Ancient Traditions of Easter

Easter is not only a holiday but a season unto itself. To many religious people, it marks a time of miracles and a reaffirming of faith. To those with a secular view, it is a celebration of the end of winter, a time to look toward the warmth of the coming summer and a chance to shed the heavy, dour clothing of the winter for the bright colors of spring.

Origin and Traditions

Long before Easter became the holiday it is today, the spring festival was celebrated by people around the world. Although associated with the sun and Vernal Equinox, the celebration was originally based on the lunar calendar. The name Easter is derived from the Saxon Eostre (which is synonymous with the name of the Phoenician Goddess of the Moon, Astarte), a Germanic goddess of spring and the deity who measured time. Curiously, a Jewish festival, Purim, also celebrated in the spring, has as it central character and heroine, Esther who, as queen, kept the evil Haman from killing her people. Even the very word moon derives from the Sanskrit "mas" or "ma", meaning “to measure.” Many scholars have suggested that the reason the moon was chosen by the ancients as the way to measure time was the link between the female cycle and the cycle of the moon. A lunar month of 28 days gave 13 periods in 364 days, which was the solar equivalent of 52 weeks. The ancient Hebrews had long followed a lunar calendar, as had most other ancient cultures. Thus humans could match their natural lives with the nature of the night sky. As Christianity grew and spread throughout the world, it was common practice to adopt, modify, convert or take over existing non-Christian festivals, sacred locations and even names, and then assimilate them into the Christian theology. 

Because Eostre, also know as Ostara, was the goddess of spring and her symbolism dealt with renewal and rebirth, the Christian belief in the resurrection of Christ fit well with these themes. The connection between Christ’s Resurrection and Jewish Passover, which, in addition to the dramatic story of the flight from Egypt, also contains elements of a spring celebration, made the merging of the two religious traditions easily accomplished. 

The Advent of The Easter Bunny

The first documented use of the bunny as a symbol of Easter appears in Germany in the 1500s; although the actual matching of the holiday and the hare was probably a much earlier folk tradition. Not surprisingly, it was also the Germans who made the first edible Easter Bunnies. The Pennsylvania Dutch brought the beneficent Easter Bunny to the United States in the 1700s. Children eagerly awaited the arrival of Oschter Haws and his gifts with a joy second only to that brought about by the winter visit of Kris Kringle.

Rabbits Revered Around The World

Many Asian and Eurasian cultures revere the rabbit (or hare) as a sacred messenger of the Divine; to the Chinese, he is a creature in the moon, pounding rice (the staff of life) To followers of Buddhism the rabbit was placed in the moon as a result of his self-sacrifice in offering himself as food. In a second version, the rabbit cooks himself in Indra’s fire since he had no food to offer her and the deity placed him in the moon as a reward. To the Egyptians, the hare (as opposed to the rabbit) was known as “un”, which meant “to open,” or “the opener.” This was because the hare, unlike his cotton-tailed cousin, is born with his eyes open. “Un” also meant “period” as it was a symbol for both lunar and human cycles.

These traditions undoubtedly spread to the indigenous tribes of Western Europe much as the Indo-European language base developed through encounters between these two groups. This also blended well with Celtic tradition, which viewed the hare as a symbol of fertility and new life, and the Germanic tradition that the hare brought new life each spring.

To the Native American peoples, the rabbit/hare was the Trickster/Transformer who either plays the Fool or, in other instances, has brought about a benefit for humankind (i.e., the legend of Rabbit bringing fire to the people). The ancient Mayan culture gives Rabbit credit for inventing Mayan writing. Just as the ancient sacred places and names were blended into the holiday celebration we know as Easter, so too was the Rabbit/Hare molded from an ancient bringer of new life and renewal to the Easter Bunny, a symbol of a holiday celebrating a resurrection. In truth, the Rabbit stays the same: a messenger of a season when all things are possible and all things can again be new.  

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