CHAPTER II. THE KILLING OF THE DIVINE KING.

§ 1. Preference for a Violent Death.

(M4) If the high gods, who dwell remote from the fret and fever of this

earthly life, are yet believed to die at last, it is not to be expected

that a god who lodges in a frail tabernacle of flesh should escape the

same fate, though we hear of African kings who have imagined themselves

immortal by virtue of their sorceries.(18) Now primitive peoples, as we

have seen,(19) sometimes believe that their safety and even that of the

world is bound up with the life of one of these god-men or human

incarnations of the divinity. Naturally, therefore, they take the utmost

care of his life, out of a regard for their own. But no amount of care and

precaution will prevent the man-god from growing old and feeble and at

last dying. His worshippers have to lay their account with this sad

necessity and to meet it as best they can. The danger is a formidable one;

for if the course of nature is dependent on the man-god’s life, what

catastrophes may not be expected from the gradual enfeeblement of his

powers and their final extinction in death? There is only one way of

averting these dangers. The man-god must be killed as soon as he shews

symptoms that his powers are beginning to fail, and his soul must be

transferred to a vigorous successor before it has been seriously impaired

by the threatened decay. The advantages of thus putting the man-god to

death instead of allowing him to die of old age and disease are, to the

savage, obvious enough. For if the man-god dies what we call a natural

death, it means, according to the savage, that his soul has either

voluntarily departed from his body and refuses to return, or more commonly

that it has been extracted, or at least detained in its wanderings, by a

demon or sorcerer.(20) In any of these cases the soul of the man-god is

lost to his worshippers; and with it their prosperity is gone and their

very existence endangered. Even if they could arrange to catch the soul of

the dying god as it left his lips or his nostrils and so transfer it to a

successor, this would not effect their purpose; for, dying of disease, his

soul would necessarily leave his body in the last stage of weakness and

exhaustion, and so enfeebled it would continue to drag out a languid,

inert existence in any body to which it might be transferred. Whereas by

slaying him his worshippers could, in the first place, make sure of

catching his soul as it escaped and transferring it to a suitable

successor; and, in the second place, by putting him to death before his

natural force was abated, they would secure that the world should not fall

into decay with the decay of the man-god. Every purpose, therefore, was

answered, and all dangers averted by thus killing the man-god and

transferring his soul, while yet at its prime, to a vigorous successor.

(M5) Some of the reasons for preferring a violent death to the slow death

of old age or disease are obviously as applicable to common men as to the

man-god. Thus the Mangaians think that “the spirits of those who die a

natural death are excessively feeble and weak, as their bodies were at

dissolution; whereas the spirits of those who are slain in battle are

strong and vigorous, their bodies not having been reduced by disease.”(21)

The Barongo believe that in the world beyond the grave the spirits of

their dead ancestors appear with the exact form and lineaments which their

bodies exhibited at the moment of death; the spirits are young or old

according as their bodies were young or old when they died; there are baby

spirits who crawl about on all fours.(22) The Lengua Indians of the Gran

Chaco are persuaded that the souls of the departed correspond exactly in

form and characteristics to the bodies which they quitted at death; thus a

tall man is tall, a short man is short, and a deformed man is deformed in

the spirit-land, and the disembodied soul of a child remains a child, it

never develops into an adult. Hence they burn the body of a murderer and

scatter the ashes to the winds, thinking that this treatment will prevent

his spirit from assuming human shape in the other world.(23) So, too, the

Naga tribes of Manipur hold that the ghost of a dead man is an exact image

of the deceased as he was at the moment of death, with his scars, tattoo

marks, mutilations, and all the rest.(24) The Baganda think that the

ghosts of men who were mutilated in life are mutilated in like manner

after death; so to avoid that shame they will rather die with all their

limbs than lose one by amputation and live.(25) Hence, men sometimes

prefer to kill themselves or to be killed before they grow feeble, in

order that in the future life their souls may start fresh and vigorous as

they left their bodies, instead of decrepit and worn out with age and

disease. Thus in Fiji, “self-immolation is by no means rare, and they

believe that as they leave this life, so they will remain ever after. This

forms a powerful motive to escape from decrepitude, or from a crippled

condition, by a voluntary death.”(26) Or, as another observer of the

Fijians puts it more fully, “the custom of voluntary suicide on the part

of the old men, which is among their most extraordinary usages, is also

connected with their superstitions respecting a future life. They believe

that persons enter upon the delights of their elysium with the same

faculties, mental and physical, that they possess at the hour of death, in

short, that the spiritual life commences where the corporeal existence

terminates. With these views, it is natural that they should desire to

pass through this change before their mental and bodily powers are so

enfeebled by age as to deprive them of their capacity for enjoyment. To

this motive must be added the contempt which attaches to physical weakness

among a nation of warriors, and the wrongs and insults which await those

who are no longer able to protect themselves. When therefore a man finds

his strength declining with the advance of age, and feels that he will

soon be unequal to discharge the duties of this life, and to partake in

the pleasures of that which is to come, he calls together his relations,

and tells them that he is now worn out and useless, that he sees they are

all ashamed of him, and that he has determined to be buried.” So on a day

appointed they used to meet and bury him alive.(27) In Vaté, one of the

New Hebrides, the aged were buried alive at their own request. It was

considered a disgrace to the family of an old chief if he was not buried

alive.(28) Of the Kamants, a Jewish tribe in Abyssinia, it is reported

that “they never let a person die a natural death, but that if any of

their relatives is nearly expiring, the priest of the village is called to

cut his throat; if this be omitted, they believe that the departed soul

has not entered the mansions of the blessed.”(29) The old Greek

philosopher Heraclitus thought that the souls of those who die in battle

are purer than the souls of those who die of disease.(30)

(M6) Among the Chiriguanos, a tribe of South American Indians on the river

Pilcomayo, when a man was at the point of death his nearest relative used

to break his spine by a blow of an axe, for they thought that to die a

natural death was the greatest misfortune that could befall a man.(31)

Whenever a Payagua Indian of Paraguay, or a Guayana of south-eastern

Brazil, grew weary of life, a feast was made, and amid the revelry and

dancing the man was gummed and feathered with the plumage of many-coloured

birds. A huge jar had been previously fixed in the ground to be ready for

him; in this he was placed, the mouth of the jar was covered with a heavy

lid of baked clay, the earth was heaped over it, and thus “he went to his

doom more joyful and gladsome than to his first nuptials.”(32) Among the

Koryaks of north-eastern Asia, when a man felt that his last hour was

come, superstition formerly required that he should either kill himself or

be killed by a friend, in order that he might escape the Evil One and

deliver himself up to the Good God.(33) Similarly among the Chukchees of

the same region, when a man’s strength fails and he is tired of life, he

requests his son or other near relation to despatch him, indicating the

manner of death he prefers to die. So, on a day appointed, his friends and

neighbours assemble, and in their presence he is stabbed, strangled, or

otherwise disposed of according to his directions.(34) The turbulent

Angamis are the most warlike and bloodthirsty of the wild head-hunting

tribes in the valley of the Brahmapootra. Among them, when a warrior dies

a natural death, his nearest male relative takes a spear and wounds the

corpse by a blow on the head, in order that the man may be received with

honour in the other world as one who has died in battle.(35) The heathen

Norsemen believed that only those who fell fighting were received by Odin

in Valhalla; hence it appears to have been customary to wound the dying

with a spear, in order to secure their admission to the happy land. The

custom may have been a mitigation of a still older practice of

slaughtering the sick.(36) We know from Procopius that among the Heruli, a

Teutonic tribe, the sick and old were regularly slain at their own request

and then burned on a pyre.(37) The Wends used to kill their aged parents

and other kinsfolk, and having killed them they boiled and ate their

bodies; and the old folks preferred to die thus rather than to drag out a

weary life of weakness and decrepitude.(38)

§ 2. Kings killed when their Strength fails.

