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. This feeling the the dead have an ongoing interest in the daily lives of their descendants may come from dreams in which dead ancestors appear. In many cultural traditions, deceased ancestors are regularly honored with ceremonies so that they will continue to help the living.
Africa is, of course, the birthplace of our species, Homo sapiens, and is the home of many very diverse cultural traditions including hunting and gathering groups, agricultural villages, and pastoral or herding groups which raise livestock. The foundational religion of many of these different African groups seems to be ancestor worship. In their book Cultures and Societies of Africa, Simon and Phoebe Ottenberg write:
“Ancestor worship is practiced in a great many African societies. The ancestors are seen as functioning members of the family, lineage, and clan; they are in a position of authority over the living and must be treated with honor and respect.”
Simon and Phoebe Ottenberg also report:
“The living honor their ancestors by offering them sacrifices and behaving in a way of which they will approve, and in turn are rewarded or punished according to how they have performed their duties.”
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.”
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.”
The Tonga are a Bantu-speaking matrilineal group. In her1954 essay reprinted in Cultures and Societies of Africa, Elizabeth Colson uses the Bantu word mizimu in referring to ancestral spirits (muzimu is the singular). She reports:
“Mizimu and living members of a kinship group are parts of a single whole, and the ties between them transcend the bounds of time and space.”
Among each Tonga, the mizimu are ancestors from the mother’s matrilineal lineage and from the father’s matrilineal lineage. It is important that the mizimu are remembered by the living. According to Elizabeth Colson:
“The mizimu are thought to be concerned that they should not be forgotten, and so they send sickness and other misfortunes to the living as a reminder that beer and other offerings must be provided. They are anxious that the living should maintain the customs that they practiced when they were alive, and therefore they punish departures from custom. In return they offer to the living some protection against other spirits and against sorcery.”
All Tonga adults make regular offerings to the mizimu. For example, when moving from one dwelling to another, offerings are made before leaving the old dwelling and soon after entering the new one. Offerings are made when there is any change in material status, such as obtaining a new plow, building a cattle kraal, etc. These offerings are concerned with a single household.
Soon after birth, each Tonga receives names from the maternal and paternal matrilineal lineages. Elizabeth Colson writes:
“…each person received his initial position within society as a member of his own matrilineal group and as a child of his father’s matrilineal group. The two groups indicate their acceptance of responsibility of him by giving him a name which is associated with a guardian muzimu.”
The guardian mizimu act as special guardians throughout life and from these guardian mizimu people derive their personality. Concerning the guardian mizimu, Elizabeth Colson reports:
“They can be regarded as symbolic representations of the overwhelming importance of the paternal and maternal matrilineal groups in determining the original social status of any individual, and of their responsibility for his wellbeing throughout life.”
With regard to personality, Elizabeth Colson writes: “The two guardian mizimu, one from each side, are of equal importance, and both are thought to determine his personality.”
At death, some people may become mizimu. Elizabeth Colson writes:
“The new muzimu is a creation of the living, and not an automatic emanation of the dead man. The Tonga believe that the matrilineal group has the right to decide whether or not a dead man’s own muzimu shall come into existence.”
Another 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.”
The Nyakyusa are an African village people. In his 1936 report, reprinted in Cultures and Societies of Africa, Godfrey Wilson writes
“The religion of the Nyakyusa falls clearly into three parts: i. the cult of dead relatives (ancestor-cult); ii. the belief in witchcraft; iii. the use of ‘medicines’ (magic).”
Dreams are an important part of the Nyakyusa ancestor cult. Godfrey Wilson reports:
“The mental basis of the worship of dead relatives (avayoka) and of the belief in their moral power consists of dreams (enjosi). Dreams of dead kinsmen are common, and they are feared.”
The Nyakyusa funeral rituals are intended to drive away the soul of the dead person. The people ask the soul:
“Do not long for our company, do not come to us in dreams.”
Religion 101
Religion 101 is a series of essays on various religious topics in which the concept of religion is not restricted to the Abrahamic religions nor to religions based on deity-worship. More from this series:
Religion 101: Sacred Fire
Religion 101: The European witch craze
Religion 101: Religious Prophets
Religion 101: Ceremonial Human Sacrifice
Religion 101: Theism, Pantheism, Panentheism
Religion 101: Confucianism
Religion 101: Shamanistic Ceremonies
Religion 101: Atheism
Religion 102 is an expansion of an earlier essay.