pumpkins, you may find this advice from Ross Traverse helpful. This was originally published in Decks Awash, 1987.

Courtesy of:  Decks Awash, Vol. 16, no.01 (Jan-Feb 1897)

If you have an archival images of Newfoundlander's celebrating Halloween, please email Nicole at nicole@heritagefoundation.ca. We'd love to share them on the blog at the end of the month! :)

2 comments:

Janice DuBois said...

These boys are my twin cousins Gerald and Howard Loveridge of Twillingate. This would have been taken around 1945 in Twillingate. Their father was John( Jack ) Loveridge, a well known and respected businessman and amateur photographer in Twillingate.
Thanks for sharing
Janice DuBois

Nicole Penney said...

Thank you so much for sharing Janice.
I suspected they might be twins, absolutely adorable!
Is there a story about this pumpkin?