(M7) But it is with the death of the god-man—the divine king or

priest—that we are here especially concerned. The mystic kings of Fire and

Water in Cambodia are not allowed to die a natural death. Hence when one

of them is seriously ill and the elders think that he cannot recover, they

stab him to death.(39) The people of Congo believed, as we have seen,(40)

that if their pontiff the Chitomé were to die a natural death, the world

would perish, and the earth, which he alone sustained by his power and

merit, would immediately be annihilated. Accordingly when he fell ill and

seemed likely to die, the man who was destined to be his successor entered

the pontiff’s house with a rope or a club and strangled or clubbed him to

death.(41) A fuller account of this custom is given by an old Italian

writer as follows: “Let us pass to the death of the magicians, who often

die a violent death, and that for the most part voluntarily. I shall speak

only of the head of this crew, from whom his followers take example. He is

called Ganga Chitome, being reputed god of the earth. The first-fruits of

all the crops are offered to him as his due, because they are thought to

be produced by his power, and not by nature at the bidding of the Most

High God. This power he boasts he can impart to others, when and to whom

he pleases. He asserts that his body cannot die a natural death, and

therefore when he knows he is near the end of his days, whether it is

brought about by sickness or age, or whether he is deluded by the demon,

he calls one of his disciples to whom he wishes to communicate his power,

in order that he may succeed him. And having made him tie a noose to his

neck he commands him to strangle him, or to knock him on the head with a

great cudgel and kill him. His disciple obeys and sends him a martyr to

the devil, to suffer torments with Lucifer in the flames for ever. This

tragedy is enacted in public, in order that his successor may be

manifested, who hath the power of fertilising the earth, the power having

been imparted to him by the deceased; otherwise, so they say, the earth

would remain barren, and the world would perish. Oh too great foolishness

and palpable blindness of the gentiles, to enlighten the eye of whose mind

there would be needed the very hand of Christ whereby he opened the bodily

eyes of him that had been born blind! I know that in my time one of these

magicians was cast into the sea, another into a river, a mother put to

death with her son, and many more seized by our orders and banished.”(42)

The Ethiopian kings of Meroe were worshipped as gods; but whenever the

priests chose, they sent a messenger to the king, ordering him to die, and

alleging an oracle of the gods as their authority for the command. This

command the kings always obeyed down to the reign of Ergamenes, a

contemporary of Ptolemy II., King of Egypt. Having received a Greek

education which emancipated him from the superstitions of his countrymen,

Ergamenes ventured to disregard the command of the priests, and, entering

the Golden Temple with a body of soldiers, put the priests to the

sword.(43)

(M8) Customs of the same sort appear to have prevailed in this region down

to modern times. Thus we are told that in Fazoql, a district in the valley

of the Blue Nile, to the west of Abyssinia, it was customary, as late as

the middle of the nineteenth century, to hang a king who was no longer

beloved. His relatives and ministers assembled round him, and announced

that as he no longer pleased the men, the women, the asses, the oxen, and

the fowls of the country, it was better he should die. Once on a time,

when a king was unwilling to take the hint, his own wife and mother urged

him so strongly not to disgrace himself by disregarding the custom, that

he submitted to his fate and was strung up in the usual way. In some

tribes of Fazoql the king had to administer justice daily under a certain

tree. If from sickness or any other cause he was unable to discharge this

duty for three whole days, he was hanged on the tree in a noose, which

contained two razors so arranged that when the noose was drawn tight by

the weight of the king’s body they cut his throat.(44) At Fazolglou an

annual festival, which partook of the nature of a Saturnalia, was preceded

by a formal trial of the king in front of his house. The judges were the

chief men of the country. The king sat on his royal stool during the

trial, surrounded by armed men, who were ready to carry out a sentence of

death. A little way off a jackal and a dog were tied to a post. The

conduct of the king during his year of office was discussed, complaints

were heard, and if the verdict was unfavourable, the king was executed and

his successor chosen from among the members of his family. But if the

monarch was acquitted, the people at once paid their homage to him afresh,

and the dog or the jackal was killed in his stead. This custom lasted down

to the year 1837 or 1838, when king Yassin was thus condemned and

executed.(45) His nephew Assusa was compelled under threats of death to

succeed him in the office.(46) Afterwards it would seem that the death of

the dog was regularly accepted as a substitute for the death of the king.

At least this may be inferred from a later account of the Fazoql practice,

which runs thus: “The meaning of another of their customs is quite

obscure. At a certain time of the year they have a kind of carnival, where

every one does what he likes best. Four ministers of the king then bear

him on an anqareb out of his house to an open space of ground; a dog is

fastened by a long cord to one of the feet of the anqareb. The whole

population collects round the place, streaming in on every side. They then

throw darts and stones at the dog, till he is killed, after which the king

is again borne into his house.”(47)

(M9) A custom of putting their divine kings to death at the first symptoms

of infirmity or old age prevailed until lately, if indeed it is even now

extinct and not merely dormant, among the Shilluk of the White Nile, and

in recent years it has been carefully investigated by Dr. C. G. Seligmann,

to whose researches I am indebted for the following detailed information

on the subject.(48) The Shilluk are a tribe or nation who inhabit a long

narrow fringe of territory on the western bank of the White Nile from Kaka

in the north to Lake No in the south, as well as a strip on the eastern

bank of the river, which stretches from Fashoda to Taufikia and for some

thirty-five miles up the Sobat River. The country of the Shilluk is almost

entirely in grass, hence the principal wealth of the people consists in

their flocks and herds, but they also grow a considerable quantity of the

species of millet which is known as durra. But though the Shilluk are

mainly a pastoral people, they are not nomadic, but live in many settled

villages. The tribe at present numbers about forty thousand souls, and is

governed by a single king (_ret_), whose residence is at Fashoda. His

subjects take great care of him, and hold him in much honour. In the old

days his word was law and he was not suffered to go forth to battle. At

the present day he still keeps up considerable state and exercises much

authority; his decisions on all matters brought before him are readily

obeyed; and he never moves without a bodyguard of from twelve to twenty

men. The reverence which the Shilluk pay to their king appears to arise

chiefly from the conviction that he is a reincarnation of the spirit of

Nyakang, the semi-divine hero who founded the dynasty and settled the

tribe in their present territory, to which he is variously said to have

conducted them either from the west or from the south. Tradition has

preserved the pedigree of the kings from Nyakang to the present day. The

number of kings recorded between Nyakang and the father of the reigning

monarch is twenty, distributed over twelve generations; but Dr. Seligmann

is of opinion that many more must have reigned, and that the genealogy of

the first six or seven kings, as given to him, has been much abbreviated.

