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Death of the Ring Shout

Abstract This article offers an engagement with an ancestral ritual known as the “Ring Shout.” It traces the importance of the African ritual in slave communities, as this phenomenon was used as a way for enslaved Africans held in bondage to Africanize the Christian faith into which they had been converted. It details the death of this ritual, and suggests that not only has it ceased to be operative in African-American Christian congregations, but that ancestor veneration in its original function has also stopped being practiced. Furthermore, the article suggests that African-Americans have bought into the negative, Western engagement with ancestor veneration, despite evidence that the wider culture of the United States engages in its own style and form of this practice. The article concludes with suggestions on how African-American congregations can use the powerful communal binding tool of ancestor veneration to create stronger communities.