Within Tengriism, the veneration of ancestral spirits and natural spirits forms a single, interconnected field of relationship rather than two separate devotions. Ancestors are regarded as powerful, protective presences linked to clan and land, honored as guardians and intermediaries rather than as ultimate deities above Tengri. Their worship centers on offerings of food and drink—especially fermented mare’s milk—presented at family shrines, hearths, or graves, accompanied by prayers and the recitation of genealogies to keep the lineage spiritually alive. Maintaining burial sites and marking specific days to “feed” the dead with symbolic food and libations are seen as religious duties that sustain harmony between the living and the departed. Elders and shamans invoke the names of ancestors at key life events such as birth, marriage, hunting, or warfare, seeking blessing, guidance, and protection. Through such acts, memory, ritual, and place are woven together into a continuous bond with those who have gone before.

Natural spirits are approached in a similarly relational way, but with attention directed to the living landscape—mountains, rivers, springs, forests, and particular trees or stones. These spirits are treated as guardians of specific locales and as expressions of a sacred order permeating the world. Worship commonly takes place at natural shrines such as cairns and sacred trees, where travelers and herders leave offerings of stones, coins, strips of cloth, food, or libations of milk, tea, or alcohol. Prayer ribbons tied to branches or rocks, and stones added to cairns, serve as visible signs of gratitude, petition, or promise to the spirits of place. Taboos against polluting waters, cutting certain trees, or desecrating revered sites function as spiritual disciplines, since offending these spirits is believed to bring misfortune or even broader calamity. Before entering new pastures or hunting grounds, offerings and prayers acknowledge the spirits that “own” the land and animals, affirming a posture of respect rather than domination.

Mediation by shamans stands at the crossroads of these relationships with both ancestors and nature. Through drumming, chanting, and trance, shamans are understood to communicate with ancestral souls and with the spirits of the sky, earth, and underworld, negotiating for healing, protection, or the restoration of balance after misfortune or environmental disturbance. Communal sacrifices of animals may be directed simultaneously to Tengri, to the ancestors, and to local spirits, with different portions of the ritual symbolically allotted to each level of the sacred hierarchy. Smoke from burning fat or aromatic plants is offered as a subtle medium carrying prayers upward and outward. Alongside these more elaborate rites, simple daily gestures—casting the first drops of drink to sky and earth, bowing briefly at a cairn, or maintaining a sacred fire—anchor ordinary life in a web of reciprocal respect. In this way, devotion to ancestral and natural spirits becomes a disciplined practice of living in harmony with the visible and invisible dimensions of the world under the overarching presence of Tengri.