While worship of ancestors constitutes 60 % of religious practices and behavior in cultures around the world,¹ the ancestor is the element par excellence that integrates cultural and religious life among some African peoples as well as the Han Chinese people. In those cultural and religious contexts, ancestors are not dead people who have parted completely from this world. They lead a different life, yet they can have an impact on the lives of those living in the visible world. They can mediate graces and enrich this worldly life with exotic favors from the other world. Moreover, they delight in being remembered and suffer when they are forgotten.

Ancestor-related praxes, a vast and complex array of practices, convey, actualize and maintain the relationship that exists between individuals and the community of the living and some of their deceased members. They affirm the overall triumph of life over death. Death does not have the last word; it only operates as a transformation that affects the means of communication between the two types of existence: one in the visible realm and the other in the invisible world. It is up to the living to conceive modalities to maintain the flow between these two worlds. Ancestral rites and liturgies are an expression of a systematic worldview: such understanding calls for actions which have specific purposes.

Ancestor-related practices, however, constitute a hermeneutical problem for those attempting to assess and explain their place and role in traditional societies. A multitude of attributes and theories are applied to them: they are rites or rituals , a form of worship , a cultic system with aspects that can be found in other religious systems, and so forth. The plurality of explanations not only testifies to the awareness of the central role of ancestors in those cultures where they are objects of special treatment, it also confirms the impenetrable character of these phenomena such that they cannot be addressed in pure and clear language. They constitute a hermeneutical problem, which we illustrate by a critical and historical overview of the interpretations made of ancestor -related practices.

Those interested in deciphering the reasons and motivations behind ancestral rites are usually foreigners: missionaries and researchers in the fields of archaeology, ethnology and anthropology. Local practitioners, on the other hand, are concerned with performing them in the right way, employing the correct methods, attitudes and gestures to ensure their efficacy.² Thus the two groups approach the topic on different inquisitive levels.

As a result of this difference in perspective and emphasis, the theoretical quest for information and debate over the meaning of veneration and worship of ancestors initially attracted more foreigners than native practitioners.³ Moreover, when foreigners sought to construct an accurate description of ancestral rituals , it was a methodological strategy aimed at accessing a more convincing explanation—a theory. Their endeavor was not oriented toward producing manuals—as Chu Hsi and the Confucian tradition did—but rather toward providing a better appraisal of Chinese culture. Their findings not only depicted the Chinese as a religious people, they also confirmed ancestral rites as occupying a dominant place in their religiosity. A similar observation can be made regarding the attention missionaries and other European scholars have given to the study of what came to be called African traditional religions.

The present work ponders on the plurality of interpretations of ancestor-related praxes. It explores the riddles inherent in those interpretations in the context of a hermeneutic of contacts between culture and religion. Chinese ancestor-related praxes gave rise to numerous interpretations by foreign interpreters, which triggered a controversy in China whose consequences are believed to still affect the reception and rooting of Christianity on Chinese soil. Elsewhere, ancestor-related praxes were among the “anchored pagan practices” against which missionaries fought but which they nevertheless failed to eradicate. These practices were maintained in subtle ways and were identified as the nucleus of “animism” and “African Traditional Religion.”

The aim of this work is not only to present the available interpretation s but to ponder them in a way that directs us to the necessity of identifying other explanations and hence broadens the hermeneutic field of the considered phenomena. This broadening is made possible by applying a critical method involving intrusive reading that is aware of structural reins of power which condition any effort to understand. An “intrusive reader” is not content to know “what is said, what is apparent” but also seeks to know what “the apparent” is attempting to hide.

This book provides a comprehensive assessment of the perceptions and interpretation s of foreign interpreters of those praxes. Moreover, the act of reading intrusively enables us to situate each explanation in its original context. In this way, it sheds light on the dynamics that determined the importance of a question and conditioned the answer that was offered. The process shows the extent to which the act of interpreting is dependent on the context in which it occurs. There are no pure and completely disinterested explanations. Moreover, explanations are answers in that they solve the riddles of an inquirer. This being the case, the fundamental question regarding the existing hermeneutics of ancestor -related praxes is “whose questions do they answer?”

