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 from South Asia and Southeast Asia.
South AsiaThe Magars are a tribe or ethnic group in Nepal. Their economy is based on a mixture of stock-raising and growing crops in fertilized fields. They consider themselves to be Hindus. Ancestors are an important part of their social organization. In his ethnography The Magars of Banyan Hill, John Hitchcock writes:
“A person who has died does not cease being a member of the family. He continues to be aware of his descendants and can affect them. His descendants, in turn, continue to be aware of him and realize that what they do controls, at least partially, the way he treats them.”
Among the Magars there are two kinds of ancestors: the bai who are godlings who wander the earth and are fond of sacrificial blood, and the pitri who are in heaven. The pitri do not like sacrificial blood. A deceased ancestor can become a bai if they did not perform the religious-sanctioned good deeds during the course of their life. In addition, a deceased ancestor can become a bai if their body was touched by a polluting animal such as a dog, chicken, or crow. The bai never trouble people who are not their descendants. The bai are worshipped once a year and shrines for the bai are usually found near large stones in open fields.
While the bai are only capable of doing evil, the pitri can do both good and evil. In some cases, the pitri are worshipped under the guidance of a Brahman with an ancient Hindu ceremony. Food offerings of cooked rice mixed with cow’s milk, curd, butter, honey, boiled sugar cane, barley, and sesame are placed at a spring. John Hitchcock writes:
“Any spring is regarded as holy and therefore a fit place in which to leave such an oblation.”
Southeast AsiaIn the Buddhist/Animist culture of the Pwo Karen in Myanmar, ancestor worship is seen in the form of lineage spirts. James Hamilton, in his ethnography Pwo Karen: At the Edge of Mountain and Plain, writes:
“There are also lineage ancestral spirits which must be propitiated by the lineage head when there is serious illness which is not cured by other means.”
In Thai villages there is a complex set of beliefs regarding the fate of the soul (winjaan) following death. In addition to a concept of heaven and hell, the villagers also believe in ancestral spirits. James Stanlaw and Bencha Yoddumnern, in their chapter in Directions in Cognitive Anthropology, explain:
“Sometimes when respected parents or grandparents die, they become ancestor spirits, a group of phĭi that offers protection to their survivors. The belief in these phĭi allows for continued interaction with the deceased. Ancestor phĭi are venerated, unlike most ghosts who are feared, yet these ancestor phĭi may take revenge for failure to treat them properly.”
The archaeological record in Southeast Asia, particularly the evidence from Bronze Age cemeteries at Ban Non Wat, shows that ancestor worship has a long history in the area. In some graves, bodies had been partially exhumed, bones removed, and then replaced in a neat stack between the skull and the feet. In answering the question about the meaning of this, Charles Higham, in his chapter in The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Ritual and Religion, writes:
“One answer is that these were revered ancestors for ensuing generations, and their bones were exhumed as ritual acts, perhaps in an ancestral ceremonial cult.”
Religion 101Religion 101 is a series exploring various topics about religion in which the concept of religion is not confined to religions centered on beliefs in deities. More from this series:
Religion 101: Ancestor Worship in Africa
Religion 101: Some Findings from Biblical Archaeology
Religion 101: Ghosts in Different Cultures
Religion 101: Ceremonial Human Sacrifice
Religion 101: God-Given Morality
Religion 101: Theism, Pantheism, Panentheism