Libation is the pouring out of liquid, water, palm wine, spirits or another drink, as an offering to God, the divinities, and above all the ancestors, and it is among the most widespread ritual acts of West African and African-diaspora religion. Poured onto the ground, often at the start of a gathering or ceremony, accompanied by the calling of names and words of prayer, the libation opens communication with the unseen world, honours the ancestors on whom the living depend, and invites their presence and blessing on the occasion.
In many communities it is a solemn but everyday act, performed before meetings, celebrations and important undertakings, and its logic reflects a worldview in which the dead remain members of the community and the divine is addressed through concrete, shared gesture. The practice has been carried across the Atlantic and is found throughout the African diaspora, and in the twentieth century it was consciously revived as a mark of heritage, for instance in commemorations that pour libation to the ancestors of the enslaved.