There seems to be no reason to doubt the historical character of all of

them, though myths have gathered like clouds round the persons of Nyakang

and his immediate successors. The Shilluk about Kodok (Fashoda) think of

Nyakang as having been a man in appearance and physical qualities, though

unlike his royal descendants of more recent times he did not die but

simply disappeared. His holiness is manifested especially by his relation

to Jŭok, the great god of the Shilluk, who created man and is responsible

for the order of nature. Jŭok is formless and invisible and like the air

he is everywhere at once. He is far above Nyakang and men alike, but he is

not worshipped directly, and it is only through the intercession of

Nyakang, whose favour the Shilluk secure by means of sacrifices, that Jŭok

can be induced to send the needed rain for the cattle and the crops.(49)

In his character of rain-giver Nyakang is the great benefactor of the

Shilluk. Their country, baked by the burning heat of the tropical sun,

depends entirely for its fertility on the waters of heaven, for the people

do not resort to artificial irrigation. When the rain falls, then the

grass sprouts, the millet grows, the cattle thrive, and the people have

food to eat. Drought brings famine and death in its train.(50) Nyakang is

said not only to have brought the Shilluk into their present land, but to

have made them into a nation of warriors, divided the country among them,

regulated marriage, and made the laws.(51) The religion of the Shilluk at

the present time consists mainly of the worship paid to this semi-divine

hero, the traditionary ancestor of their kings. There seems to be no

reason to doubt that the traditions concerning him are substantially

correct; in all probability he was simply a man whom the superstition of

his fellows in his own and subsequent ages has raised to the rank of a

deity.(52) No less than ten shrines are dedicated to his worship; the

three most famous are at Fashoda, Akurwa, and Fenikang. They consist of

one or more huts enclosed by a fence; generally there are several huts

within the enclosure, one or more of them being occupied by the guardians

of the shrine. These guardians are old men, who not only keep the hallowed

spot scrupulously clean, but also act as priests, killing the sacrificial

victims which are brought to the shrine, sharing their flesh, and taking

the skins for themselves. All the shrines of Nyakang are called graves of

Nyakang (_kengo Nyakang_), though it is well known that nobody is buried

there.(53) Sacred spears are kept in all of them and are used to slaughter

the victims offered in sacrifice at the shrines. The originals of these

spears are said to have belonged to Nyakang and his companions, but they

have disappeared and been replaced by others.

(M10) Two great ceremonies are annually performed at the shrines of

Nyakang: one of them is intended to ensure the fall of rain, the other is

celebrated at harvest. At the rain-making ceremony, which is held before

the rains at the beginning of the month _alabor_, a bullock is slain with

a sacred spear before the door of the shrine, while the king stands by

praying in a loud voice to Nyakang to send down the refreshing showers on

the thirsty land. As much of the blood of the victim as possible is

collected in a gourd and thrown into the river, perhaps as a rain-charm.

This intention of the sacrifice comes out more plainly in a form of the

ritual which is said to be observed at Ashop. There the sacrificial

bullock is speared high up in the flank, so that the wound is not

immediately fatal. Then the wounded animal is allowed and indeed

encouraged to walk to and from the river before it sinks down and dies. In

the blood that streams from its side on the ground the people may see a

symbol of the looked-for rain.(54) Care is taken not to break the bones of

the animal, and they, like the blood, are thrown into the river. At the

annual rain-making ceremony a cow is also dedicated to Nyakang: it is not

killed but added to the sacred herd of the shrine. The other great annual

ceremony observed at the shrines of Nyakang falls at harvest. When the

millet has been reaped, every one brings a portion of the grain to a

shrine of Nyakang, where it is ground into flour, which is made into

porridge with water fetched from the river. Then some of the porridge is

poured out on the threshold of the hut which the spirit of Nyakang is

supposed to inhabit; some of it is smeared on the outer walls of the

building; and some of it is emptied out on the ground outside. Even before

harvest it is customary to bring some of the ripening grain from the

fields and to thrust it into the thatch of the huts in the shrines, no

doubt in order to secure the blessing of Nyakang on the crops. Sacrifices

are also offered at these shrines for the benefit of sick people. A

sufferer will bring or send a sheep to the nearest sanctuary, where the

guardians will slaughter the animal with a sacred spear and pray for the

patient’s recovery.

(M11) It is a fundamental article of the Shilluk creed that the spirit of

the divine or semi-divine Nyakang is incarnate in the reigning king, who

is accordingly himself invested to some extent with the character of a

divinity. But while the Shilluk hold their kings in high, indeed religious

reverence and take every precaution against their accidental death,

nevertheless they cherish “the conviction that the king must not be

allowed to become ill or senile, lest with his diminishing vigour the

cattle should sicken and fail to bear their increase, the crops should rot

in the fields, and man, stricken with disease, should die in ever

increasing numbers.”(55) To prevent these calamities it used to be the

regular custom with the Shilluk to put the king to death whenever he

shewed signs of ill-health or failing strength. One of the fatal symptoms

of decay was taken to be an incapacity to satisfy the sexual passions of

his wives, of whom he has very many, distributed in a large number of

houses at Fashoda. When this ominous weakness manifested itself, the wives

reported it to the chiefs, who are popularly said to have intimated to the

king his doom by spreading a white cloth over his face and knees as he lay

slumbering in the heat of the sultry afternoon. Execution soon followed

the sentence of death. A hut was specially built for the occasion: the

king was led into it and lay down with his head resting on the lap of a

nubile virgin: the door of the hut was then walled up; and the couple were

left without food, water, or fire to die of hunger and suffocation. This

was the old custom, but it was abolished some five generations ago on

account of the excessive sufferings of one of the kings who perished in

this way. He survived his companion for some days, and in the interval was

so distressed by the stench of her putrefying body that he shouted to the

people, whom he could hear moving outside, never again to let a king die

in this prolonged and exquisite agony. After a time his cries died away

into silence; death had released him from his sufferings; but since then

the Shilluk have adopted a quicker and more merciful mode of executing

their kings. What the exact form of execution has been in later times Dr.

Seligmann found it very difficult to ascertain, though with regard to the

fact of the execution he tells us that there is not the least doubt. It is

said that the chiefs announce his fate to the king, and that afterwards he

is strangled in a hut which has been specially built for the occasion.

(M12) From Dr. Seligmann’s enquiries it appears that not only was the

Shilluk king liable to be killed with due ceremony at the first symptoms

of incipient decay, but even while he was yet in the prime of health and

strength he might be attacked at any time by a rival and have to defend

his crown in a combat to the death. According to the common Shilluk

tradition any son of a king had the right thus to fight the king in

possession and, if he succeeded in killing him, to reign in his stead. As

every king had a large harem and many sons, the number of possible

candidates for the throne at any time may well have been not

inconsiderable, and the reigning monarch must have carried his life in his

hand. But the attack on him could only take place with any prospect of

success at night; for during the day the king surrounded himself with his

friends and bodyguards, and an aspirant to the throne could hardly hope to

cut his way through them and strike home. It was otherwise at night. For

then the guards were dismissed and the king was alone in his enclosure

with his favourite wives, and there was no man near to defend him except a

few herdsmen, whose huts stood a little way off. The hours of darkness

were therefore the season of peril for the king. It is said that he used

to pass them in constant watchfulness, prowling round his huts fully

armed, peering into the blackest shadows, or himself standing silent and

alert, like a sentinel on duty, in some dark corner. When at last his

rival appeared, the fight would take place in grim silence, broken only by

the clash of spears and shields, for it was a point of honour with the

king not to call the herdsmen to his assistance.(56)

When the king did not perish in single combat, but was put to death on the

approach of sickness or old age, it became necessary to find a successor

for him. Apparently the successor was chosen by the most powerful chiefs

from among the princes (_niăret_), the sons either of the late king or of

one of his predecessors. Details as to the mode of election are lacking.

So far as Dr. Seligmann could ascertain, the kings elect shewed no

reluctance to accept the fatal sovereignty; indeed he was told a story of

a man who clamoured to be made king for only one day, saying that he was

perfectly ready to be killed after that. The age at which the king was

killed would seem to have commonly been between forty and fifty.(57) To

the improvident and unimaginative savage the prospect of being put to

death at the end of a set time, whether long or short, has probably few

terrors; and if it has any, we may suspect that they are altogether

outweighed in his mind by the opportunities for immediate enjoyment of all

kinds which a kingdom affords to his unbridled appetites and passions.

