Cultivating ancestry functions as a buffer against death

Evidence

In cultures throughout history, individual identity has been defined by ancestry. Knowledge of our ancestors keeps the past alive, and if those who have already died are still with us, then we, too, can continue to exist in the minds of future generations after our own death. This is one reason why the dead figure prominently in so many cultures. Recent excavations have found decorated skulls of dead ancestors in homes in the ancient city of Jericho. Today, in Japanese homes, you can often find a butsudan, or family altar, which displays tablets inscribed with ancestors’ names. Americans now devote considerable resources to searching for distant relatives on websites to flesh out their family trees. Indeed, thanks to DNA sequencing technology, you can now spit in a cup and find out if you are a descendant of Genghis Khan, Thomas Jefferson, or even a nameless Neanderthal. — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 407

Categorization

• DEFINE: Anchors ancestor-worship, family altars, and genealogy sites in a single death-denial motive.
• XREF: The decorated Jericho skulls echo the ancestor-reverence patterns in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. — connects to: Paternity was socially invented to give men immortality through heirs — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 186