ANCESTOR cults and ancestor worship loom large in the anthropological image ofsub-Saharan Africa and few would disagree with Fortes that 'comparativelyviewed, African ancestor worship has a remarkably uniform structuralframework' (Fortes, 1965: 122). The general pattern may be quickly summarized.Ancestors are vested with mystical powers and authority. They retain afunctional role in the world of the living, specifically in the life of theirliving kinsmen; indeed, African kin-groups are often described as communitiesof both the living and the dead. The relation of the ancestors to their livingkinsmen has been described as ambivalent, as both punitive and benevolent andsometimes even as capricious. In general, ancestral benevolence is assuredthrough propitiation and sacrifice; neglect is believed to bring aboutpunishment. Ancestors are intimately involved with the welfare of theirkin-group but they are not linked in the same way to every member of thatgroup. The linkage is structured through the elders of the kin-group, and theelders' authority is related to their close link to the ancestors. In somesense the elders are the representatives of the ancestors and the mediatorsbetween them and the kin-group.

Fortes has extended our theoretical understanding of African ancestor worshipmore recently by further clarifying some of its structural features (1965).Amplifying Gluckman's (1937) distinction between ancestor cults and the cultsof the dead, Fortes brings out the importance of the 'structural matrix of[African] ancestor worship', noting inter alia the relative lack ofelaboration and indeed interest among the Africans in the cosmography of theafterworld in which the ancestors reside. The African emphasis is clearly noton how the dead live but on the manner in which they affect the living.Different ancestors are recognized as relevant to different structural contexts(as, for example, in groups of different genealogical levels); not all but onlycertain dead with particular structural positions are worshipped as ancestors;and the behaviour of ancestors reflects not their individual personalities butrather a particular legal status in the political-jural domain.

In this paper I shall describe some activities and relationships among theSuku of south-western Congo (Kinshasa). It will be apparent that thedescription conforms to the generalized pattern of African ancestor cults andis congruent with Fortes's analysis. But, I shall show that there aredifficulties in characterizing the Suku complex as an 'ancestor cult' and shallbring in additional data on Suku lineage structure. I shall then contend thatFortes's analysis, while pointing in the right direction, does not go farenough because it does not take the final step of shedding the ethnoecentricconnotations of the very term 'ancestor' - connotations that have a bearing ontheory. I shall also try to show that by viewing what have been called Africanancestor cults as part of the eldeship complex, we can account more simply formany of

Fortes's generalizations and at the same time make redundant some of theproblems he raises.

The fundamental social and jural group among the Suku is the corporatematrilineage, generally consisting of some thirty-five to forty persons.Married couples live virilocally, and males live patrilocally at least untiltheir father's death and often beyond. The membership of a matrilineage isdispersed over several villages but within an area that is not too large topreclude easy communication, consultations, and joint action in importantmatters. The matrilineage is a corporate unit in economic, political, juraland religious respects. Each matrilineage is centre in a particular villagewhich bears its name and is its administrative and ritual head-quarters,containing the formal lineage head (the oldest male member) and, usually,several other older members (Kopytoff, 1964, 1965).

The dead members of the lineage, as a collectivity, are appealed to in timesof crisis (such as a serious sickness or a series of misfortune) and, moreregularly, on such occasions as the marriages of women of the lineage, thebreaking of sexual taboos affecting these women, the coming-out ceremony forinfants, and yearly, before the large communal hunts of the dry season. Thegeneral pattern is as follows: the head of the lineage and two or three oldermen of his generation go at night to the grave - any grave - of a deceasedmember of the lineage who was older than any of them. The Suku have no specialburying places and graves are dug at random in the bush outside the lineagecentre or near crossroads; the graves are not maintained and they eventuallyreturn to bush, so that the site of a particular grave is usually forgotten intime. The location of recent graves is of course remembered, and the lineagehead and the older men usually go to the grave of the last deceased man who wasolder than they. The other appropriate place to address the dead is at thecrossing of paths.

At the grave or at the cross-roads, the old men 'feed' the dead certain foodsconsidered to be their favourite: particular kinds of forest mushroom and wildroots, palm wine, and sometimes even manioc, the Suku staple. A small hole isdug in the ground and the food is put into it. Communication with the deadtakes the form of a conversational monologue, patterned but not stereotyped,and devoid of repetitive formulae. One speaks the way one speaks to livingpeople: 'You, [such and such], your junior is ill. We do not know why, we donot know who is responsible. If it is you, if you are angry, we ask forforgiveness. If we have done wrong, pardon us. Do not let him die. Otherlineages are prospering and our people are dying. Why are you doing this? Whydo you not look after us properly?' The words typically combine complaints,scolding, sometimes even anger, and at the same time appeals forforgiveness.

