ABSTRACT
Offerings to the ancestors are made on a variety of occasions. 398 Mostly they are given on the advice of a diviner in response to a particular misfortune, such as sickness, but some offerings are made regularly at points in the agricultural cycle, e.g. planting and harvesting, and they may also be made at events such as a marriage or birth, and upon embarking on or returning from a journey. The forms of offering vary from simple libations of lwanga, a mixture of millet flour and water, through offerings of grain, beer or porridge to blood sacrifice.399 The most common sacrificial victims are goats and sheep, the slaughter of cattle being mainly reserved for sacrifices to royal ancestors. The particular form of offering chosen usually depends upon the advice of a diviner, but some offerings, and especially those of lwa.nga, may be made without such external prompting. Most offerings are made at the homestead of the offerer, though offerings to royal ancestors appear generally to be made at the royal graves. In Unyamwezi proper and Usukuma, shrines, makigabilo, in the form of small huts, about two to three feet in height, are erected for the ancestor to whom the offering is made. Among the Sumbwa simpler shrines, consisting of a small number of short wooden stakes stuck in the ground, are used. '00
