ANCESTOR-WORSHIP. In savage and barbarian belief, as in civilized sentiment, death does not make a person cease to belong to his social unit (family, clan, tribe, village, nation) . Hence, since the living and the dead of any given community are as much one as any other two classes thereof—for instance, the older and the younger men—we might expect to find the dead treated much as are the older living members of the community, especially the dead who died at a ripe age, or at least of ter bearing or begetting offspring. For those who die immature are often treated as of less account, or as in some way different, while a common confusion of thought leads to conceiving all persons who died a long time ago as old. Now the aged are regarded in three different ways : (a) with contempt, owing to their physical weak ness; hence they are not infrequently killed as bouches inutiles; (b) with fear, owing to their supposed magical powers; (c) with respect, as repositories of the traditional wisdom of their people, and often as more or less definite rulers; e.g., the elders of an Australian tribe. We find the dead regarded more or less in all these ways by various peoples, but the matter is complicated by the following considerations : (I) All dead, as such, are terrible, because death is contagious, and where one person has died (especially by violence) more deaths are apt to follow. (2) The dead cannot fend for themselves, cannot hunt or look for vege table food, etc., but as they are beloved or venerated members of the community they should be provided with necessities, as a sick brother or a wise but feeble old medicine-man, tribal counsellor, or witch might be. (3) The dead or some of the dead (e.g., chiefs or sorcerers) become more powerful than ever by reason of their death ; they are now spirits able to help or harm, and should there fore be propitiated. This often blends with (I). (4) The dead, or some of them, return and are re-born into the community. (5) The older dead, if not quite forgotten, tend to become vague, idealized figures, often passing into gods.
Mere neglect of the dead, as of no account, is very rare; awe or fear, with or without affection as for kinsmen or fathers and mothers, is the prevailing attitude. The ideas given under (2) lead rather to tendance of the dead (offerings of food, etc., at their graves, soul feasts, destruction of all or some of the dead man's property to be of use to him in the other world) than to actual worship. All the ideas numbered (I), (3), and (5) may and do lead to worship of one sort or another; (4) is somewhat more complicated in its results.
Clearly, if the dead can be re-born (see RE-INCARNATION), it is desirable to make sure that only the "good" dead shall thus re-enter the community. For persons unlucky, inefficient, scorners of law and justice, the survivors have no use whatever and do not want them back. Moreover, of the good dead, i.e., those powerful, magically or materially efficient, observers of custom, some are so important that they will not condescend to become babies. Hence we get, among other things, a difference in funeral ceremonies ; ordinary decent people are buried in one way, great chiefs in another; criminals, women dead in childbirth, men killed by wild beasts, etc., perhaps in a third (see DEAD, DISPOSAL OF THE). So far, no worship is necessarily implied, but we get prayers addressed to those of the dead who are expected to return. For instance, the Edo imagine that their normal dead will go to their heaven, elimi, stay there for a time, during which they can send blessings to the survivors, and finally return. "My father," one of their prayers runs, "tell Osa (God) to give you things when you come back." This touches ancestor-worship, at least at one point ; for a time the dead man is a worshipful ghost whose favours may be sought ; he can also confer a last favour by pro viding well for his own life on earth before he returns (Journ. Roy. Anth. Inst., 1920, p. 38o ff.). But it is not yet complete and typical.
Another practice very like ancestor-worship at first sight is the worship of what may be called the life-stream. The object of this cult is not any man, living or dead, but the power which enables the community to continue in existence by natural increase—a power which may be embodied for the time being in the head of the family or clan and worshipped by him and his dependents. The Roman genius (q.v.) in its earliest form is an example of this.