(M13) An important part of the solemnities attending the accession of a

Shilluk king appears to be intended to convey to the new monarch the

divine spirit of Nyakang, which has been transmitted from the founder of

the dynasty to all his successors on the throne. For this purpose a sacred

four-legged stool and a mysterious object which bears the name of Nyakang

himself are brought with much solemnity from the shrine of Nyakang at

Akurwa to the small village of Kwom near Fashoda, where the king elect and

the chiefs await their arrival. The thing called Nyakang is said to be of

cylindrical shape, some two or three feet long by six inches broad. The

chief of Akurwa informed Dr. Seligmann that the object in question is a

rude wooden figure of a man, which was fashioned long ago at the command

of Nyakang in person. We may suppose that it represents the divine king

himself and that it is, or was formerly, supposed to house his spirit,

though the chief of Akurwa denied to Dr. Seligmann that it does so now. Be

that as it may, the object plays a prominent part at the installation of a

new king. When the men of Akurwa arrive at Kwom with the sacred stool and

the image of Nyakang, as we may call it, they engage in a sham fight with

the men who are waiting for them with the king elect. The weapons used on

both sides are simply stalks of millet. Being victorious in the mock

combat, the men of Akurwa escort the king to Fashoda, and some of them

enter the shrine of Nyakang with the stool. After a short time they bring

the stool forth again and set it on the ground outside of the sacred

enclosure. Then the image of Nyakang is placed on the stool; the king

elect holds one leg of the stool and an important chief holds another. The

king is surrounded by a crowd of princes and nobles, and near him stand

two of his paternal aunts and two of his sisters. After that a bullock is

killed and its flesh eaten by the men of certain families called _ororo_,

who are said to be descended from the third of the Shilluk kings. Then the

Akurwa men carry the image of Nyakang into the shrine, and the _ororo_ men

place the king elect on the sacred stool, where he remains seated for some

time, apparently till sunset. When he rises, the Akurwa men carry the

stool back into the shrine, and the king is escorted to three new huts,

where he stays in seclusion for three days. On the fourth night he is

conducted quietly, almost stealthily, to his royal residence at Fashoda,

and next day he shews himself publicly to his subjects. The three new huts

in which he spent the days of his seclusion are then broken up and their

fragments cast into the river. The installation of a new king generally

takes place about the middle of the dry season; and it is said that the

men of Akurwa tarry at Fashoda with the image of Nyakang till about the

beginning of the rains. Before they leave Fashoda they sacrifice a

bullock, and at every waddy or bed of a stream that they cross they kill a

sheep.

(M14) Like Nyakang himself, their founder, each of the Shilluk kings after

death is worshipped at a shrine, which is erected over his grave, and the

grave of a king is always in the village where he was born.(58) The

tomb-shrine of a king resembles the shrine of Nyakang, consisting of a few

huts enclosed by a fence; one of the huts is built over the king’s grave,

the others are occupied by the guardians of the shrine. Indeed the shrines

of Nyakang and the shrines of the kings are scarcely to be distinguished

from each other, and the religious rituals observed at all of them are

identical in form and vary only in matters of detail, the variations being

due apparently to the far greater sanctity attributed to the shrines of

Nyakang. The grave-shrines of the kings are tended by certain old men or

women, who correspond to the guardians of the shrines of Nyakang. They are

usually widows or old men-servants of the deceased king, and when they die

they are succeeded in their office by their descendants. Moreover, cattle

are dedicated to the grave-shrines of the kings and sacrifices are offered

at them just as at the shrines of Nyakang. Thus when the millet crop

threatens to fail or a murrain to break out among the cattle, either

Nyakang himself or one of his successors on the throne will appear to

somebody in a dream and demand a sacrifice. The dream is reported to the

king, who thereupon at once sends a cow and a bullock to one or more of

the shrines of Nyakang, if it was he who appeared in the vision, or to the

grave-shrine of the particular king whom the dreamer saw in his dream. The

bullock is then sacrificed and the cow added to the sacred herd belonging

to the shrine. Further, the harvest ceremony which is performed at the

shrines of Nyakang is usually, though not necessarily, performed also at

the grave-shrines of the kings; and, lastly, sick folk send animals to be

sacrificed as offerings on their behalf at the shrines of the kings just

as they send them to the shrines of Nyakang.

(M15) Sick people have, indeed, a special reason for sacrificing to the

spirits of the dead kings in the hope of recovery, inasmuch as one of the

commonest causes of sickness, according to the Shilluk, is the entrance of

one of these royal spirits into the body of the sufferer, whose first

care, therefore, is to rid himself as quickly as possible of his august

but unwelcome guest. Apparently, however, it is only the souls of the

early kings who manifest themselves in this disagreeable fashion. Dr.

Seligmann met with a woman, for example, who had been ill and who

attributed her illness to the spirit of Dag, the second of the Shilluk

kings, which had taken possession of her body. But a sacrifice of two

sheep had induced the spirit to quit her, and she wore anklets of beads,

with pieces of the ears of the sheep strung on them, which she thought

would effectually guard her against the danger of being again possessed by

the soul of the dead king. Nor is it only in sickness that the souls of

dead kings are thought to take possession of the bodies of the living.

Certain men and women, who bear the name of _ajuago_, are believed to be

permanently possessed by the spirit of one or other of the early kings,

and in virtue of this inspiration they profess to heal the sick and do a

brisk trade in amulets. The first symptom of possession may take the form

of illness or of a dream from which the sleeper awakes trembling and

agitated. A long and complicated ceremony follows to abate the extreme

force of the spiritual manifestations in the new medium, for were these to

continue in their first intensity he would not dare to approach his women.

But whichever of the dead kings may manifest himself to the living,

whether in dreams or in the form of bodily possession, his spirit is

deemed, at least by many of the Shilluk, to be identical with that of

Nyakang; they do not clearly distinguish, if indeed they distinguish at

all, between the divine spirit of the founder of the dynasty and its later

manifestations in all his royal successors.

