Rites of sacrifice among the Lugbara

The degree of cultural variation from one part of Lugbara to another is so great that there appears to be no fixed forms of ritual behaviour associated with sacrifice, nor many generally accepted views as to the aims of these behaviours. The Lugbara construct a great many shrines in and near their homesteads, at which offerings are made to the dead and to many kinds of spirits. Herein the problem of the relationship between forms of ritual offering, sickness, sin, and the continual restructuring of ordered social relations is addressed. Since living persons (save rainmakers or prophets) cannot directly contact Divine Spirit, they must request the dead to do so. There is a clear action of identification by a rite of encirclement of the sacrifier’s head or homestead or, in the case of a ceremony performed by a rainmaker, of the group’s territory. In all these rites, there is the consecration of an offering by means either of words or the laying on of hands

Archaeology · Ceremony · Consecration · Political science · Rite · Sacrifice · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Archaeology and Rock Art Studies · History · Indian and Buddhist Studies · Law

• Lugbara religion

  John Middleton•Lugbara religion•1999

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