Variations in Ancestor Worship Beliefs and Their Relation to Kinship

Abstract

Anthropologists have lumped a great variety of beliefs and practices together under the name "ancestor worship." They have paid little attention to the variation and its theoretical significance. Most studies of ancestor worship have only gone as far as the notion that there is some relationship between "ancestral cults" and social structure. This paper examines the full range of variation in attitudes and beliefs about the ancestral dead and proposes a 7-type classification of beliefs about them. Cross-cultural differences in ancestral beliefs are explained in terms of kinship content rather than kinship structure. The analysis begins with the proposition that ancestral beliefs and practices are a reflection and extension of kinship behavior among the living. Different types of belief systems are related to the dominance of different dyads in the kinship systems.