Cultural Roots, Appropriation & Respect

Where these holidays come from—and how not to trample anyone on your way to the cauldron. 🌍🔥

The Wheel of the Year feels so widespread now that it can seem like:

“These are The Eight Official Witch Holidays ™ and all witches everywhere have always done this.”

Reality check:

  • The modern Wheel of the Year is mostly a 20th-century creation, shaped by:
    • British/European pagan revival movements
    • Wicca in particular
    • loosely woven together from older Celtic, Germanic, and folk-Christian customs

It’s beautiful and powerful—but it’s not universal, timeless, or culturally neutral.

This page is here to help you:

  • understand where the Wheel came from
  • tell the difference between shared practices and closed traditions
  • avoid cultural appropriation in your Sabbat work
  • root your magic in respect, consent, and sovereignty—for you and for others

You don’t have to be perfect. You do have to care.

1. Where the Modern Wheel Comes From (In Plain Language)

Most of what people call the “Wheel of the Year” today:

  • solidified in mid-1900s Britain,
  • through the work of folks like Gerald Gardner & other early Wiccans,
  • drawing on:
    • fragments of ancient Celtic/Gaelic festivals (Samhain, Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasadh)
    • Norse/Germanic solstice and harvest customs
    • medieval & folk-Christian celebrations
    • Victorian and romanticized “pagan” imagery

Then:

  • it was picked up by later witches, authors, and covens
  • spread through books, forums, Tumblr, TikTok
  • and became “The Standard Eight” many of us meet when we start witchcraft

So when you work with this Wheel, you’re engaging with:

A modern neo-pagan framework with heavily Western European roots—

not a global, one-size-fits-all witch calendar.

That’s not a bad thing. It just means we’re honest about what it is.

2. What Is Not Generic “Witchcraft”

Some holidays and rituals many witches see online are specific to particular cultures or religions, even if they look witchy or aesthetic. Examples include (but aren’t limited to):

  • Día de los Muertos / Day of the Dead – a sacred Mexican/Latine tradition with deep Catholic + Indigenous roots
  • Samhain in Irish tradition – not quite the same as modern “Halloween witch night,” with specific cultural and mythic context
  • Indigenous ceremonies and seasonal rites tied to specific Nations and lands
  • Practices like:
    • the Lakota inípi / sweat lodge
    • specific First Nations smudge ceremonies
    • rituals belonging to ATRs (African Traditional Religions) like Vodou, Lukumi, Ifá, etc.
    • elements of Hoodoo, Candomblé, Umbanda, Brujería, and other lineaged systems

These are not just “cool witch ideas” to copy-paste into your Samhain or Mabon.

You can:

  • honor that they exist
  • learn about them respectfully
  • avoid lifting them as “aesthetic Sabbat content”

3. Open vs Closed Traditions (Quick Guide)

This is a simplified framework, but useful:

🌿 Open Practices

These are practices that:

  • come from cultures or systems that share them widely,
  • are not restricted to initiates or specific communities,
  • and are often part of general folk magic or widely spread customs.

Examples (with nuance):

  • Much European folk magic (kitchen witchery, knot magic, candle magic, charms)
  • General seasonal decorating and feasting
  • Many forms of cartomancy (tarot, playing cards)
  • Basic herbal lore that’s common knowledge in your region

You still want to be respectful, credit sources, and avoid claiming you invented things—but these are more “shared tools.”

🔒 Closed Practices

These are practices that:

  • belong to specific cultures, religions, or initiated groups
  • may require:
    • initiation
    • community permission
    • specific ancestry
    • or years of training
  • are not meant to be cherry-picked for aesthetics

Examples:

  • Many Indigenous ceremonies (smudging as ceremony, specific dances, rites)
  • Rituals from ATRs like Lukumi, Vodou, Ifá unless you’re initiated
  • Some lineaged witchcraft traditions with oathbound material
  • Certain fae/land spirit practices tied to a specific place & lore

Using these without permission or context moves into appropriation, even if your intentions are good.

⚖️ Appropriation vs Appreciation (Witchful Style)

Appropriation (harmful) tends to look like:

  • Taking sacred symbols/rituals from a marginalized culture
  • Removing them from context and using them for aesthetics or clout
  • Claiming them as “universal witchcraft” or “my idea”
  • Ignoring or erasing the people who live that tradition

Appreciation (healthier) looks like:

  • Learning the history and meaning of a practice
  • Naming your sources
  • Knowing when something is not yours to do
  • Supporting creators, elders, and communities from that culture
  • Finding ways to honor the spirit of a practice without copying the closed form

4. Common Hot Spots Around the Wheel

Here are a few places appropriation issues often show up in Sabbat content:

🕯 Samhain & Ancestor Festivals

  • Blending Samhain with Día de los Muertos as if they’re the same
  • Using sugar skull imagery and altar styles from Mexican traditions without understanding or credit
  • Copying very specific ancestor veneration forms from cultures you don’t belong to

Witchful alternative:

  • Learn about those festivals respectfully.
  • Build your own ancestor altar using your heritage & values, not someone else’s sacred symbols.
  • If you love the idea of bright color + joy with the dead, create your own version and name it as such.