(M16) In general the principal element in the religion of the Shilluk

would seem to be the worship which they pay to their sacred or divine

kings, whether dead or alive. These are believed to be animated by a

single divine spirit, which has been transmitted from the semi-mythical,

but probably in substance historical, founder of the dynasty through all

his successors to the present day. Yet the divine spirit, as Dr. Seligmann

justly observes, is clearly not thought of as congenital in the members of

the royal house; it is only conveyed to each king on his accession by

means of the mysterious object called Nyakang, in which, as Dr. Seligmann

with great probability conjectures, the holy spirit of Nyakang may be

supposed to reside. Hence, regarding their kings as incarnate divinities

on whom the welfare of men, of cattle, and of the corn implicitly depends,

the Shilluk naturally pay them the greatest respect and take every care of

them; and however strange it may seem to us, their custom of putting the

divine king to death as soon as he shews signs of ill-health or failing

strength springs directly from their profound veneration for him and from

their anxiety to preserve him, or rather the divine spirit by which he is

animated, in the most perfect state of efficiency: nay, we may go further

and say that their practice of regicide is the best proof they can give of

the high regard in which they hold their kings. For they believe, as we

have seen, that the king’s life or spirit is so sympathetically bound up

with the prosperity of the whole country, that if he fell ill or grew

senile the cattle would sicken and cease to multiply, the crops would rot

in the fields, and men would perish of widespread disease. Hence, in their

opinion, the only way of averting these calamities is to put the king to

death while he is still hale and hearty, in order that the divine spirit

which he has inherited from his predecessors may be transmitted in turn by

him to his successor while it is still in full vigour and has not yet been

impaired by the weakness of disease and old age. In this connexion the

particular symptom which is commonly said to seal the king’s death-warrant

is highly significant; when he can no longer satisfy the passions of his

numerous wives, in other words, when he has ceased, whether partially or

wholly, to be able to reproduce his kind, it is time for him to die and to

make room for a more vigorous successor. Taken along with the other

reasons which are alleged for putting the king to death, this one suggests

that the fertility of men, of cattle, and of the crops is believed to

depend sympathetically on the generative power of the king, so that the

complete failure of that power in him would involve a corresponding

failure in men, animals, and plants, and would thereby entail at no

distant date the entire extinction of all life, whether human, animal, or

vegetable. No wonder, that with such a danger before their eyes the

Shilluk should be most careful not to let the king die what we should call

a natural death of sickness or old age. It is characteristic of their

attitude towards the death of the kings that they refrain from speaking of

it as death: they do not say that a king has died but simply that he has

“gone away” like his divine ancestors Nyakang and Dag, the two first kings

of the dynasty, both of whom are reported not to have died but to have

disappeared. The similar legends of the mysterious disappearance of early

kings in other lands, for example at Rome and in Uganda,(59) may well

point to a similar custom of putting them to death for the purpose of

preserving their life.

(M17) On the whole the theory and practice of the divine kings of the

Shilluk correspond very nearly to the theory and practice of the priests

of Nemi, the Kings of the Wood, if my view of the latter is correct.(60)

In both we see a series of divine kings on whose life the fertility of

men, of cattle, and of vegetation is believed to depend, and who are put

to death, whether in single combat or otherwise, in order that their

divine spirit may be transmitted to their successors in full vigour,

uncontaminated by the weakness and decay of sickness or old age, because

any such degeneration on the part of the king would, in the opinion of his

worshippers, entail a corresponding degeneration on mankind, on cattle,

and on the crops. Some points in this explanation of the custom of putting

divine kings to death, particularly the method of transmitting their

divine souls to their successors, will be dealt with more fully in the

sequel. Meantime we pass to other examples of the general practice.

(M18) The Dinka are a congeries of independent tribes in the valley of the

White Nile, whose territory, lying mostly on the eastern bank of the river

and stretching from the sixth to the twelfth degree of North Latitude, has

been estimated to comprise between sixty and seventy thousand square

miles. They are a tall long-legged people rather slender than fat, with

curly hair and a complexion of the deepest black. Though ill-fed, they are

strong and healthy and in general reach a great age. The nation embraces a

number of independent tribes, and each tribe is mainly composed of the

owners of cattle; for the Dinka are essentially a pastoral people,

passionately devoted to the care of their numerous herds of oxen, though

they also keep sheep and goats, and the women cultivate small quantities

of millet (durra) and sesame. The tribes have no political union. Each

village forms a separate community, pasturing its herds together in the

same grass-land. With the change of the seasons the people migrate with

their flocks and herds to and from the banks of the Nile. In summer, when

the plains near the great river are converted into swamps and covered with

clouds of mosquitoes, the herdsmen and their families drive their beasts

to the higher land of the interior, where the animals find firm ground,

abundant fodder, and pools of water at which to slake their thirst in the

fervour of the noonday heat. Here in the clearings of the forest the

community takes up its abode, each family dwelling by itself in one or

more conical huts enclosed by a strong fence of stakes and thorn-bushes.

It is in the patches of open ground about these dwellings that the women

grow their scanty crops of millet and sesame. The mode of tillage is rude.

The stumps of the trees which have been felled are left standing to a

height of several feet; the ground is hacked by the help of a tool between

a hoe and a spade, and the weeds are uprooted with the hand. Such as it

is, the crop is exposed to the ravages of apes and elephants by night and

of birds by day. The hungry blacks do not always wait till the corn is

ripe, but eat much of it while the ears are still green. The cattle are

kept in separate parks (_murahs_) away from the villages. It is in the

season of the summer rains that the Dinka are most happy and prosperous.

Then the cattle find sweet grass, plentiful water, coolness and shade in

the forest; then the people subsist in comfort on the milk of their flocks

and herds, supplementing it with the millet which they reap and the wild

fruits which they gather in the forest; then they brew the native beer,

then they marry and dance by night under the bright moon of the serene

tropical sky. But in autumn a great change passes over the life of the

community. When October has come, the rains are over, the grass of the

pastures is eaten down or withered, the pools are dry; thirst compels the

whole village, with its lowing herds and bleating flocks, to migrate to

the neighbourhood of the river. Now begins a time of privation and

suffering. There is no grass for the cattle save in some marshy spots,

where the herdsman must fight his rivals in order to win a meagre supply

of fodder for his starveling beasts. There is no milk for the people, no

fruits on the trees, except a bitter sort of acorns, from which a

miserable flour is ground to stay the pangs of hunger. The lean and

famished natives are driven to fish in the river for the tubers of

water-lilies, to grub in the earth for roots, to boil the leaves of trees,

and as a last resource to drink the blood drawn from the necks of their

wretched cattle. The gaunt appearance of the people at this season fills

the beholder with horror. The herds are decimated by famine, but even more

beasts perish by dysentery and other diseases when the first rains cause

the fresh grass to sprout.(61)

(M19) It is no wonder that the rain, on which the Dinka are so manifestly

dependent for their subsistence, should play a great part in their

religion and superstition. They worship a supreme being whose name of

Dengdit means literally Great Rain.(62) It was he who created the world

and established the present order of things, and it is he who sends down

the rain from the “rain-place,” his home in the upper regions of the air.

But according to the Niel Dinka this great being was once incarnate in

human form. Born of a woman, who descended from the sky, he became the

ancestor of a clan which has the rain for its totem; for the recent

researches of Dr. C. G. Seligmann have proved that every Dinka tribe is

divided into a number of clans, each of which reveres as its totem a

species of animals or plants or other natural objects, such as rain or

fire. Animal totems seem to be the commonest; amongst them are the lion,

the elephant, the crocodile, the hippopotamus, the fox, the hyaena, and a

species of small birds called _amur_, clouds of which infest the

cornfields and do great damage to the crops. Each clan speaks of its

totemic animal or plant as its ancestor and refrains from injuring and

eating it. Men of the Crocodile clan, for example, call themselves

“Brothers of the Crocodile,” and will neither kill nor eat the animal;

indeed they will not even eat out of any vessel which has held crocodile

flesh. And as they do not injure crocodiles, so they imagine that their

crocodile kinsfolk will not injure them; hence men of this clan swim

freely in the river, even by night, without fear of being attacked by the

dangerous reptiles. And when the totem is a carnivorous animal, members of

the clan may propitiate it by killing sheep and throwing out the flesh to

be devoured by their animal brethren either on the outskirts of the

village or in the river. Members of the Small Bird (_amur_) clan perform

ceremonies to prevent the birds from injuring the crops. The relationship

between a clan and its animal ancestor or totem is commonly explained by a

legend that in the beginning an ancestress gave birth to twins, one of

whom was the totemic animal and the other the human ancestor. Like most

totemic clans, the clans of the Dinka are exogamous, that is, no man may

marry a woman of his own clan. The descent of the clans is in the paternal

line; in other words, every man and woman belongs to his or her father’s

clan, not to that of his or her mother. But the Rain clan of the Niel

Dinka has for its ancestor, as we have seen, the supreme god himself, who

deigned to be born of a woman and to live for a long time among men,

ruling over them, till at last he grew very old and disappeared

appropriately, like Romulus, in a great storm of rain. Shrines erected in

his honour appear to be scattered all over the Dinka country and offerings

are made at them.

