Notes for fortes2.html

Ashanti often attribute sickness or misfortune to the anger f a ghost (saman) and a father's ghost is as frequently cited as that of other kinsfolk. But here, as among the Thonga, a ghost is not an ancestor as I define the status.
Tallensi enshrine and sacrifice to their deceased mothers and through them to certain maternal kin. This is related to the function of maternal filiation in lineage segmentation.
Cf. Kuper's remark (op. cit., p. 188). 'The Ancestors are the ideal not the actual personality.'
The foregoing applies, of course, to women (mothers) as well, again in relation to the function of matrifiliation in specifying filial status.
Cf. Krige, 1943, p. 232- 'Above all the ancestors complain, a fact which lies at the basis of Lovedu religion...'
I stress inter alia because in its descriptive totality as I have noted in several places in this essay, ancestor worship also includes mystical notions and metaphysical ideas. I do not want to give the impression that I regard it as being exhaustively specifiable as a purely jural institution. Like all institutions it has what Gluckman has called 'multiplex' meaning; that is, it has a role in every domain of social structure.