 The ancestors had close ties with the living and received offerings through the “priest” who made appeals to statuettes, the kitebi or bimbi, consecrated by the sorcerer.These figurines were the idealized images of the ancestors and would often wear attributes that allowed them to be identified as medicine men or hunters.The ancestor worship among the Bembe is older, though, and precedes the use of magic statues, nkisi, by the sorcerers.