House of Roots and Bones: Ancestors Department
IV. ANCESTORS — DEATH, FAMILY & ANCESTRAL VENERATION
HORB ANC 211 — Ancestors in Black Southern Folk Tradition
Examines family dead, household memory, dreams, burial places, inherited objects, and ancestral presence within Black Southern folk tradition. Students distinguish documented family remembrance from generalized modern language about anonymous ancestors. Establishes the cultural and spiritual foundation for the entire ancestral curriculum.
HORB ANC 212 — Building and Maintaining an Ancestor Table
Teaches students how to establish and maintain ancestral remembrance spaces with discipline and purpose. Students study photographs, Bibles, water, flowers, heirlooms, names, lighting, cleanliness, prayer, and family-specific customs. Emphasis is placed on known family connection, remembrance, respect, and proper boundaries.
HORB ANC 213 — Feeding, Remembering & Honoring the Dead
Examines food, drink, flowers, prayers, songs, stories, grave visits, anniversaries, and other acts of remembrance. Students consider the difference between remembrance, hospitality, petition, obligation, and attempting to compel spiritual activity. Prepares students for deeper work involving family relationships and inherited obligations.
HORB ANC 214 — Family Photographs, Heirlooms & Personal Effects
Studies photographs, clothing, jewelry, tools, Bibles, letters, furniture, recipes, and belongings associated with deceased relatives. Students examine how objects carry documentary, emotional, family, and sometimes spiritual significance. Teaches proper preservation, identification, and spiritual considerations.
HORB ANC 215 — Dreams of the Dead
Examines dreams involving deceased relatives within Black Southern folk belief and ordinary grief. Students study visitation traditions, symbolic dreams, memory dreams, and warning dreams. Students learn to record dreams before assigning meaning and develop disciplined discernment.
HORB ANC 216 — Funeral Customs & Black Southern Deathways
Examines wakes, home funerals, church funerals, burial practices, mourning clothing, food, music, and Black Southern homegoing traditions. Students consider how community, religion, geography, economics, and segregation shaped deathways. Establishes essential context for cemetery and grief studies.
HORB ANC 217 — Homegoing, Mourning & Memorial Practice
Studies what happens after burial as families continue mourning, remembering, praying, gathering, visiting graves, and preserving stories. Students examine the homegoing tradition as both religious ceremony and community care. Prepares future workers to support grieving families without exploiting vulnerability.
HORB ANC 218 — Cemeteries as Sacred Ground
Introduces cemeteries as places of family memory, history, community identity, and spiritual significance. Students study cemetery layouts, Black burial grounds, church cemeteries, family plots, and segregated burial histories. Proper behavior, preservation, observation, and respect are emphasized before studying materia collection.
HORB ANC 219 — Graveyard Etiquette & Graveyard Dirt
Introduces the traditional logic surrounding grave selection, permission, payment, dirt collection, conduct, boundaries, and departure. Students learn why graveyard dirt is understood in relation to the identity, reputation, and circumstances of the dead. Completion is required for every advanced cemetery and deathwork course.
HORB ANC 220 — Knowing Your Dead: Genealogy as Ancestral Practice
Teaches students to identify their dead through genealogy, oral history, family records, cemeteries, obituaries, census materials, family Bibles, and community testimony. Students learn to distinguish documented relationships from assumptions and address the challenges of Black American genealogical research. Builds an ancestral record connecting names, places, relationships, occupations, and stories.