(M20) Perhaps without being unduly rash we may conjecture that the great

god of the Dinka, who gives them the rain, was indeed, what tradition

represents him as having been, a man among men, in fact a human

rain-maker, whom at his death the superstition of his fellows promoted to

the rank of a deity above the clouds. Be that as it may, the human

rain-maker (_bain_) is a very important personage among the Dinka to this

day; indeed the men in authority whom travellers dub chiefs or sheikhs are

in fact the actual or potential rain-makers of the tribe or community.(63)

Each of them is believed to be animated by the spirit of a great

rain-maker, which has come down to him through a succession of

rain-makers; and in virtue of this inspiration a successful rain-maker

enjoys very great power and is consulted on all important matters. For

example, in the Bor tribe of Dinka at the present time there is an old but

active rain-maker named Biyordit, who is reputed to have immanent in him a

great and powerful spirit called Lerpiu, and by reason of this reputation

he exercises immense influence over all the Dinka of the Bor and Tain

tribes. While the mighty spirit Lerpiu is supposed to be embodied in the

rain-maker, it is also thought to inhabit a certain hut which serves as a

shrine. In front of the hut stands a post to which are fastened the horns

of many bullocks that have been sacrificed to Lerpiu; and in the hut is

kept a very sacred spear which bears the name of Lerpiu and is said to

have fallen from heaven six generations ago. As fallen stars are also

called Lerpiu, we may suspect that an intimate connexion is supposed to

exist between meteorites and the spirit which animates the rain-maker; nor

would such a connexion seem unnatural to the savage, who observes that

meteorites and rain alike descend from the sky. In spring, about the month

of April, when the new moon is a few days old, a sacrifice of bullocks is

offered to Lerpiu for the purpose of inducing him to move Dengdit, the

great heavenly rain-maker, to send down rain on the parched and thirsty

earth. Two bullocks are led twice round the shrine and afterwards tied by

the rain-maker to the post in front of it. Then the drums beat and the

people, old and young, men and women, dance round the shrine and sing,

while the beasts are being sacrificed, “Lerpiu, our ancestor, we have

brought you a sacrifice. Be pleased to cause rain to fall.” The blood of

the bullocks is collected in a gourd, boiled in a pot on the fire, and

eaten by the old and important people of the clan. The horns of the

animals are attached to the post in front of the shrine.

(M21) In spite, or rather in virtue, of the high honour in which he is

held, no Dinka rain-maker is allowed to die a natural death of sickness or

old age; for the Dinka believe that if such an untoward event were to

happen, the tribe would suffer from disease and famine, and the herds

would not yield their increase. So when a rain-maker feels that he is

growing old and infirm, he tells his children that he wishes to die. Among

the Agar Dinka a large grave is dug and the rain-maker lies down in it on

his right side with his head resting on a skin. He is surrounded by his

friends and relatives, including his younger children; but his elder

children are not allowed to approach the grave lest in their grief and

despair they should do themselves a bodily injury. For many hours,

generally for more than a day, the rain-maker lies without eating or

drinking. From time to time he speaks to the people, recalling the past

history of the tribe, reminding them how he has ruled and advised them,

and instructing them how they are to act in the future. Then, when he has

concluded his admonition, he tells them that it is finished and bids them

cover him up. So the earth is thrown down on him as he lies in the grave,

and he soon dies of suffocation. Such, with minor variations, appears to

be the regular end of the honourable career of a rain-maker in all the

Dinka tribes. The Khor-Adar Dinka told Dr. Seligmann that when they have

dug the grave for their rain-maker they strangle him in his house. The

father and paternal uncle of one of Dr. Seligmann’s informants had both

been rain-makers and both had been killed in the most regular and orthodox

fashion. Even if a rain-maker is quite young he will be put to death

should he seem likely to perish of disease. Further, every precaution is

taken to prevent a rain-maker from dying an accidental death, for such an

end, though not nearly so serious a matter as death from illness or old

age, would be sure to entail sickness on the tribe. As soon as a

rain-maker is killed, his valuable spirit is supposed to pass to a

suitable successor, whether a son or other near blood relation.

(M22) In the Central African kingdom of Unyoro down to recent years custom

required that as soon as the king fell seriously ill or began to break up

from age, he should die by his own hand; for, according to an old

prophecy, the throne would pass away from the dynasty if ever the king

were to die a natural death. He killed himself by draining a poisoned cup.

If he faltered or were too ill to ask for the cup, it was his wife’s duty

to administer the poison.(64) When the king of Kibanga, on the Upper

Congo, seems near his end, the sorcerers put a rope round his neck, which

they draw gradually tighter till he dies.(65) If the king of Gingero

happens to be wounded in war, he is put to death by his comrades, or, if

they fail to kill him, by his kinsfolk, however hard he may beg for mercy.

They say they do it that he may not die by the hands of his enemies.(66)

The Jukos are a heathen tribe of the Benue river, a great tributary of the

Niger. In their country “the town of Gatri is ruled by a king who is

elected by the big men of the town as follows. When in the opinion of the

big men the king has reigned long enough, they give out that ‘the king is

sick’—a formula understood by all to mean that they are going to kill him,

though the intention is never put more plainly. They then decide who is to

be the next king. How long he is to reign is settled by the influential

men at a meeting; the question is put and answered by each man throwing on

the ground a little piece of stick for each year he thinks the new king

should rule. The king is then told, and a great feast prepared, at which

the king gets drunk on guinea-corn beer. After that he is speared, and the

man who was chosen becomes king. Thus each Juko king knows that he cannot

have very many more years to live, and that he is certain of his

predecessor’s fate. This, however, does not seem to frighten candidates.

The same custom of king-killing is said to prevail at Quonde and Wukari as

well as at Gatri.”(67) In the three Hausa kingdoms of Gobir, Katsina, and

Daura, in Northern Nigeria, as soon as a king shewed signs of failing

health or growing infirmity, an official who bore the title of Killer of

the Elephant (_kariagiwa_) appeared and throttled him by holding his

windpipe. The king elect was afterwards conducted to the centre of the

town, called Head of the Elephant (_kan giwa_), where he was made to lie

down on a bed. Then a black ox was slaughtered and its blood allowed to

pour all over his body. Next the ox was flayed, and the remains of the

dead king, which had been disembowelled and smoked for seven days over a

slow fire, were wrapt up in the hide and dragged along the ground to the

place of burial, where they were interred in a circular pit. After his

bath of ox blood the new king had to remain for seven days in his mother’s

house, undergoing ablutions daily. On the eighth day he was conducted in

state to his palace. In the kingdom of Daura the new monarch had moreover

to step over the corpse of his predecessor.(68)

(M23) The Matiamvo is a great king or emperor in the interior of Angola.

