While substantial work has been done, in linking local communities to heritage, mainstream, western disciplinary approaches to heritage studies have missed the complex nuances of heritage significance in Africa- especially the complex links between local communities, their ancestral connections and how the connection influences how communities think of, produce, reproduce, protect and use natural and cultural heritage. For the “non-expert” communities, the mundane, the simple, and perhaps the ordinary takes central position in how their heritage is produced and used. In this brief reflection, I draw from a few examples to show how heritage places lend themselves to being confounded as sacred, ancestral places, by local communities.