[ **up: [[Religion]] | [[Death and dying]]** ] --- # Ancestor worship --- ## China [[2024-0722. Ancestor worship is practised throughout rural China; it is loosely associated with both Daoism and Confucianism.|Ancestor worship is practised throughout rural China; it is loosely associated with both Daoism and Confucianism.]][^1] ### Among the Bai #### Ancestral shrines [[2024-0722. There is a shrine reserved for the worship of family ancestors in almost every household in Shaxi (China).|There is a shrine reserved for the worship of family ancestors in almost every household in Shaxi (China).]][^2] --- ## ‘Westerners’ (White folks? Anglosphere? IDK man) [[2025-0324. 'Modern Western culture is perhaps the only culture in the history of the world to have forgotten the ancestors. What all peoples before and besides us have known is that we cannot know ourselves without knowing our ancestors.'|'Modern Western culture is perhaps the only culture in the history of the world to have forgotten the ancestors. What all peoples before and besides us have known is that we cannot know ourselves without knowing our ancestors.']][^3] [[2025-0324. 'The word matter comes to us from the Latin mater, meaning mother, and pattern is from pater, or father. Mama & papa, matter & pattern.'|'You would not exist if every single one of your ancestors had not existed, and the very fabric of your body- bones, blood, DNA- is woven from their matter and their pattern. The word matter comes to us from the Latin mater, meaning mother, and pattern is from pater, or father. Mama & papa, matter & pattern.']][^4] - *See also:* [[Storytelling#Story as history|Story as history]] --- ## History ### Europe The [[Matronae]] may have been connected to female ancestor worship.[^5] [^1]: Peter O. Staub, et al, ‘[[Staub, et al. ‘Incense and Plant Ritual Use in Southwest China_ A Case Study Among the Bai in Shaxi’, 2011.|Incense and Plant Ritual Use in Southwest China: A Case Study Among the Bai in Shaxi]]’, *Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine* 7, Article 43 (2011), p. 2. [^2]: Peter O. Staub, et al, ‘[[Staub, et al. ‘Incense and Plant Ritual Use in Southwest China_ A Case Study Among the Bai in Shaxi’, 2011.|Incense and Plant Ritual Use in Southwest China: A Case Study Among the Bai in Shaxi]]’, p. 2. [^3]: Amber Magnolia Hill, ‘[[Hill. ‘Story is Medicine_ The Mythic Imagination on the Healing Path’, 2018.|Story is Medicine: The Mythic Imagination on the Healing Path]]’, *Plant Healer*, vol. 8, issue 2 (Spring 2018), p. 96. [^4]: Amber Magnolia Hill, ‘[[Hill. ‘Story is Medicine_ The Mythic Imagination on the Healing Path’, 2018.|Story is Medicine: The Mythic Imagination on the Healing Path]]’, *Plant Healer*, vol. 8, issue 2 (Spring 2018), p. 96. [^5]: Max Dashu, [[Dashu. 'Witches and Pagans_ Women in European Folk Religion, 700-1100', 2017.|Witches and Pagans: Women in European Folk Religion, 700-1100]] (Richmond, CA: Veleda Press, 2017), p. 14.