One of the inferior kings of the country, by name Challa, gave to a

Portuguese expedition the following account of the manner in which the

Matiamvo comes by his end. “It has been customary,” he said, “for our

Matiamvos to die either in war or by a violent death, and the present

Matiamvo must meet this last fate, as, in consequence of his great

exactions, he has lived long enough. When we come to this understanding,

and decide that he should be killed, we invite him to make war with our

enemies, on which occasion we all accompany him and his family to the war,

when we lose some of our people. If he escapes unhurt, we return to the

war again and fight for three or four days. We then suddenly abandon him

and his family to their fate, leaving him in the enemy’s hands. Seeing

himself thus deserted, he causes his throne to be erected, and, sitting

down, calls his family around him. He then orders his mother to approach;

she kneels at his feet; he first cuts off her head, then decapitates his

sons in succession, next his wives and relatives, and, last of all, his

most beloved wife, called Anacullo. This slaughter being accomplished, the

Matiamvo, dressed in all his pomp, awaits his own death, which immediately

follows, by an officer sent by the powerful neighbouring chiefs,

Caniquinha and Canica. This officer first cuts off his legs and arms at

the joints, and lastly he cuts off his head; after which the head of the

officer is struck off. All the potentates retire from the encampment, in

order not to witness his death. It is my duty to remain and witness his

death, and to mark the place where the head and arms have been deposited

by the two great chiefs, the enemies of the Matiamvo. They also take

possession of all the property belonging to the deceased monarch and his

family, which they convey to their own residence. I then provide for the

funeral of the mutilated remains of the late Matiamvo, after which I

retire to his capital and proclaim the new government. I then return to

where the head, legs, and arms have been deposited, and, for forty slaves,

I ransom them, together with the merchandise and other property belonging

to the deceased, which I give up to the new Matiamvo, who has been

proclaimed. This is what has happened to many Matiamvos, and what must

happen to the present one.”(69)

(M24) It appears to have been a Zulu custom to put the king to death as

soon as he began to have wrinkles or grey hairs. At least this seems

implied in the following passage written by one who resided for some time

at the court of the notorious Zulu tyrant Chaka, in the early part of the

nineteenth century: “The extraordinary violence of the king’s rage with me

was mainly occasioned by that absurd nostrum, the hair oil, with the

notion of which Mr. Farewell had impressed him as being a specific for

removing all indications of age. From the first moment of his having heard

that such a preparation was attainable, he evinced a solicitude to procure

it, and on every occasion never forgot to remind us of his anxiety

respecting it; more especially on our departure on the mission his

injunctions were particularly directed to this object. It will be seen

that it is one of the barbarous customs of the Zoolas in their choice or

election of their kings that he must neither have wrinkles nor grey hairs,

as they are both distinguishing marks of disqualification for becoming a

monarch of a warlike people. It is also equally indispensable that their

king should never exhibit those proofs of having become unfit and

incompetent to reign; it is therefore important that they should conceal

these indications so long as they possibly can. Chaka had become greatly

apprehensive of the approach of grey hairs; which would at once be the

signal for him to prepare to make his exit from this sublunary world, it

being always followed by the death of the monarch.”(70) The writer to whom

we are indebted for this instructive anecdote of the hair-oil omits to

specify the mode in which a grey-haired and wrinkled Zulu chief used “to

make his exit from this sublunary world”; but on analogy we may conjecture

that he did so by the simple and perfectly sufficient process of being

knocked on the head.

(M25) The custom of putting kings to death as soon as they suffered from

any personal defect prevailed two centuries ago in the Caffre kingdom of

Sofala, to the north of the present Zululand. We have seen that these

kings of Sofala, each of whom bore the official name of Quiteve, were

regarded as gods by their people, being entreated to give rain or

sunshine, according as each might be wanted.(71) Nevertheless a slight

bodily blemish, such as the loss of a tooth, was considered a sufficient

cause for putting one of these god-men to death, as we learn from the

following passage of an old Portuguese historian: “It was formerly the

custom of the kings of this land to commit suicide by taking poison when

any disaster or natural physical defect fell upon them, such as impotence,

infectious disease, the loss of their front teeth, by which they were

disfigured, or any other deformity or affliction. To put an end to such

defects they killed themselves, saying that the king should be free from

any blemish, and if not, it was better for his honour that he should die

and seek another life where he would be made whole, for there everything

was perfect. But the Quiteve who reigned when I was in those parts would

not imitate his predecessors in this, being discreet and dreaded as he

was; for having lost a front tooth he caused it to be proclaimed

throughout the kingdom that all should be aware that he had lost a tooth

and should recognise him when they saw him without it, and if his

predecessors killed themselves for such things they were very foolish, and

he would not do so; on the contrary, he would be very sorry when the time

came for him to die a natural death, for his life was very necessary to

preserve his kingdom and defend it from his enemies; and he recommended

his successors to follow his example.”(72) The same historian tells us

that “near the kingdom of Quiteve is another of which Sedanda is king, the

laws and customs of which are very similar to those of Quiteve, all these

Kaffirs being of the same nation, and these two kingdoms having formerly

been one, as I shall relate hereafter. When I was in Sofala it happened

that King Sedanda was seized with a severe and contagious leprosy, and

seeing that his complaint was incurable, having named the prince who was

to succeed him, he took poison and died, according to the custom of those

kings when they are afflicted with any physical deformity.”(73)

(M26) The king of Sofala who dared to survive the loss of his front tooth

was thus a bold reformer like Ergamenes, king of Ethiopia. We may

conjecture that the ground for putting the Ethiopian kings to death was,

as in the case of the Zulu and Sofala kings, the appearance on their

person of any bodily defect or sign of decay; and that the oracle which

the priests alleged as the authority for the royal execution was to the

effect that great calamities would result from the reign of a king who had

any blemish on his body; just as an oracle warned Sparta against a “lame

reign,” that is, the reign of a lame king.(74) It is some confirmation of

this conjecture that the kings of Ethiopia were chosen for their size,

strength, and beauty long before the custom of killing them was

abolished.(75) To this day the Sultan of Wadai must have no obvious bodily

defect, and the king of Angoy cannot be crowned if he has a single

blemish, such as a broken or a filed tooth or the scar of an old

wound.(76) According to the Book of Acaill and many other authorities no

king who was afflicted with a personal blemish might reign over Ireland at

Tara. Hence, when the great King Cormac Mac Art lost one eye by an

accident, he at once abdicated.(77) It is only natural, therefore, to

suppose, especially with the other African examples before us, that any

bodily defect or symptom of old age appearing on the person of the

Ethiopian monarch was the signal for his execution. At a later time it is

recorded that if the king of Ethiopia became maimed in any part of his

body all his courtiers had to suffer the same mutilation.(78) But this

rule may perhaps have been instituted at the time when the custom of

killing the king for any personal defect was abolished; instead of

compelling the king to die because, for example, he had lost a tooth, all

his subjects would be obliged to lose a tooth, and thus the invidious

superiority of the subjects over the king would be cancelled. A rule of

this sort is still observed in the same region at the court of the Sultans

of Darfur. When the Sultan coughs, every one makes the sound _ts ts_ by

striking the tongue against the root of the upper teeth; when he sneezes,

the whole assembly utters a sound like the cry of the jeko; when he falls

off his horse, all his followers must fall off likewise; if any one of

them remains in the saddle, no matter how high his rank, he is laid on the

ground and beaten.(79) At the court of the king of Uganda in central

Africa, when the king laughs, every one laughs; when he sneezes, every one

sneezes; when he has a cold, every one pretends to have a cold; when he

has his hair cut, so has everybody.(80) At the court of Boni in Celebes it

is a rule that whatever the king does all the courtiers must do. If he

stands, they stand; if he sits, they sit; if he falls off his horse, they

fall off their horses; if he bathes, they bathe, and passers-by must go

into the water in the dress, good or bad, which they happen to have

on.(81) When the emperor of China laughs, the mandarins in attendance

laugh also; when he stops laughing, they stop; when he is sad, their

countenances are chopfallen; “you would say that their faces are on

springs, and that the emperor can touch the springs and set them in motion

at pleasure.”(82) But to return to the death of the divine king.

