Ancestors and the Culture
Ancestor veneration. This is a term that will give you either one of two emotional responses. For some it will bring you pride and joy. Yet, for many in the BIPOC community, it will have dark and sometimes demonic pretence .
Over the years I have heard many reasons why you should not venerate your dead relatives. I have been told it is primitive. I have been told passages from the bible like Ecclesiastes 9:5-6 which reads
-“Anyone who is among the living has hope [2] --even a live dog is better off than a dead lion!5For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no further reward, and even the memory of them is forgotten.6Their love, their hate and their jealousy have long since vanished; never again will they have a part in anything that happens under the sun.” ( we will get back to the bible later).
As I have grown in my understanding I have found yet one universal cultural truth. Every culture on this planet venerates their ancestors…. EVERY… CULTURE…. except Africans whose ancestors were chained and brought here on cargo ships and forced to work as chattel.
We must first look at culture.
The Oxford dictionary defines culture as- The customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group.- In this definition we can say that the culture is the defining characteristic of a people. We have been taught that race is the way we define a people but I would object to that for two reasons.
Race is a social construct that has to many weak scientifical stances
Race can be too broad. example given Asian. Japanese and Chinese are both considered asian yet are two distinctly different people.
When we look at the later reason for my objection we can see the difference and defining characteristic of culture over race. Chinese culture has its own customs, art, and social institutions that span back a few thousand years. The same can equally be said of The Japanese people.
Culture is the main aspect of a group of people that defines the group. in the process of lableing and marking a people, culture reigns supreme!
Back to the Ancestors.
If culture is the main way we can classify a group of people then that puts the ancestors of that group of people in the architect role. It is the work and imagination of the ancestors that brings any culture to life. The ancestors are not only the map writers…. they are the path finders….
a culture has to thank their ancestors for every work of art, every holiday celebration, every spiritual insight, every flaw in their doctrine, and most important… every breath of life. It comes down to the ancestors when you speak of culture, customs and life. Every one person has millions and millions of people that have laugh, hoped, cried, and prayed for them to arrive… and have a great life.
We are not only products of our mothers and fathers. We are products of thousands and thousands of mothers and fathers. this is a logical statement, yet there are also logical nuances that I feel further the disconnect of BIPOC community to their ancestors. The biggest historical event that brings the divide of Africans in the Diaspora to their ancestors is Slavery.
The Great Divide.
Slavery via the Transatlantic slave trade was extremely impactful to our ancestors and their descendants living today. The millions of people who lost their lives during this time needs to be noted and honoured, but the impact on those who survived was just as detrimental. When we look at just North America, we find that even before the three to six week journey from Africa to the Americas, man woman and child was seperated from family and tribe. This in its self had extremely detrimental effects of the future culture once they made it to the United States.
Once here, The slave would be further separated and auctioned off to a plantation. Most plantations made sure to change the names of the slaves and their religions. breaking such laws was punishable by death and mutalation. In the article “ Race and origins of Plantation Slavery” written by Justin Roberts he describes some of the punishments.
In South Carolina, punishments for slaves such as “gelding” (castration) or severing Achilles tendons were institutionalized in the slave codes, while in Virginia such punishments were reserved for very specific crimes such as rape, which allowed castration.97 South Carolina’s use of the term “gelding,” previously meaning the castration of male livestock, demonstrates the extent to which African slaves had come to be viewed as a type of livestock as race-based slavery and the plantation system exploded across the Lowcountry.98 Slave codes had helped to complete and root the transformation to race-based plantation slavery on the North American mainland.
These horrific experiences forced our ancestors to comply and hide the few customs and cultures they might have brought with them from their lands in Africa. Over the years and generations. we eventually stopped speaking the names of our ancestors and many names were forgotten. many life stories were lost in the history of the African in the Diaspora. The Bible replaced the oral tradition and spiritualities.. causing us to no longer move as our ancestors before slavery and colonisation…. The ancestors who’s marvellous cultures demanded respect through out kingdoms… Ancestors who’s spiritual base is regarded the oldest form of spiritualities on this earth.
Believe it or not.
Although many people of colour will run from their ancestors… Ancestor veneration is still in their practice. Have you ever read the Bible? In Exodus there is at least three pages of genealogy. Shem begets Ham… Joseft begets Jedadiah.. and so on and so on.. This happens many other rimes in the bible. Why is this important? Because they are the ancestors of the Jews who are the focal point of the whole book. and by reading the names you have venerated and gave them life, even after death.
Have you ever watched 300 the movie? even in all its historical inaccuracy, those soldiers are immortalised in death through mass veneration.. the same goes for the movies like the Odyssey and all the Roman, Greek, English, Irish, German, and European folklore we blindly watch in movies or read in schools.
Holidays like Christmas and Easter are forms of ancestor veneration for it glorifies the culture created by their ancestors. The way we dress, the language we speak are all forms of veneration for as I explained earlier… the Ancestors are the creators of the culture…
Time has come to put yours first
All the time you have put into a foriegn culture… All the generations we have dedicated to learn the way of our oppressor… We have lost the one thing that truly defines us. We are not Yoruba or Congolese anymore. we are Black Americans.. We are not Omo Odduduwa or children of the Igbo star seeds… we are Christian and Islamic.. We have forgotten our culture and in the same sense, forgotten our ancestors.
This puts us at a great disadvantage. For without a culture we no longer define ourselves, and our experience of oppression defines us. Without the ancestors we are truly lost for we don’t know who we are.
There is still hope…. even if you don’t know who your great great grandmother was. Even if you don’t know what part of Africa your ancestors were taken from… there is still hope. All you have to do is place a white table cloth somewhere near the kitchen. Put fresh flowers there. Place the pictures of your relatives that passed away on this table cloth. Place a candle and a glass of water on this table cloth, and speak to them as if they can still hear you. change the water frequently, and light your candle to guide them to your voice as you speak. Ask them to pass on the love you have for them, to the ones whose names have been lost. Ask them to awaken things inside of you, that they have passed down genetically, that will strengthen you. and ALWAY…. ALWAYS…. REMEBER THE ANCESTORS!!!