Ancestor worship and spirit worship, in one form or another, are an integral part almost all indigenous African religion. Although the spread of Christianity and Islam, among other religions, have changed the nature of Africa’s spiritual comprehension of the world over the years, yet the ancient practices have not vanished altogether. Most of them continue to exist all across Africa, mitigated through the later faith structures. In strange and often barely recognizable ways, they still exist and form an integral part of African culture, and can be identified if you travel to Africa and witness some of the tribal rituals.

Many tribes distinguish between spirit worship and ancestor worship. In many other African religious practices, however, they collapse and become synonymous with each other: where the spirits of the ancestors are invoked. African traditional religion is often vilified by most branches of our modern humanist and liberal education and discarded as mere superstition. However, we must understand that many of these practices are not only beneficial but also extremely important. The mnemonic chants and the music accompanying the rituals of spirit invocation are repositories of African history (most of which is oral) and African art (through masks, music and folk drama).

Magic in Africa religion is usually employed for two distinct purposes. It is often used for communal benefit: praying for a good harvest, a much needed rain, fertility of human beings and domestic animals etc. It could also be invoked for the destructions of enemies: physical and supernatural. Secondly, African spirit worship has a judicial connotation. The validity of the juridical structure in many old African tribes is often ascertained through these ritualistic practices. Therefore, the importance of magical practices, and ancestral and spirit worship is immensely important for the proper sustenance of a particular tribe and its social cohesion.