ANCESTOR WORSHIP

An important special form of worship of the dead found in certain cultures. It is concerned with dead relatives, particularly blood relatives. Although ancestors of the larger kinship groups are also included, the cult involves especially the immediate members of the family to the third generation. Families and clansmen, through their veneration of ancestors, maintain solidarity and a sacred dignity. Although the cult of ancestors is, for the most part, characteristic of the primitive religions of the matriarchal agricultural peoples, and is connected especially with planting and harvesting, in general it is the patriarchal feature that is dominant in it.

Of the early higher cultures, the Chinese was the one in which ancestor worship attained its greatest development. It exercised influence on Japanese Shintoism, although in Japan, as in Peru, ancestor worship had its own root in the existing clan system. Among the Finns, a corner in the house was regarded sacred to ancestors. The pagan Scandinavians set out barley and beer on fixed days for their farmer ancestors. The "cult of the fathers," i.e., the worship of male forbears, was widely practised not only among the ancient Germans but also in Aryan India; in fact it is so well attested for other Indo-European peoples that it must go back to the age of primitive Indo-European unity. In Greece, the dead were believed to become incarnate in snakes, and if these creatures appeared in a house, they inspired a feeling of special awe.

H. spencer (1820–1903) held that manism was the primitive form of religion, but his theory has received no corroboration from investigations of even the lowest and simplest cultures. Mythical ancestors or more or less mythical forbears were given the status of heroes. However, historical members of families were not raised immediately to divine status by their people. On the other hand, it is known that even higher cosmic beings, like Amaterasu, the Japanese sun-goddess in the imperial palace, became ancestor divinities.

Images of ancestors were especially significant in ancestor worship. The ancestor tablets of the Chinese probably go back to such representations. In rites at the grave, these were marked with sacrificial blood by the son of the dead man. They had their place at the domestic altar, before which all significant family happenings were reported. The chief place of cult was the grave, but the temple dedicated to ancestors was important also. The priestly function in the ancestor cult was performed originally by the head of the house.

The Feast of All Souls, celebrated among the ancient Germans in the Yule Festival, the Feast of Lights held in July in the Far East, and the Urabon Feast of the Japanese are all connected with the reception and entertainment of the spirits of ancestors.

Bibliography: f. hampl et al., f. kÖnig, Religionswissenschaftliches Wörterbuch (Freiburg 1956) 25–30. w. crooke et al., j. hastings, ed., Encyclopedia of Religion & Ethics, 13 v. (Edinburgh 1908–27) 1:425–467. c. m. edsman, Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 7 v. (3d ed. Tübingen 1957–65) 6:959–961. j. haekel, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner, 10 v. (2d, new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 1:222–223. w. schmidt, The Origin and Growth of Religion, tr. h. j. rose (2d ed. London 1935) 61–72. w. otto, Die Manen (Berlin 1923). f. krause, Maske und Ahnenfigur: Ethnologische Studien (Leipzig 1931). h. findeisen, Das Tier als Gott: Dämon und Ahne (Stuttgart 1956). a. e. jensen, Myth and Cult among Primitive Peoples, tr. m. t. choldin and w. weissleder (Chicago 1963). f. herrmann, Symbolik in den Religionen der Naturvölker (Stuttgart 1961) 109–111.

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