The Origins of Easter Baskets
Once upon a time Easter and all of its traditions did not exist. There was no Easter bunny, no Easter basket nor Easter eggs. There were, however, the roots of Easter and all its customs. Like many modern-day holidays, Easter has its roots in a number of cultures including ancient pagan ones and Judeo-Christian ones from the Middle East.
The Easter celebrations began long before Christ’s birth. Spring was a very important time of year as it marked the end of the dark cold winters and the beginning of the growing season. Pagan cultures celebrated the Spring Equinox and held festivals to observe the coming of spring, new life, and fertility. The spring festivals were held to worship each cultures individual fertility and spring goddesses, such as Ashtoreth from ancient Israel, Astarte from ancient Greece, Ishtar from Assyria, Ostara a Norse goddess of fertility, and Eostre the goddess of fertility in Northern European cultures. Many of these ancient cultures, especially the Middle Eastern ones, customarily carried early seedlings in baskets to the temple of their spring goddess. They believed with these offerings they increased their chances of a good harvest.
Fast-forward a bit to the eight century. The Christian philosopher Bede (679-735) wrote about the Anglo-Saxon goddess, Eostre. She was believed to be a spring or dawn goddess whose festival was held in Eostremonath, the equivalent of modern-day April. Eostre represented the rebirth of life and nature after a harsh winter. The hare was thought to be her earthly equivalent as rabbits are very fertile and reproduce often, and she was often depicted carrying a basket full of eggs.
The original festivals to Eostre likely took place long before Christ’s birth. When Christianity began to spread across Europe, many of the local pagan customs were adopted by the church to ease the transition to Christianity for the pagan people, and the name Easter, derived from Eostre, was given to the holiday. Easter baskets took hold, becoming a symbol of the Christian Easter feast that breaks the Lenten fast. It became customary for families to bring their large Easter meals to church in baskets on Easter morning. The clergy would bless the meals.
As Eostre was a Germanic goddess, her customs continued in the northern and central European Germanic countries. One such tradition was that of the Easter hare leaving Easter baskets with eggs, sweets and treats on the doorsteps of children. German settlers brought these traditions to North America in the 18th century though at the time children often left their bonnets or caps filled with straw on their doorsteps. They would wake in the morning to find them filled with colored hard-boiled eggs. Wealthier families found eggs covered in gold leaf, whereas peasant families had eggs that were colored brightly by boiling them with leaves or petals of certain flowers.
Today these traditions continue on Easter. The Easter hare who brought baskets full of eggs to German children has become the Easter Bunny who brings baskets full of candy and gifts to American children. An estimated 90% of American children are “visited” by the Easter Bunny every year, bringing them baskets full of chocolate eggs, chocolate bunnies, and plastic eggs filled with jelly beans and other treats. A survey of the National Confectioners Association found that chocolate bunnies are the most popular Easter basket treat with nearly 90 million sold every year and a staggering 16 billion jelly beans are also sold. Though the Easter basket originated in the pagan customs of spring, fertility festivals and good harvests, children now enjoy the fruits of those customs and bring their infectious joy to the renewal of spring and the coming of summer.
References:
“Eostre”:http://www.englishheathenism.homestead.com/eostre.html
“Easter Baskets”:http://www.wyrdology.com/festivals/easter/basket.html
“The History & Evolution of the Easter Basket”:http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+History+and+Evolution+of+the+Easter+Basket-a01073941085
“The Traditions of Easter”:http://wilstar.com/holidays/easter.htm
