African Ancestors
African Ancestors: Memory, Spirit & Lineage
Across Africa, ancestors are present kin—not abstractions. They guide ethics, bless harvests, name children, guard the land, and receive ritual care. This hub gathers essays, rituals, folktales, and philosophy that show how the living and the “living-with-God” remain in conversation.
Remembering & Honoring Ancestors
- How to remember the unremembered
- Questions to ask your ancestors today
- Ancestors are guardian angels
- Ancestral advice on love
- Say a prayer to the spirits of ancestors
- Africa’s beautiful ancestors
- Wise words your ancestors want you to know
- Call on the spirits of your ancestors
- Listen to your elders — African proverbs
- Listen — do you hear the elders?
Death, Afterlife & Transition
- Death as transition to pre-birth
- Halloween vs. African spirit festivals
- Night running from the perspective of old Africa
- African burial ghosts
- Haunting of St. George’s Cathedral
- Natural burials in Africa
- Senegambia’s graves & stone circles
Cosmology, Spirit World & Metaphysics
- Explaining bones & stones of Africa
- The sun is our distant ancestor
- Bees bridge space between humans & spirits
- Culinary time travel & building the earth
- Bottle trees in Africa — cultural meanings
- Building a water shrine in your car
- How traditions help in hard times
- An African god that grants wishes
- Mami Wata — African water spirit
- African spirituality
- What is ceremony? What is ritual?
- Six of life’s best advice — proverbs
- You can’t hide your lying eyes
- Wise words from Africa
- One tribe crossing the gate of grief
Naming, Identity & Lineage
- Names & descriptions of West African peoples
- Why are people given names?
- Sankofa — learning is lifelong
- Dinka — one of Africa’s tallest peoples
Elders, Wisdom & Social Memory
- A fire with the power of three generations
- Proverbs: the official language of a nation
- What’s your Dagara cosmology sign?
- Be a better parent to your body
- The emotional impact of infertility
Culture, Ritual Objects & Sacred Materiality
- Footprints help us understand history
- Kola nut: customs, benefits & uses
- Categories of traditional health workers
- Fon twin ceremony of Benin
Diaspora Memory & Belonging
- Kwanzaa goes beyond race & religion
- Arkansas emigrated hundreds of freed people
- Weeping for thousands of years
- Color as a measure of value — a critique