The exploration of this fundamental question leads us to acknowledge two types of dynamics regarding the investigation of these phenomena and prompts us to ponder the essence of Chinese religion , suggesting that ancestor -related practices could indeed be looked at as the essence of Chinese religion. The interest in ancestor-related praxes is driven by two different motives. The first is an effort to provide a rational and systematic description of the behaviors of indigenous peoples vis-à-vis their dead relatives. The second motive is to remain connected to and in harmony with the nucleus that nurtures one’s existence. This desire is in fact what makes of ancestor-related praxes a religion. In ancestor-related practices, every action and thought works around the ancestors and addresses them as the main focus of the liturgical action. One who looks deeply at this second form of hermeneutics will understand why it is important to let go of generic terminology such as ancestor worship , ancestor veneration , ancestor rites and even traditional religions, as if any religion in existence were not deeply traditional.

This book begins with a discussion of ancestor -related praxes as factors that trigger interpretative curiosity—as facts that require systematic explanations of ancestor-related practices.

Chapter 2 describes how, in the meeting of cultures (Western and Chinese), ancestor -related practices attracted the intellectual curiosity of many foreign interpreters who found in them a hermeneutic problem. It further defines the methodological framework for a reassessment of the explanations they offered.

Ancestor-related practices are ritual performances enacting a symbolism whose meanings are intertwined with, and circumscribed within, a given context. Their meaning, however, cannot be easily defined since key concepts such as ancestor , rites and tradition derive from different disciplines and convey nuances which complicate any definition . Moreover, ancestor-related practices are also a tradition, that is, praxis received from elders and handed down through generations. For insofar as this transmission is mechanical, it can only be concerned with questions of orthopraxis—doing the right thing at the right time and the right place. But foreign curiosity regarding ancestor-related practices has not so much been posited on orthopraxis as it has been concerned with orthodoxy. Why?

The methodological framework for addressing this question is inspired by Nicolas Standaert’s views on the interpretation of cross-cultural interactions⁴ and Michel Foucault ’s considerations on the relation between power and understanding. In light of their insights, I delineate three elements that are particularly involved in and related to the interpretation of ancestor -related practices. These are: (1) tradition, that is, what is received in order to be passed on; (2) reins of power that influence, condition and orient a choice; and (3) salvation, understood as the quest for existential meaning. An awareness of how these elements are intertwined in every interpretation will prevent simplistic generalizations and facilitate an enriching dialogue among the existing explanations.

Chapter 3 develops at length answers to the question of what has been said regarding Chinese ancestor -related practices. Though their descriptions differ, the observations share a common epistemic concern. They provide evidence of the important role ancestor rites played and of foreign interpreters’ perceptions of the realities and practices related to them. Ancestor rites are a basic component of Chinese culture. Any serious and in-depth encounter with that culture eventually leads to a recognition of the felt need to honor one’s deceased relatives. In Chinese history, this goes hand in hand with a philosophy of filial piety , inspiring an elaborate ritual system that stresses the necessity of caring for and showing reverence to parents—while they are still alive and even after they are dead. In practical terms, this philosophy has inspired sophisticated and ritualized forms of relating to elders, especially those already dead. Ancestor rites fulfill a need to communicate with and relate to departed relatives.

The expressions of that need for communication not only piqued the curiosity of foreign interpreters, but also defied their assumptions. Many of the interpretations were dependent on a theological, specifically monotheistic, mindset. They sought to establish whether such practices constitute a religion , using concepts such as “worship ,” “sacrifice,” “offering,” “prayer,” “God,” “divinity,” “idolatry” and “superstition. ”

The place and role of ancestors constitute a reference point not only for the analysis of intercultural interactions in China but also for developing a history of religious movements in China. Every religion that has entered China has in one way or another taken up a position with regard to an aspect of practices related to ancestors. Buddhism, despite its well-developed eschatology (elaborated around the notion of reincarnation and different layers of retribution), had to deal with Chinese ancestor -related issues. Islam and Judaism adopted Confucian views of filial piety in order to accommodate the claims raised by the problematic of ancestors within the Chinese religious and cultural worldview.⁵

As for the West, Matteo Ricci was the first to consider seriously the important role the Chinese assign to their ancestors. He treated the veneration as part of a civil rite that Chinese neophytes could continue to practice. From that time on, the question of rites devoted to ancestors has continued to attract the attention of foreign minds striving to comprehend the core of Chinese culture. Among the notable foreign sinologists, there have been Catholic and Protestant missionaries as well as scholars who backed up their interest with methodological techniques developed in the field of the human sciences.

Because of the diversity of motives and methodological techniques, each approach has its own features and interpretation of ancestor rites. As a result, there is a plurality of interpretations that create what Paul Ricoeur, in his technical language, has called a conflict of interpretation . Here, the conflict refers not only to the distance between the interpreter and what is to be interpreted; it also alludes to the plurality of voices and emphases emanating from different explanations. This conflict...