Ancestor worship

religious practice in which dead family members are venerated due to the belief that their spirits can influence the lives of the living

Ancestor Worship, also known as Ancestor Veneration or Ancestorism, is a religious practice based on the belief that deceased family members have a continued existence, take an interest in the affairs of the world, and possess the ability to influence the fortune of the living. All cultures attach ritual significance to the passing of loved ones, but this is not equivalent to ancestor worship. The goal of ancestor worship is to ensure the ancestors' continued well-being and positive disposition towards the living and sometimes to ask for special favours or assistance. The social or non-religious function of ancestor worship is to cultivate kinship values like filial piety, family loyalty, and continuity of the family lineage. While far from universal, ancestor worship or ancestor veneration occurs in societies with every degree of social, political, and technological complexity, and it remains an important component of various religious practices in modern times.
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Noun
1. worship of ancestors
(hypernym) worship

[Other] Ancestor worship occurs in ancient cultures all over the world, and even in modern times it plays an important role in primitive religions. It is founded on the belief that the dead live on and are able to influence the lives of later generations. These ancestors can assert their powers by blessing or cursing, and their worship is inspired by both respect and fear. The ancestor cult consists of praying, presenting gifts, and making offerings. In some cultures, people try to get their ancestors' advice through oracles before making important decisions. In ancient China and Egypt, the influence of ancestors was very great. They were buried in expensive graves and in Egypt a permanent death cult was instituted. It was generally believed that the lack of veneration would cause the deceased to die a second death, which was for many people an almost unbearable thought. In nearly every primitive tribal religions of Africa ancestor worship is common practice. The ancestors of the tribe a...
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Ancestor Worship A cult widely observed among peoples and usually defined as the cult of the spirits of parents and forefathers. It implies belief in the continued existence of the deceased and in certain cases in their power of being interested in and affected by the fortunes of their living descendants; the sense of a perpetual spiritual unity and moral reciprocity in obligations and services; and a dependence of the fortunes of the living on the fulfillment of these obligations. This can be seen from the ancient Roman ideas portrayed in the Aeneid, where the household gods (lares and penates) are so carefully preserved through all vicissitudes. This belief and practice point to times when death was regarded as merely an event in a continuous life. With the ancient cults, the sense of personal separateness seems merged in the more vivid sense of family unity, from whose privileges and obligations death is no discharge. In fact, theosophy suggests that the reimbodying ego of an ancestor actually takes a body born of its own descendants as a result of the transmigration of life-atoms. Thus what might be called an ancestral blood stream, or a tree with collateral branches, subsists.
The basic idea behind ancestor worship seems to be that its holders envisaged unity in a continuous and never-ending stream of lives, perpetuating itself in succession through the ages, and out of which and back into which individuals arise and sink, an idea in direct contrast to the modern view that the individual is the most important factor in life.