At the coming-out ceremonies for infants and at marriages, the dead members ofthe lineage are informed of the event; pleas are made for their approval andtheir efforts in insuring the success of the newborn or of the marriage and thechildren that will be born to it. Before the large communal hunts of the dryseason, the dead members are asked to extend good luck to the enterprise. Theyare told that the people are hungry for meat, they are reprimanded for notgranting enough meat, and they are shamed that their own people should beeating less well than other lineages.

Finally, dead members of the lineage are always referred to publicly by theliving elders on all ceremonial occasions involving the lineage as a unit.

These activities clearly fit the general pattern of African 'ancestor cults'.The ancestors are seen as retaining their role in the affairs of theirkin-group and only of their kin-group. They are propriated with 'sacrifices'.They are seen as dispensing both favours and misfortune; they are often accusedof being capricious and of failing in their responsibilities, but, at the sametime, their actions are related to possible lapses on the part of the livingand are seen as legitimately punitive. The features of the 'cult' emphasizethe nature of the social relationship while details of the life of ancestors inthe other world are de-emphasized and are, indeed, of little interest to theSuku. It is primarily the jural context that dominates the relationship withthe ancestors and not the personal characteristics they may have had when theywere alive.

There is, however, one immediate problem that arises in calling this an'ancestor cult': the Suku have no term that can be translated as 'ancestor'.These dead members of the lineage are referred to as bambuta.Literally, bambuta means the 'big ones', the 'old ones', those who haveattained maturity, those older than oneself; collectively, the term refers tothe ruling elders of a lineage. A mbuta (singular) is literally anyonewho is older than ego. The meaning is comparative. Eldership is not anabsolute state of being old; being a mbuta is always relative to someonewho is younger. Within the lineage, a mbuta is any older adult, oldersiblings as well as those of the generations above. My bambutacollectively are all the members of the lineage who are older than I, whetherthey are alive or dead. In jural contexts, where authority is vestedoverwhelmingly in the males, the term is effectively narrowed to all my maleseniors. The lineage is thus divided into two named groups: those above me whoare my bambuta, and those below me - my baleke- to whom I am anelder. By contrast, no semantic distinction is made within the lineage betweenthose who are alive and those who are dead.

An elder - any elder - represents to a junior the entire legal and mysticalauthority of the lineage. The very fact of eldership confers upon a personmystical powers over the junior. He can curse his junior in the name of thelineage, thereby removing from him the mystical protection of the lineage. Thecurse can be formal and public, but it can also be secret and even unconscious.To use a contemporary metaphor, a Suku is under the 'umbrella' of the power ofhis lineage; removal of this protection exposes him to the outside world, andthe world is a dangerous place to be in when one is not attached to akin-group. As the Suku phrase it, a curse 'opens the road to misfortune';though it does not actively cause misfortune. An elder's curse, alwaysimplicitly made in the name of the lineage, can only be removed by an olderelder - one to whom the previous elder is a junior.

Lineage authority and the representation of the lineage to the outside worldare organized on a continuum of age, that is, of relative eldership. Withinthis formal continuum based purely on relative age, there is also the principleof generational solidarity. Lineage members of the same generation are closeto each other and tend toward greater though never actual equality. Thus, theinequality of power and authority is most pronounced between generations. Itis most presumptuous for the junior generation to question, under normalcircumstances, the decisions of thesenior generation and the ways in which they have been arrived at. It is thegeneration above me that represents to me the full authority of the lineage;generational solidarity as well as inter-generational distance means that,unless I have knowledge to the contrary, I must assume that the decision of onesenior represents the decision of all seniors. This generational structurealso expresses a continuum of authority. If I am middle-aged, the decision byelders of the generation above me carries for me the authority of all thesenior generations above me. To a junior in the generation below me, mydecision similarly carries the authority of my generation together with all thegenerations senior to it. To the junior, then, lineage authority is mostdirectly embodied in the generation immediately above him, and it ispresumptuous for him to go over their heads, so to speak, to yet more seniorgenerations. Conversely, the authority of eldership is most directly exercisedupon those of the generation immediately below, as they in turn properlyexercise it over the generation below them. Exercising authority over thesecond lower generation, over the heads of the intervening one, is somewhatinappropriate. This results in muting the outward expression of authoritybetween the alternating generations of a lineage, a pattern congruent with therelaxed etiquette between alternating generations.

