Ancestor worship
Ancestor worship and belief is an extension of a belief in and respect for elders. Followers of traditional African religion believe that ancestors maintain a spiritual connection with their living relatives.
In many African societies ancestral veneration is one of the central and basic traditional and even contemporary forms of cult. As is indicated by the title, this essay intends to expose briefly the main features of that type of veneration in black Africa, South of the Sahara.
Most ancestral spirits are generally good and kind. The only negative actions taken by ancestral spirits is to cause minor illnesses to warn people that they have gotten onto the wrong path. To please these unhappy ancestors, usually offerings of beer and meat are made.
Dynamism and vitalism, comprising an existential, concrete and affective way of approach. Reality is seen and judged especially from its dynamic aspects closely related to life. The farther a being is from these elements, the more unreal and valueless it is conceived to be. Hence the emphasis on fecundity and life, and the identification between being and power or vital force. Indeed, the ideal of the African culture is coexistence with and the strengthening of vital force or vital relationship in the world and universe. Above all forces is God, who gives existence and increase of power to all others. Next come the dead of the tribe who, thanks to their transition into the other world, are endowed with special powers. The living form a hierarchy according to their power. The different manners of being are distinguished by their mode and degree of participation in the Supreme Force (God) and in superior forces of other “spiritual” beings.
The craving for power, safety, protection and life is the driving force in the African religion. This craving originates not so much from logical reflection, but from a feeling of incapacity and an obstinate desire to overcome it. Many individual needs are believed to be satisfied by dynamism and spiritism. Amulets and talisman are vehicles of vital energy. This ethic is based on the belief that every act and custom which strikes at the vital force, or at the growth and hierarchy of man is bad. What is ontologically and morally and juridically just is that which maintains and increases the vital energy received from the life-Giver, the Creator of force and the Fount from which all forces flow and are under His control.
Force, soul, life and word are closely connected with one another. The word is the principle of life, vital force par excellence (hence the force of the name, ritual, word and myth). In a certain sense all is participation, because it is the same force which animates the whole universe; and it is normal that everything acts upon everything. Hence pan-vitalism or cosmo-biology characterises the African traditional worldview.
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