Early Oklahoma Halloween Customs.

In the earliest days the season was celebrated in husking parties, taffy pulls, and other harvest themed activities which allowed families on remote farms to get together socially.

 By the first decade of the 20th century, it was a firm part of the yearly calendar going by the name "Nutcracker Night" as often as "Hallowe'en" or " All Hallows Eve."  The annual night was apparently largely the realm of the ten to teen ages and was focused on community pranks: outhouses were tipped, gardens lifted, and piles of items stacked in the street.  Reports of buggies hoisted to barn roofs and missing garden furniture abound.  All out vandalism, malicious and destructive were few, although all out rowdiness and high jenks sometimes came close to crossing the line.  In this later aspect the night was acted out as more the old Roman Saturnalia where pranks and tricks were the focus.

As a result, most of the tragedies related to the night came from farmers or home-owners taking exception to the youthful high-jinks which might include the temporary theft of property, frightening of laying hens, and letting out livestock.   Stories from Oklahoma, Missouri, and elsewhere recount youth shot by homeowners putting a stop to such behavior in a very abrupt and serious manner.

The celebration attracted a segment of the community who were being forced to grow up and do adult work but who were still remembering the fun of just being a child.  There was no mid-way pause as is known in modern society; those teen years of gradual maturation, stretching out childhood and forestalling adulthood were unknown.  

No wonde,r if occasionally, the pull of the freedom of childhood and the autonomy of adulthood created a tension... Halloween was the perfect meeting place for both.

----From The Year Without - Almost - A Halloween, Marilyn A. Hudson.