In any context, the lineage is fully and legally represented by the oldestadult member of the lineage who is present. Let me give a few examples. Incommon with many Central African peoples, the name of the lineage is formallycarried by the head of that lineage. Thus, the head of the lineage Kusu isaddressed as Kusu. But this general rule expresses a more complex structure.The identification of the lineage's name with the person extends to the entiremembership of the lineage; it is the lineage as a whole, qua corporategroup, that holds the title. Cunnison (1951), writing on the Luapula peoples,has analysed this particular usage in which a person discussing his lineage andits history in the past, will refer to it by the pronoun 'I'. A similar usageexists among the Suku. The oldest lineage member who is present in anysituation can refer to himself by the name of his lineage, and is so addressedby others. For example, an infant who is a member of the royal lineage isaddressed as Mini Kongo, the title of the Suku king, as long as no otherolder member of the royal lineage is present. The moment an older memberarrives on the scene, the title is shifted to him. A young man of Kusu lineagewill refer to himself as Kusu and, a moment later, after an old lineage matehas arrived, he will refer to him as Kusu and will cease applying the title tohimself. Ultimately, of course, if all the members of the lineage are present,the title Kusu devolves upon the oldest male members of the lineage who is alsoits formal head.

The continuum of eldership is representing the lineage has a juralsignificance in inner-lineage relations. Let me illustrate with an extremeexample. A young man became angry with his elders and, without consultinganyone, sold to another lineage a hunting area belonging to his own. Thetransaction was fully legal, since he was a legitimate spokesman for hislineage in the context in which the transaction took place. His own lineagewas, of course, incensed by the action; in the old days he might have been soldor even killed. But the significant point here is that the legality of thetransaction was not questioned.

In short, to those on the outside, a lineage is represented by the oldestmember present. Within the lineage, the lineage is represented to any onemember by anyolder member present and, collectively, by all older members living and dead.The principle of eldership operating within the lineage corresponds, in itsexternal relations, to its 'chieftainship' (kimfumu). Lineage'chieftainship' is also a relative, not an absolute matter; for the outsideworld, it is carried by the oldest member present. Thus, the Suku say that'everyone is a chief' - just as everyone is an elder.

Let us consider now some additional features of the ritual preceding thecollective hunt of the dry season. Before the hunting season begins every Sukusecures hunting luck by obtaining that the lineage wishes him well, that hecontinues to be under its protection. The reassurance can in principle beobtained verbally from any elder; more appropriately, it is obtained fromanyone in the generation above. Young men go to the middle-aged and themiddle-aged go to the old. There is a pattern in asking for luck: onebeseeches, one complains, one reproves, one asks forgiveness. On his part, theolder man signifies his goodwill by giving the junior some pemba (whiteclay); he also uses the occasion to remind the young man of his obligations tothe old, to scold him lightly for his past misdemeanours, and to ask hisforgiveness for past misfortunes. The manner of addressing the living elder isthe same as the one used in addressing the dead. The Suku regard the twoactivities as being not merely analogous but identical, and the differencesbetween them as incidental and contextual. Everyone goes to his elder. If Iam young, I go to my elders who happen to be alive. The old people go to theirelders; but since these are dead, they are to be found at the grave or at thecross-roads at night. Given the continuum of eldership, the use of any grave,as long as the dead is older than the petitioner, is understandable. Alsounderstandable in this context is the neglect of older graves. In the light ofthe structure of eldership, this neglect does not represent a 'weak' ancestorcult nor does it indicate shallowness of lineage structure.

If there be a 'cult' here, it is a cult of bambuta, of elders livingand dead. Every junior owes buzitu ('honour', 'respect') to hisseniors, be they 'elders' or 'ancestors' in Western terminology. A single setof principles regulates the relationship between senior and junior; a persondeals with a single category of bambuta and the line dividing the livingfrom the dead does not affect the structure of the relationship. Where theline is relevant is in the method of approaching the elder. The dead must ofnecessity be approached differently from the living; interaction with themnecessarily appears one sided and conversations with them necessarily becomemonologues. Also, interaction with them is necessarily less frequent and whenit occurs, it is formal - but no less formal than is the interaction withliving elders on ceremonial occasions. The offer of palm wine is normal at allformal occasions when a junior approaches a senior; but dead elders, in theircapacity of the dead, also have their preferred foods - the special forestmushroom and roots. Thus, it is the special methods of approach, inevitablycharacterizing dealings with the dead as opposed to the living, that give thesedealings the special cast that makes us, as anthropologists and outsiders, callit a 'cult'. The dead qua dead also know more and see things thatliving elders do not; they are, therefore, more powerful and can sometimes bemore helpful. Also, though the reasons for action by any elder are oftenobscure to the juniors, actions by elders are particularly obscure since noexplanations from them are ever possible. In short, there is a difference inthe manner in which the dead are approached, in contrast to the living. Butthe difference is to their differentphysical states, even while they remain in the same structural positionsvis-à-vis their juniors.

