Ancestors and Harmonious Life

Communication with Ancestors

All healers and diviners, whether they are called babalawos or ngangas, are able to detect occult forces at work in the community. They might be able to tell a person what spirit or ancestor is responsible for a certain disease. To resolve this issue, it is necessary for propitiation in the form of rules, behaviors, and sacrifices to be followed. If an ancestor is responsible for creating disharmony in society, then the resolution has to be seeking the reason for conflict within the line of descent. This means that the members of the society who participate in propitiatory exercises are appealing to the ancestors to have mercy on the society.

In the typical African society, hierarchy is by age. Of course, the ancestors are older than the living, and among the living, the elders are the highest in terms of authority. Thus, the ancestors as participants in the society are eager to see the prosperity and sustainability of the community. They will be called on by the living, appealed to in the case of crises, and evoked when children are born. Their function, it seems, is to hold the society together.

Actually, the visible and invisible worlds are intertwined in an intimate interplay of the living and the ancestors. This is a richly textured [Page 52]phenomenon in which heaven and Earth, various levels of humans, spirits that are terrestrial and celestial, and ancestors all dwell in a powerful drama of maintaining the moral order, keeping harmony in place. Because this order works to the benefit of everyone, it behooves the living to do everything in their might to maintain this order. One thing they cannot do is offend or displease the ancestors in any way. Therefore, one lives with a constant understanding of the balance that is necessary to keep harmony.

Once a person ends terrestrial existence, the departed becomes a member of the mediators in the invisible world. But the departed are never far away from their old communities. In fact, they take the harmony of their old communities quite seriously and, as privileged personalities, are consulted on a regular basis.

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