Ancestor worship or ancestor veneration is among the world’s oldest religious practices. Ancestor worship is based on the belief that the deceased continue to have an active interest in the daily affairs of the living and that they may be able to influence what happens to the living. On a regular basis, deceased ancestors are honored with ceremonies so that they will continue to help the living. Briefly described below are just some of the many different forms of ancestor worship in Africa.
The foundational religion of many African groups seems to be ancestor worship. Writing about the Bantu peoples in 1932, British anthropologist Audrey Richards, in her classic ethnography Hunger and Work in a Savage Tribe, reports:
“To begin with, we see at once that the whole core of ancestor worship among these peoples is centered in the cult of the immediate family Gods. The ceremonies offered to the village or tribal deities grow out of the family rites and are, in a sense, a replica of them.”
With regard to the sacrifices made to the ancestors, Audrey Richards writes:
“The typical Bantu sacrifice consists in the offering of flour or beer to the ancestral spirts, or else the killing of an animal, and its division among the people according to fixed rules.”
Ancestor worship is a part of daily Bantu life. Audrey Richards writes:
“The ancestral cult takes it root and being, first of all in the ordinary occasions of family life.”
Sacrifices of food are thus made before eating, and even before cooking the meal. The sacrifice of an animal is done for special occasions, often to mark rites of passage such as birth, the naming of a child, marriage, initiation, and death. Audrey Richards reports:
“Offerings are also made at the sickness of one of the inmates of the household, or to ensure luck in the hunting-field—all events which affect the individual family group.”
In the home there are household shrines to the ancestors.
Marriage among the Bantu requires the cooperation of the ancestral spirits to recognize the validity of the marriage. According to Audrey Richards:
“Without the offerings of a sacrifice from the relatives of the bride to the spirits of the groom’s family, the marriage is in some cases incomplete.”
In many African societies, ancestral spirits behave just like humans and are able to feel human emotions, including anger and jealousy. William Haviland, in his textbook Cultural Anthropology, writes:
“They even may participate in family and lineage affairs, and seats will be provided for them, even though the spirits are invisible. If they are annoyed, they may send sickness or even death.”
One example of ancestor worship or veneration is found among the Swazi, an African agricultural chiefdom. The Swazi believe that following death the spirit or breath leaves the body. The ancestors continue to watch over their descendants and can punish them with sickness and misfortune if their behavior is bad. In her ethnography The Swazi: A South African Kingdom, Hilda Kuper writes:
“Ancestors have greater wisdom, foresight, and power than the rest of mankind, but no spirit of a deceased ever reaches complete deification or is regarded as omnipotent. Swazi ancestors are approached as practical beings; there is no conflict between the ethics of the ancestral cult and the mundane desires of life.”
Hilda Kuper also reports:
“Each family propitiates its own ancestors at the specific domestic events of birth, marriage, death, and the building and moving of huts; in addition, the royal ancestors periodically receive public recognition.”
The Tallensi of northern Ghana have beliefs and rituals which are centered around the ancestors. Among the Tallensi there appears to be a hierarchy of ancestors and of the shrines dedicated to them. The ancestors can be direct, identifiable lineal ancestors or they can be more generic ancestors, which may include nature spirits.
One of the features of the Tallensi ancestor cult is the Good Destiny shrines which are small household shrines formed with objects associated with specific events, such as success in hunting or doing well in farming. In his chapter in The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Ritual and Religion, Timothy Insoll explains:
“Among the Tallensi, destiny is negotiated via the so-called ‘good destiny’ ancestors who are ritually serviced and placated through regular sacrifice, offering, and libation at shrines. The shrines are agents for unique ritual relationships between individuals whose destiny they control and unique configurations of ancestors.”
The Bakongo are a matrilineal people whose traditional homelands are in the Congo region of Africa. As a matrilineal people, each person belongs to the clan of the mother and these matrilineal clans form the basis of the society. In his book The Heathens: Primitive Man and His Religion, Harvard anthropologist William Howells writes:
“And here is the point of religious importance: its members are knit almost as strongly, in their feelings, to the dead ancestors of the clan as they are to one another. It is all one clan, which marches through time like a parade, and the dead are simply those who have passed a point which the living are still approaching.”
Religion 101
Religion 101 is a series of essays about various aspects of religion in which the concept of religion is not confined to European concepts nor to religions which are based on a belief in gods. More from this series:
Religion 102: Agnosticism
Religion 102: Biblical Archaeology
Religion 101: The Meaning of Ghosts
Religion 101: Ancestor Worship in Ancient Europe and the Arctic
Religion 101: Some Findings from Biblical Archaeology
Religion 101: Ceremonial Human Sacrifice
Religion 101: Ghosts in Different Cultures
Religion 201: Reincarnation