The Suku pattern described above is congruent with most ethnographicdescriptions of African 'ancestral cults' and of the role of elders. When theSuku case may appear distinctive is in the accompanying linguistic and semanticpattern of encompassing under the single term mbuta the continuum ofeldership while neglecting the line between the living and the dead. But theSuku are far from unique in this. Comparative linguistic evidence suggeststhat the merger or a very close semantic association of 'ancestors' with'elders' is widespread in Africa, particularly in Bantu Africa.[2]

The accompanying table shows the distribution of the radicals used in severalBantu languages to form terms that have been translated as 'elders' and'ancestors'. It can be seen that a situation similar to that of the Suku, withtheir single 'ancestor/elder' term, is also found in Ovambo, Lele, Songye,Nkundo, Bobangi, Ila, Lamba, Yao, Bondei, Bantu-Tiriki, and Zulu. Separateterms that are, nevertheless, very similar and derivative from the sameradical, are found among the Kongo, Ntomba, Yao, Ankole, and Karanga. It willalso be noted that when terms for 'ancestor' and 'elder' are reported to bedifferent, or when alternative terms exist, the separate terms, nevertheless,derive from the same radicals that have occurred in the preceding cases.Finally, there is an occasional pattern for a single term to stand for'grand-father/ancestor'.

Three common Bantu radicals stand out in the table: -kula, -kale, and-koko.

The semantic core of -kulu (-kuru, -kolo, -koro, -guru)and its usualsemantic field in Bantu languages includes 'to grow up, to mature, to becomeadult, to become old, to be important' (with their respective adjective andnoun forms). In many languages there is a semantic drift towards 'older'(comparative) and 'elder' (noun). In some languages, there is a further drifttowards 'the old ones', used in the English sense of 'ancestors'. (Thedirection of the semantic drift is from 'elder' alone to the combined'elder/ancestor'.) Thus, an appropriate translation of the core meaning of-kulu would be the French grand (with its associated verbgrandir), and 'elders/ancestors' formed from this radical would be renderedas les grands (a term that French-speaking Africans in fact sometimesuse with striking semantic appropriateness: les grands, after all, canbe alive as well as dead).[3]

By contrast with -kulu, -koko appears to be a semantically primary termand the pattern of its semantic drift is in the opposite direction: it standsfor 'ancestor' alone or 'ancestor/grandparent' or 'ancestor/grandparent/elder'.The semantic core is perhaps best rendered as 'forefather'.

The third radical -kale is a common Bantu term for 'long ago','in the old days', 'aged (in time)', 'ancient', 'antecedent in time', etc.(like -kulu, it is among Meinhof's Ur-Bantu forms). An appropriaterendering of the core meaning is 'ancient' in its primary reference to the timescale, to 'dating back, originating in the past', and in its secondaryreference to 'old' (when it indicates the state of a subject as derivedfrom its position on a time scale). The French noun les anciens (unlessone chooses the awkward 'antecedent') seems to translate the core meaning withits extensions (and French-speaking Africans do sometimes use this term). Thesemantic drift of -kale sometimes towards 'elder' only, sometimestowards 'ancestor' only, and sometimes towards the combined 'ancestor/elder'(les anciens can appropriately refer to the living or the deador both).

The other less common radicals that occur in the formation of what wetranslate as 'elders' and/or 'ancestors' are -dala ('old' or 'far intime') and -alu (which may or may not be related to -kale); -ka or -kaka, used for'grandparent' or 'grandparent/ancestor' ('forefather'?); and -uta/-ota(as in Suku mbuta) whose core meaning is 'to beget/bear'.

Thus, there are, in Bantu Africa at least, three principal ways in which theassociated ideas of 'eldership' and 'ancestorship' are expressed. One is bysemantic drift from 'to grow big', elders or elders/ancestors being lesgrands. The second is by semantic drift from 'ancient', so that elders orancestors or elders/ancestors are rendered as les anciens. The third isby the use of a prime term for 'ancestor' that may, by semantic drift, alsocover ancestor/grandparent and even ancestor/grandparent/elder.