❄️ Yule & Other Winter Holidays

  • Treating Christmas, Hanukkah, Yule, etc., as interchangeable “winter witch feasts”
  • Using sacred items from other religions (e.g., menorah) as generic witch decor

Witchful alternative:

  • Work with what’s true for you:
    • If you celebrate Christmas, you can absolutely layer witchcraft under it.
    • If you don’t, you can make your own Yule from scratch.
  • Respect that other people’s winter holy days are their living religions, not witch props.

🔥 “Smudging” at Every Sabbat

  • Using the word “smudging” for any smoke cleansing
  • Specifically using white sage and Palo Santo because they’re trendy, without knowing:
    • they’re sacred to specific cultures
    • they’ve been overharvested in some regions
    • many Indigenous people have asked non-Natives not to treat smudging as an aesthetic

Witchful alternative:

  • Say “smoke cleansing” or “fumigation” instead, unless you are part of a specific tradition that calls it smudging.
  • Use local, sustainable herbs: rosemary, lavender, garden sage, juniper, pine, etc.
  • Or skip smoke entirely and use:
    • water, sound, broom, salt, breath, intention

5. Building Sabbat Traditions From Your Roots

Cultural respect doesn’t mean you have to be rootless. You can:

🌳 Explore Your Own Ancestry (If It Feels Safe)

  • Look into cultures/regions your family comes from
  • Research:
    • seasonal festivals
    • folk customs
    • foodways
    • weather patterns
  • Adapt them with respect:
    • “Inspired by,” with clear credit
    • blended with your lived reality now

If ancestry is painful, unknown, or complicated, you can lean on:

🏡 The Culture of Your Life Now

  • The land and city you actually live in
  • Community rituals you already do:
    • Sunday dinners
    • Pride parades
    • Mutual aid work
    • Online gatherings
  • Make new traditions:
    • “Every Mabon I donate to a food bank.”
    • “Every Imbolc I clean my altar & refresh my boundaries.”

Your living culture matters too.

6. Questions to Ask Before You Use a Practice

When you’re unsure about incorporating something into a Sabbat, ask:

  1. Where does this come from? – Can I name the culture, religion, or tradition?
  2. Is this practice widely open, or does it belong to a specific community/lineage?
  3. How did I learn it? – A random aesthetic Pinterest pin, or an actual teacher/book/context?
  4. Am I erasing the original people by calling this “just witchcraft”?
  5. Could this be harmful if I do it without training/permission? – Spiritually, culturally, politically?
  6. Is there another way to honor the same energy without copying this exact form? – Different symbols, different tools, same intention.

If you can’t answer most of these, it’s a good sign to pause, research more, or choose something else.

7. Practical Do & Don’t List (Sabbat Edition)

✅ You Can:

  • Say things like: “This Imbolc ritual is inspired by Irish Brigid traditions, but adapted to my context.”
  • Use smoke cleansing with local herbs instead of calling everything smudging.
  • Make your own ancestor rituals based on your values and experiences.
  • Celebrate the Wheel while honoring that it’s a modern, mostly Euro-pagan framework.
  • Learn from creators and elders of other traditions, credit them, and support them.

❌ Better Not To:

  • Present closed practices as “universal witchcraft” or your original idea.
  • Throw sacred symbols from living religions into Sabbat decor for vibes.
  • Mix unrelated cultural rituals into Sabbats without context or consent.
  • Argue with marginalized people telling you something is harmful.
  • Assume “if it’s on Pinterest, it’s free to use.”

8. Journal Prompts: Your Witchful Ethics Around Culture

In your grimoire, create a page titled:

“Cultural Roots & Respect – My Commitments”

Reflect on:

  1. What cultures or traditions have most influenced my idea of the Wheel of the Year? (Books, teachers, media, ancestry, friends?)
  2. Have I ever used a ritual/symbol because it looked witchy, without knowing where it came from? How do I feel about that now?
  3. What parts of my own heritage or current culture could I weave into Sabbats more consciously?
  4. How can I honor the land I’m on and its original peoples in my seasonal practice? (Land acknowledgement, donations, learning, activism?)
  5. What standard do I want for myself when I meet a new practice online? (e.g., “I will research it before I copy it,” “I will avoid closed practices,” etc.)

Then write a small, clear statement, like:

“My Wheel of the Year practice honors its modern, mostly European pagan roots,

respects closed traditions and living cultures,

and stays in alignment with my values of consent, sovereignty, and harm reduction.”

You can update this as you learn.

You are not expected to instantly know what’s closed, what’s open, and what’s complicated.

You are responsible for being willing to learn, listen, adjust, and sometimes say:

“I didn’t know. I’m going to do better now.”

That willingness—to research, to adapt, to respect—that’s part of being a modern witch, and very much part of healing. 🌍🕯️✨