Fourteen artists and picture book illustrators present paintings with descriptions of ancestors or other sources of inspiration that have inspired them.

Discover the Spiritual Nourishment and Magical Power of Ancestor Veneration Learn how to connect to your ancestors and receive the benefits that come from veneration—deeper spirituality, more love in your life, better outcomes in creative pursuits, powerful magic and spellwork, and an improved sense of wellness. Filled with hands-on techniques and tips, Honoring Your Ancestors shows you how to create an ancestor altar so you can work with ancestors of all kinds. Author Mallorie Vaudoise also shares fascinating ideas for incorporating rituals, spells, family recipes, and even practices like music and dancing to help you open this wonderful new dimension of your spiritual journey. Ancestor veneration is one of the most widespread spiritual practices in the world. This book shares the important distinctions between working with blood ancestors, lineage ancestors, and affinity ancestors while helping you recognize the signs that your ancestors are responding to your petitions and offerings. You will also explore important topics like mediumship and ancestral trauma so you can be sure to develop a veneration practice that's uplifting and affirming for you.

"Honoring our Ancestors provides 50 stories that hold one common thread--the seemingly endless ways to creatively pay tribute to those who came before us. One man built a Viking ship and sailed across the Atlantic; another devoted decades to collecting slavery memorabilia. One family passed a diaper down through four generations, while another staged a scavenger hunt that helped family members get to know their ancestral hometown"--Back cover.

Donald Matthews affirms once and for all the African foundation of African-American religious practice. His analysis of the methods employed by historians, social scientists, and literary critics in the study of African-American religion and the Negro spiritual leads him to develop a methodology that encompasses contemporary scholarship without compromising the integrity of African-American religion and culture. Because the Negro spiritual is the earliest extant body of African-American folk religious narration, Matthews believes that it holds the key to understanding African-American religion. He explores the works of such seminal black scholars as W. E. B. DuBois, Melville Herskovits, and Zora Neale Hurston, tracing the early development of the African-centered approach to the interpretation of African-American religion. This approach involves "cultural/structuralism", the author's term for the method used by DuBois, Herskovits, and Hurston that emphasizes the thick reading of narrative expressions. Such a reading allows the scholar to identify the cultural significance of particular oral and written texts and serves as a point of identification and a cultural link between African and African-American religion. Matthews' close analysis of the spiritual employs a dialectical and postmodernist reading and reveals a religious philosophy that addresses the deepest concerns and desires of Africans in America. These concerns are cultural, political, and psychological, but are ultimately related to African religious structures of meaning. This book poses a challenge to end the battle between Afrocentrists and multiculturalists by acknowledging their common intellectual heritage in the works of DuBois, Herskovits, and Hurston. It will be of great interest to students and scholars of African-American religion and culture and those interested in Afrocentric literature.

Weaving Memory is a journey into the world of ancestor work, and a primer for anyone seeking to develop a relationship with their beloved dead. We all have ancestors to connect to, and their blessings and protection are key to remembering where we came from and who we are. They help us understand the complexity of human relationships. Recovering the links to our ancestors is a way to wholeness, and the gift of Laura Patsouris in this book.

"Provides new insights into how enslaved and freed Africans in the New World navigated racialized landscapes while honoring the memories of their dead."--Laurie A. Wilkie, coauthor of Sampling Many Pots: An Archaeology of Memory and Tradition at a Bahamian Plantation "Turner's unique hybrid approach makes this book a valuable resource in the study of the African diaspora."--Rosalyn Howard, author of Black Seminoles in the Bahamas The Anglican Church established St. Matthew's Parish on the eastern side of Nassau to accommodate a population increase after British Loyalists migrated to the Bahamas in the 1780s. The parish had three separate cemeteries: the churchyard cemetery and Centre Burial Ground were for whites, but the Northern Burial Ground was officially consecrated for nonwhites in 1826 by the Bishop of Jamaica. In Honoring Ancestors in Sacred Space, Grace Turner posits that the African-Bahamian community intentionally established this separate cemetery in order to observe non-European burial customs. Analyzing the landscape and artifacts found at the site, Turner shows how the community used this space to maintain a sense of social and cultural belonging despite the power of white planters and the colonial government. Although the Northern Burial Ground was covered by storm surges in the 1920s, and later a sidewalk was built through the site, Turner's fieldwork reveals a wealth of material culture. She points to the cemetery's location near water, trees planted at the heads of graves, personal items left with the dead, and remnants of food offerings as evidence of mortuary practices originating in West and Central Africa. According to Turner, these African-influenced ways of memorializing the dead illustrate W. E. B. Du Bois's idea of "double consciousness"--the experience of existing in two irreconcilable cultures at the same time. Comparing the burial ground with others in Great Britain and the American colonies, Turner demonstrates how Africans in the Atlantic diaspora did not always adopt European customs but often created a separate, parallel world for themselves. A volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series

To many polytheists ancestor work is crucial to having healthy, deeply engaged, productive spirituality. It provides a foundation, a protection, and a vital source of personal luck and power that positions one to better withstand the challenges of engaged, devotional living. "Honoring the Ancestors: A Basic Guide" takes the readers through all the necessary dos and don'ts on their way to establishing a richly textured, consistent, and powerful ancestor practice. Born out of an eight week online course offered by the author in 2013-2014, this unique book provides all information readers need to get started honoring their dead.