The semantic association between 'ancestor' and 'elder' is not restricted toBantu languages. In Igbo, ´nnà is used both for elder malerelative and ancestor. In Mossi, the radical -kud occurs in 'elder','ancestor', and 'ancient times'. In Sango, -kota is used for elderrelative, elder, ancestor, and dignitary. In Mangbetu, -koko occurs in'ancestor' and 'to grow'. Among the Mandinka, the radical ke defines acluster of age, authority, eldership, and ancestorship.[4] In Kanuri, kur- occurs in terms having to do with'old times', and authority.[5]

We can speak, then , of the presence in many African cultures of a semanticassociation of growth, age, maturity, ancientness, eldership, ancestorship, andauthority. This cluster conditions the semantic drift of terms along an'adult-elder-ancestor' dimension. Consequently, we find within this semanticcluster a general category best rendered by the French lesgrands/anciens and that we shall refer to in English by the term'elder/ancestor'. But the further distinction within this category between theliving ('elders') and the dead ('ancestors') is one that is not always made inAfrican languages. Insistence on the conceptual primacy of this divisionbetween the living and the dead is, I submit, an ethnocentric distortion ofthe African world view, a distortion that prevents our understanding of what wehave persisted in calling 'ancestor cults' and 'ancestor worship'.

The Western ethnocentric conviction that 'ancestors' must be separated fromliving 'elders' conditions the cognitive set with which we approach Africandata and theorize about them. Not only is our term 'ancestor' - meaning anascendant who is dead - denotatively ethnocentric but it is also connotativelyso. Western cultural tradition (which includes ghosts) accepts that the deadcan be endowed with cultural tradition (which includes ghosts) accepts that thedead can be endowed with extraordinary powers. The dead belong to what we callthe 'supernatural world'. A Western anthropologist, working in an Africansociety, finds it easy to accept without much further questioning that thedead, including the 'ancestors', should be believed capable of extraordinarydoings, that they should 'mystically' confer benefits, that they should visitsickness upon the living, that they should have 'supernatural' powers. Suchbeliefs about the dead are culturally acceptable to us, and it is appropriatethat such dead should have a 'cult'. But living people in our culturalconceptions do not have such 'mystical' powers merely because they happen to be older. If they are said by Africans to have such powers, thesemust be 'derived' from elsewhere; and the ancestors, being dead, are seen as anappropriate source.[6]

Our interpretations have had two opposing emphases. In the ethnographies,dealing descriptively with African beliefs, it has generally been held thatAfricans see the powers of the elders as derivative from the power of theancestors. By contrast, on the theoretical level (where out culturalassumptions come to the fore and where ancestors cannot 'exist' except as asymbol and an abstraction), the directionality of the explanation is exactlyreversed; the powers with which ancestors are endowed become a 'projection' ofthe palpable powers of living elders. This latter interpretation is the gistof Fortes's (1965) formulation. But what, then, of the mystical powers thatelders hold directly and on their own, as among the Suku? Are they in turn tobe seen as re-projections from the ancestors? When we see the powers over thejuniors of both living elders and ancestors as derivative from eldership perse, both the above interpretations of the 'sources' of power come to bebeside the point. The problems they attempt to solve arise in the first placefrom an ethnocentric categorization of ethnographic data.

The reformulation of the problem around the broader category of 'eldership'carried other semantic implications for anthropological terminology (andconsequently for the theory built on this terminology). We talk of ancestor'cults' and even of ancestor 'worship'. In their modern meanings[7] these English words are culturally appropriate indescribing dealings with the dead and the supernatural. By contrast, we wouldhesitate to apply the terms 'cult' and 'worship' to relations with the living.Yet, if the Suku and others 'worship' their dead elders, then they also'worship' their living elders. If they have a 'cult' of dead elders, the same'cult' applies to the living. Obversely, if the living elders are only'respected', then so are the 'ancestors', and no more than that.

These points are very well illustrated by Kenyatta (1938:265-8), with hisinside view of Kikuyu culture, when he discusses 'ancestors'. 'In thisaccount, I shall not use the term [worship], because from practical experienceI do not believe that the Gikuyu worship their ancestors .... I shall thereforeuse the term "communion with ancestors".' Kenyatta's European analogy isrevealing: 'There appears to be such communion with ancestors when a Europeanfamily, on special occasions, has an empty chair, the seat of a dead member, attable during a meal. This custom might be closely equated with Gikuyabehaviour in this respect.' 'The words "prayer" and "worship", gothaithaiya,goikia-mokoigoro, are never used in dealing with the ancestors' spirits.These words are reserved for solemn rituals and sacrifices directed to thepower of the unseen.' As to the question of what is so often called'sacrifice':

'The gifts which an elder gives to the ancestors' spirits, as when a sheep issacrificed to them, and which perhaps seem to an outsider to be prayersdirected to the ancestors, are nothing but the tributes symbolizing the giftswhich the departed elders would have received had they been alive, and whichthe living elders now receive.'

