one. During the period of family mourning, it is
customary for friends and relatives of the deceased
to bring gifts of food to the home of the closest liv-
ing relatives. Additionally, following the funeral
ceremony, a community feast is held, during
which attendees discuss the living in the fondest of
terms. These practices, fairly common in the
United States, are directly related to the funerary
practices of other Diasporic communities.
This celebration of the loved one’s existence is
often carried over beyond the immediate period of
their passing in North America, as well as in the
entire Diaspora. Many Africans, as is commonly
written, continue to practice ancestor veneration.
Part of the honoring practice is to offer food to the
Dead. Although Africans certainly understand
that the person is no longer flesh, they do believe
that offering food is critical to the strength of
those on the other side.
This use of food may be understood as a token of
exchange in which the living offers the Dead energy
with which the Dead becomes more able to offer
support and guidance to the living. Therefore, the
relationship between the living and the Dead can be
understood as highly reciprocal. If the living fail to
meet their obligations to the deceased, including
failure to provide them with food, the Dead may
withhold their assistance with worldly matters.
Material and Spiritual
The exchange of material food with the spiritual
realm provides insight into the fundamental struc-
ture of African traditional beliefs. The offering of
food stuffs to spiritual entities makes sense in a par-
adigm in which the believer sees both the material
and spiritual inextricably intertwined into one sin-
gular existence. Both of these realms, the material
and the spiritual, are dependent on one another,
and the offering of material food to ancestors and
other spirits is indicative and symbolic of the rela-
tionship between the material and spiritual planes.
When leaving food for ancestral spirits, the
living often offer those foods most enjoyed
before the person died. However, the offering of
food to other spirits requires knowledge of the
requirements of the particular spirit being
served. When working with higher spirits, such
as the Vodun lwa, Yoruba orisha, and/or Akan
abosom, among others, the living offer food
according to the likes, desires, and taboos of the
associated spirit. Additionally, the spirit may,
according to the living’s particular need(s),
require more or less than is commonly offered.
Food preparation is also dependent on the
spirit to which the substance is being offered. For
example, in Haitian Vodou, a chicken offered to
Legba is killed by twisting its neck, whereas
when offering chicken to Loco, the throat must
be cut and the bird bled. But just as the offering
of food exposes the African belief of reciprocal
giving, the sharing of the meal among the believ-
ers following the ritual furthers the notion that
the physical and spiritual attendees are aligned in
pursuit of the requested act. Although the food
offered to the deities is sometimes shared, it is
important to note that there are occasions, espe-
cially those associated cleansing rituals, where
the food stuffs must be properly disposed of
because they have absorbed the negative energy
from the believers.Ritual Stories
Food stuffs are also present within the ritual
stories associated with African spirituality and are
instructive tools symbolizing complex ideas and
concepts. In one such story, Ogun, the god of iron,
technology, and patron of blacksmiths, isolates
himself in a forest. Because the people depended
on his abilities and gifts for most of their daily
lives, the community soon fell into chaos. They
beseeched the great Ogun to return, only to be
ignored by the orisha. Only the orisha of sensual-
ity and female empowerment, Oshun, was able to
lure Ogun from his haven. She spread her honey
on his lips, and the tempted Ogun followed her
out of the forest. Honey, in this story, has been
said to be a metaphor for Oshun’s sexuality, and
the story instructs believers about using their own
particular talents for the good of the community.
Food continues to unite Africans, both
autochthonous and Diasporic, living and dead;
spirit and flesh; it continues to be used as ritual
catalyst, divining tool, and socializing instrument
for many Africans the world over.
Table 1 lists some popular African deities and the
foods most commonly associated with them. Because
specific beliefs and practices vary from region to
region, this list is by no means comprehensive or274 Food