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Article: The universality of ancestor worship.
- Article from:
- Ethnology
- Article date:
- December 22, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 University of Pittsburgh, Department of Anthropology. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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A "professional malpractice of anthropologists to exaggerate the exotic character of other cultures" (Bloch 1977:285) has been detrimental to the study of cultural universals. This is highly regrettable because "universals not only exist but are important to any broad conception of the task of anthropology" (Brown 1991:5). Further, in the anthropological study of indigenous religions, a focus on differences has caused an apparently universal aspect of religion to be overlooked: the claim that ancestors influence the living and/or are influenced by the living. We argue here that such claims of communication between the dead and their descendants are universal and may be the ...