By using terms such as 'cult', 'worship', and 'sacrifice', we introducesemantic paradoxes which we then feel compelled to explain. Thus, in theInternational African Institute's Salisbury seminar (Fortes and Dieterlen,1965: 18), 'the view that ancestors are generally represented as punitive incharacter was discussed at length'. The need to understand why an object of'worship' should be 'punitive' arises from the semantics of the terms used. Weare told in the report on the seminar that 'Professor Mitchell concluded thatancestors seemed to be normally ambivalent, inflicting punishment todemonstrate the legitimate authority and exercising benevolence when appealedto. He linked this up with some remarks of Dr. Turner, who gave instances ofancestor worship being significant in group rituals of solidarity and expiationaimed at restoring amity within a community. Such rituals, Professor Mitchellsuggested, would be directed towards the ancestors in their benevolent aspect,whereas in the case of misfortune the punitive aspect would be invoked in orderto provide an interpretation.' Such theoretical involution is unnecessary.The attitude to elders (dead or alive) is normally ambivalent; they both punishand exercise benevolence, and they necessarily participate in restoring amitywithin the lineage. Mitchell's complex theoretical interpretation ignores whatalmost r ethnography and every general descriptive statement on Africanancestor 'cults' have always stressed: that African lineages are communities ofboth the living and the dead. Gluckman and Fortes rightly stress that'ancestor cults' are not the same thing as the cults of the dead. But thisirrelevance of the 'deadness' of ancestors has implications for the very idiomin which theoretical problems are cast.

Once we recognize that African 'ancestors' are above all elders and to beunderstood in terms of the same category as living elders, we shall stoppursuing a multitude of problems of our own creation. There is nothingstartling that the attitude to elders wielding authority should be ambivalent.Fortes (1965: 133) makes the important point that what matters in ancestors istheir jural status, that (speaking of the Tallensi) 'the personality andcharacter, the virtues or vices, success or failures, popularity orunpopularity, of a person during his lifetime make no difference to hisattainment of ancestorhood'. But, we should add, neither do these variationsmake a difference in the authority invested in eldership; what matters informal relations is the formal status, in dead elders as well as thosealive. 'It is not the whole man, but only his jural status as the parent (orparental personage, in matrilineal systems) vested with authority andresponsibility, that is transmuted into ancestorhood' (ibid.). But from thepoint of view proposed here, what occurs is not a 'transmutation' but aretention of status by the now dead elder. The status, that is, remainsunaffected by death, while one's purely personal and idiosyncratic relationshipwith the elder is necessarily changed. Similarly, when Fortes states:'Ancestor worship is a representation or extension of the authority componentin the jural relations of successive generations', we can restate this moresimply and, I would claim, more realistically and more in keeping with Africanconceptions as follows: 'Elders, after they die, maintain their role in thejural relations of successive generations.' In Fortes's theory, people are believed to 'acquire', upon death, the power tointervene in the life of their juniors. I would claim that they 'continue' tohave that power.

Such rephrasing simplifies the interpretation of ethnographic data. Thus, inFortes's formulation, the son begins 'officiating' in the 'cult' only upon hisfather's death because he now becomes a jural adult (Fortes, 1965: 130-2).This succession means 'ousting a predecessor', and 'sacrifice' to the ancestorsmay be a psychologically reassuring mode of ritual reparation; the ancestorcult becomes a psychological 'refuge' (Fortes, 1965: 140-1, 1945:9). Withoutquestioning the psychological dynamics specific to the Tallensi, one maysuggest another formulation that would seem to be more appropriate for dealingwith the general phenomenon of 'sacrifice' in African 'ancestor cults', sincethese guilt feelings and their relief cannot be shown to exist in all of thesesocieties. We see among the Tallensi a continuum of intergenerationaleldership. The power of the kin-group is represented to me (a Tale) by myfather, as his father represents it to him. My father 'worships' (respects)and 'sacrifices' (gives tribute) to his dead father, as I respect and givetribute to him. When my father dies, my relationship with him continues(Fortes, 1959: 48 ff.). The chain of relationships over the generationsremains unaltered, though the method of interaction with my father becomesnecessarily different when he is dead. If we express this difference byspeaking of 'worship' and 'sacrifice', in contrast to 'respect' and 'gift ortribute', it is because we, as Westerners, find such terms more appropriate toexpress dealings with the dead. And, further, 'sacrifice', 'expiation', and'guilt' is a comfortable semantic cluster for us. But there is surely a dangerhere of transmuting the semantic biases of the observer's culture into problemsof the ethnology of the observed.

