ancestral customs
Ways of forebears
Ancestral customs are traditions and practices passed down through generations within a family or cultural group.
The phrase emphasizes continuity with forebears—ways of doing things inherited from grandparents and great-grandparents: The wedding followed ancestral customs from the old country.
The term often appears in discussions of cultural preservation or conflicts between tradition and modernity.
- ritesFormal ceremonial acts
- traditional attireCulturally inherited clothing
- folkloreInherited cultural narratives
- harvest celebrationsEvents marking crop completion
- family altarDomestic place of worship
spirit world · festivals · sacred objects · kinship · totems · sacred ground · taboos · sacrifices · feast days · oral traditions · passing down · heirlooms · genealogies · blood ties · initiations · elder wisdom · proverbs · naming ceremonies
- heritagecultural traditions, museum, national heritage, archive, monument
- folk beliefssuperstition, superstitions, folk beliefs, omens, good luck
- diasporaAfrican diaspora, exiles, Irish diaspora, emigrants, Jewish diaspora
- representationproportional representation, diverse casting, visibility, representation matters, marginalized voices
- tribal marriagebride price, bridewealth, marriage ceremony, tribal ceremonies, wedding rituals
ancestral customsmodernization
Adoption of current methods
iconoclasm · reform movements · westernization · assimilation · secularization