In the mid-1960s, the people of the rural settlement of Cata in the Keiskammahoek district of the then Ciskei bantustan were moved by the apartheid government’s “betterment planning” programme, from their small patrilineal-kinship-based residential clusters into larger, more concentrated residential areas; they were thus effectively forcibly villagised. This paper examines what appears to be a new ritual that has arisen in response to members of these agnatic clusters now being scattered throughout these new residential areas. The ritual of “fetching the ancestors,” thus of collectively bringing the ancestors of an entire local agnatic cluster from the old settlement areas to the new villages, embodies elements of, but is significantly different from, existing ancestor rituals. By comparing it with other similar rituals elsewhere, including those performed to return the spirits of dead struggle veterans to their places of origin, the paper highlights similarities with those rituals and the innovative dimensions of this particular ritual.

在1960年代中期，当时的种族隔离政府的“改善计划”计划将当时的Ciskei bantustan的Keiskammahoek地区Cata的农村居民从他们小的以父系血统为基础的住宅区迁移到更大，更集中的地区。居民区; 因此，他们被有效地强加了防卫措施。本文研究了似乎是一种新的仪式，它是由于这些游乐团成员分散在新的居住区中而产生的。“获取祖先”的仪式，从而将整个本地阿格纳群的祖先从旧居民区带到新村集体，体现了现有祖先仪式的要素，但与之明显不同。通过将其与其他地方的其他类似仪式进行比较，