By treating the phrase 'ancestor cults' as a rather misleading way ofreferring to an aspect of the relationship with elders in general, a matterthat Fortes sees as a puzzle can be re-examined in a new light. The puzzle isin fact that the Tiv and the Nuer, with genealogically based social systems notunlike those of the Tallensi, lack 'ancestor worship' (Fortes, 1965: 140).There is indeed a puzzle if one insists upon seeing the ancestor cult as asymbolic projection of the social system. In the view presented here,on the other hand, the ancestor cult is an integral part of the systemof relationship with elders. The relationship with dead elders (that is,'ancestors') is seen as being on the same symbolic plane as that of livingelders and not as secondary to it or derivative from it. From this point ofview the over-all structural similarities among Tallensi, Tiv, and Nuer shouldnot be expected to result in similar ancestor cults. Other facts would seem tobe more relevant to the relationship with ancestors qua dead elders: themeaning and structure of eldership, the nature of the authority attributed toit, and the beliefs about the effect of death upon the elder's role.

For the Tiv, the question to be asked is: what is there in the Tivrelationship with elders that makes for relative indifference to dead elders?Pervasive Tiv egalitarianism de-emphasizes the authority of eldership andindeed exacerbates the authority problems that inhere in such segmentarysystems (Bohannan, 1953: 31 ff.). Neither genealogical position nor ageconfer, of themselves, special powers on the living, while the dead arebelieved to have no effect on the living (ibid: 83). In short, Tiv eldersqua elders have little influence on the lives of their juniors, be theelders alive or dead. Their formal authority here in minimal andgenealogically shallow. Though a relationship with the dead is not entirely lacking (Bohannan, 1969: i: 35ff., and 43), it is confined to one's parents. As to the Nuer, here alsoelders do not carry authority and power simply by virtue of their eldership(Evans-Pritchard, 1940: 179-80). The elders' passage into the other world doesnot change their situation in this respect.

Though 'ancestor cults' should not be equated with cults of the dead, beliefsabout the dead are nevertheless relevant, as illustrated by the Songye who mayalso be said to lack an 'ancestor cult', but for rather different reasons.Here, living elders have authority; once they die, however, the relationshipwith them as dead elders does not last because they become reincarnated intheir grandchildren.[8]

To conclude,[9] the selection byanthropologists of the phrases 'ancestor cult' and 'ancestor worship', indealing with African cultures, is semantically inappropriate, analyticallymisleading, and theoretically unproductive. Fortes has rightly emphasized thatthe essential features of these activities are to be found not so much in thefact that people concerned are dead as in the structural matrix in which theyare placed. But he does not go far enough. By retaining the term 'ancestor'(rather than use, say, 'dead elders'), he continues to give undue weight in hisinterpretations to the fact that the persons are dead. The term 'ancestor'sets up a dichotomy where there is a continuum. By conceptually separatingliving elders from ancestors, we unconsciously introduce Western connotationsto the phenomena thus labelled and find ourselves having to del with paradoxesof our own creation and with complex solutions to them. It is striking thatAfrican 'ancestors' are more mundane and less mystical than the dead who areobjects of 'worship' should be in Western eyes. African elders, on the otherhand, look more mystical to us than we re willing to allow the living to be.Similarly, Africans treat their living elders more 'worshipfully' than theEnglish term 'respect' conveys, and they treat the ancestors with less'respect' and more contentiousness than the term 'worship' should allow.

These are all paradoxes that stem from the difficulty of our vocabulary toaccommodate to the fact that African living elders and dead ancestors are moresimilar to each other than the Western living and dead can be, that an elder'ssocial role does not radically change when he crosses the line dividing theliving from the dead, and that African 'ancestorship' is but an aspect of thebroader phenomenon of 'eldership'. The initial theoretical problem here is notso much that of uncovering deep psychological and symbolic processes as it isof probing African cultural categories and of finding adequate translations ofthese into the Western language used for theorizing. The terminological recasting that is proposed here (with aconsequent recasting of the cognitive categories of the theorist) suggests thatour understanding of variations in what we have called 'ancestor cults' mustbegin with the analysis of eldership in particular African societies. Finally,these redefinitions also resolve the puzzle of finding 'ancestor cults' to be,on the one hand, so very characteristic of Africa as a culture area and, on theother, to be inexplicably and erratically absent here and there within thearea. No such problem arises when we realize that the cultural trait to beexamined is not 'ancestorship' but the more widely distributed Africanrecognition of 'eldership'.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

For the terms for 'ancestors' and 'elders' in the African languages mentioned,I have used the following sources: Mary Douglas, The Lele of the Kasai,London, 1963; Walter Sangree, Age, Prayer, and Politics in Tiriki,Kenya, London, 1966; and the dictionaries of the respective languages bythe following: C.W.R. Tobias and B.H.C. Turvey 1954 (Ovambo/Kwanyama), W.Holman Bentley 1887 (Kongo), R.P.A. Semain 1923 (Songye), G. Hulstaert 1952(Nkundo/Lomongo), M. Guthrie 1935 (Ngala), M. Mamet 1955 (Ntomba), J. Whitehead1899 (Bobangi), Edwin W. Smith 1907 and J. Torrend 1931 (Ila), C.M. Doke 1933and 1963 (Lamba), G.M. Sanderson 1954 (Yao), C. Taylor 1959 (Ankole), HerbertW. Woodward 1882 (Bondei), C.S. Louw 1915 (Karanga), D. McJ. Malcolm 1966 andC.M. Doke and B.W. Vilakazi 1958 (Zulu), R.P. Alexandre 1953 (Mossi), B.F. andW.E. Welmers 1968 (Igbo), Charles A. Taber 1965 (Sango), A. Vekens 1928(Mangbetu).

Résumé

The first version of this paper wasdelivered at the 67th Annual Meeting of the American AnthropologicalAssociation, 21-4 November 1968, at Seattle, Washingtonm under the title:'African "Ancestor Cults" without Ancestors?'
[2]Monica Wilson speaks of Nyakyusa 'seniorkinsmen, living and dead' having a 'mystical power over their juniors' and ofthe 'cult of senior relatives' which she parenthetically equates with 'ancestorcults' (1957: 3, 4, 226). But this is exceptional in ethnographic reporting.The overwhelming pattern in ethnographies is to treat 'elders' separately from'ancestors' and this may influence linguistic reporting as well. In my combingof the ethnographic literature for the terms for 'ancestors' and 'elders', anunexpected discovery was the extent to which ethnographies often discuss'ancestral cults' and the position of elders without giving native terms forone or the other and especially for both at the same time. One is tempted tosee this as reflecting the hold that these terms have on us as designatingnecessrily separate categories. We all know, before even getting to the field,that Africans have elders (that is, 'social structure') and ancestors (that is,'religion'). A combing of dictionaries is somewhat more rewarding, constrainedas they are by the existing semantics. These are, of course, most revealingwhen one can get a full rnage of English terms for the single African word.
[3]Interestingly, the English oldparallels, etymologically, the semantics of the Bantu kulu: OldEnglish oud, Frisian alt, Old Norse ala (to rear, to growup), and Latin alere (to begin, to grow) andadultus. Withkulu, of course, we are dealing with a term whose present coremeaning is 'to grow, etc.' and which repeatedly drifts in many languages (butnot in all) towards 'elder' and among some of these towards 'ancestor'. Hencethe applicability of the term 'semantic drift', by analogy to Edward Sapir'slinguistic drift' indicating parallel grammatical changes occurring inlanguages of the same stock after they separated (Sapir, 1921/1949: 171ff.).
[4]Personal communication from Dr. Peter M.Weil.
[5]Homburger (1941:250-1) considers Bantu-kulu to be related to such forms as Zande kuru, Mossikud-re, Mande koro, and Kanuri kure. Their semantic coresare identical ('big/old/grown') and they show similar semantic drifts towards'important', 'elders', and 'ancestors'. With the possible exception of Kanuri,these languages are, of course, related.
[6]To introduce a personal note, I had nodifficulty in the field in accepting the idea that the dead 'ancestors' shouldhave 'supernatural' powers. But I must have driven my informants todistraction by insisting on pursuing the question of the 'why' and the 'wherefrom' of the powers of the living elders. It took a kind of methodological(and cultural) leap of faith to accept as a terminal ethnographic datum that ifthe dead can appropriately do supernatural things, why not also the living?
[7]The English word 'worship' carried, to besure, a less religious connotation in Old English, referring merely to'dignity', 'honour', and 'worthiness' - appropriate to one aspect of theAfrican relationship with both elderss and ancestors, but still missing itsassociated aspect of familiarity that, when necessry, allows scolding.
[8]Personal communication from Dr. Alan P.Merriam.
[9]In this paper, I have discussed only theelders/ancestors of the descent group itself, and I have made no reference tothe 'extra-descent group ancestor cults' discussed by McKnight (1967). Brieflysummarized, McKnight's point is tht the 'extra-descent group ancestors' (thatis, paternal ancestors in the matrilineal systems, and maternal ones in thepatrilineal) are not benevolent as they should be in terms of Radcliffe-Brown'stheory of extension of sentiments. McKnight shows that the relations with thekin-group of the 'residual parent' need not duplicate the sentiments of thereltionship with that parent. Thus, in a patrilineal society, once can be onthe warmest of terms with one's mother and her brotehr and still have strainedand even hostile reltions with their kin-group as a corporate entity and withother relatives in it. and it is these latter relations tht condition therelations with the 'extra-descent group ancestors'. McKnight's mode ofanalysis is consistent with the one used here. I would merely use the term'relationship with the dead elders of the extra-descent group' instead of'extra-descent group ancestor cults'.

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