(M27) Many days’ journey to the north-east of Abomey, the old capital of

Dahomey, lies the kingdom of Eyeo. “The Eyeos are governed by a king, no

less absolute than the king of Dahomy, yet subject to a regulation of

state, at once humiliating and extraordinary. When the people have

conceived an opinion of his ill-government, which is sometimes insidiously

infused into them by the artifice of his discontented ministers, they send

a deputation to him with a present of parrots’ eggs, as a mark of its

authenticity, to represent to him that the burden of government must have

so far fatigued him that they consider it full time for him to repose from

his cares and indulge himself with a little sleep. He thanks his subjects

for their attention to his ease, retires to his own apartment as if to

sleep, and there gives directions to his women to strangle him. This is

immediately executed, and his son quietly ascends the throne upon the

usual terms of holding the reins of government no longer than whilst he

merits the approbation of the people.” About the year 1774, a king of

Eyeo, whom his ministers attempted to remove in the customary manner,

positively refused to accept the proffered parrots’ eggs at their hands,

telling them that he had no mind to take a nap, but on the contrary was

resolved to watch for the benefit of his subjects. The ministers,

surprised and indignant at his recalcitrancy, raised a rebellion, but were

defeated with great slaughter, and thus by his spirited conduct the king

freed himself from the tyranny of his councillors and established a new

precedent for the guidance of his successors.(83) However, the old custom

seems to have revived and persisted until late in the nineteenth century,

for a Catholic missionary, writing in 1884, speaks of the practice as if

it were still in vogue.(84) Another missionary, writing in 1881, thus

describes the usage of the Egbas and the Yorubas of west Africa: “Among

the customs of the country one of the most curious is unquestionably that

of judging and punishing the king. Should he have earned the hatred of his

people by exceeding his rights, one of his councillors, on whom the heavy

duty is laid, requires of the prince that he shall ‘go to sleep,’ which

means simply ‘take poison and die.’ If his courage fails him at the

supreme moment, a friend renders him this last service, and quietly,

without betraying the secret, they prepare the people for the news of the

king’s death. In Yoruba the thing is managed a little differently. When a

son is born to the king of Oyo, they make a model of the infant’s right

foot in clay and keep it in the house of the elders (_ogboni_). If the

king fails to observe the customs of the country, a messenger, without

speaking a word, shews him his child’s foot. The king knows what that

means. He takes poison and goes to sleep.”(85) The old Prussians

acknowledged as their supreme lord a ruler who governed them in the name

of the gods, and was known as God’s Mouth (_Kirwaido_). When he felt

himself weak and ill, if he wished to leave a good name behind him, he had

a great heap made of thorn-bushes and straw, on which he mounted and

delivered a long sermon to the people, exhorting them to serve the gods

and promising to go to the gods and speak for the people. Then he took

some of the perpetual fire which burned in front of the holy oak-tree, and

lighting the pile with it burned himself to death.(86)

(M28) We need not doubt the truth of this last tradition. Fanaticism or

the mere love of notoriety has led men in other ages and other lands to

court death in the flames. In antiquity the mountebank Peregrinus, after

bidding for fame in the various characters of a Christian martyr, a

shameless cynic, and a rebel against Rome, ended his disreputable and

vainglorious career by publicly burning himself at the Olympic festival in

the presence of a crowd of admirers and scoffers, among whom was the

satirist Lucian.(87) Buddhist monks in China sometimes seek to attain

Nirvana by the same method, the flame of their religious zeal being fanned

by a belief that the merit of their death redounds to the good of the

whole community, while the praises which are showered upon them in their

lives, and the prospect of the honours and worship which await them after

death, serve as additional incentives to suicide. The beautiful mountains

of Tien-tai, in the district of Tai-chow, are, or were till lately, the

scene of many such voluntary martyrdoms. The victims are monks who, weary

of the vanities of earth, have withdrawn even from their monasteries and

spent years alone in one or other of the hermitages which are scattered

among the ravines and precipices of this wild and secluded region. Their

fancy having been wrought and their resolution strung to the necessary

pitch by a life of solitude and brooding contemplation, they announce

their intention and fix the day of their departure from this world of

shadows, always choosing for that purpose a festival which draws a crowd

of worshippers and pilgrims to one of the many monasteries of the

district. Advertisements of the approaching solemnity are posted

throughout the country, and believers are invited to attend and assist the

martyrs with their prayers. From three to five monks are said thus to

commit themselves to the flames every year at Tien-tai. They prepare by

fasting and ablution for the last fiery trial of their faith. An upright

chest containing a seat is placed in a brick furnace, and the space

between the chest and the walls of the furnace is filled with fuel. The

doomed man takes his seat in the chest; the door is shut on him and

barred; fire is applied to the combustibles, and consumes the candidate

for heaven. When all is over, the charred remains are raked together,

worshipped, and reverently buried in a dagoba or shrine destined for the

preservation and worship of the relics of saints. The victims, it is said,

are not always voluntary. In remote districts unscrupulous priests have

been known to stupefy a clerical brother with drugs and then burn him

publicly, an unwilling martyr, as a means of spreading the renown of the

monastery and thereby attracting the alms of the faithful. On the

twenty-eighth of January 1888 the Spiritual-hill monastery, distant about

a day’s journey from the city of Wen-chow, witnessed the voluntary death

by fire of two monks who bore the euphonious names of

Perceptive-intelligence and Effulgent-glamour. Before they entered the

furnaces, the spectators prayed them to become after death the spiritual

guardians of the neighbourhood, to protect it from all evil influences,

and to grant luck in trade, fine seasons, plentiful harvests, and every

other blessing. The martyrs complaisantly promised to comply with these

requests, and were thereupon worshipped as living Buddhas, while a stream

of gifts poured into the coffers of the monastery.(88) Among the Esquimaux

of Bering Strait a shaman has been known to burn himself alive in the

expectation of returning to life with much stronger powers than he had

possessed before.(89)

(M29) But the suicides by fire of Chinese Buddhists and Esquimaux

sorcerers have been far surpassed by the frenzies of Christian fanaticism.

In the seventeenth century the internal troubles of their unhappy country,

viewed in the dim light of prophecy, created a widespread belief among the

Russian people that the end of the world was at hand, and that the reign

of Antichrist was about to begin. We know from Scripture that the old

serpent, which is the devil, has been or will be shut up under lock and

key for a thousand years,(90) and that the number of the Beast is six

hundred and sixty-six.(91) A simple mathematical calculation, based on

these irrefragable data, pointed to the year one thousand six hundred and

sixty-six as the date when the final consummation of all things and the

arrival of the Beast in question might be confidently anticipated. When

the year came and went and still, to the general surprise, the animal

failed to put in an appearance, the calculations were revised, it was

discovered that an error had crept into them, and the world was respited

for another thirty-three years. But though opinions differed as to the

precise date of the catastrophe, the pious were unanimous in their

conviction of its proximity. Accordingly some of them ceased to till their

fields, abandoned their houses, and on certain nights of the year expected

the sound of the last trump in coffins which they took the precaution of

closing, lest their senses, or what remained of them, should be

overpowered by the awful vision of the Judgment Day.

(M30) It would have been well if the delusion of their disordered

intellects had stopped there. Unhappily in many cases it went much

further, and suicide, universal suicide, was preached by fervent

missionaries as the only means to escape the snares of Antichrist and to

pass from the sins and sorrows of this fleeting world to the eternal joys

of heaven. Whole communities hailed with enthusiasm the gospel of death,

and hastened to put its precepts in practice. An epidemic of suicide raged

throughout northern and north-eastern Russia. At first the favourite mode

of death was by starvation. In the forest of Vetlouga, for example, an old

man founded an establishment for the use of religious suicides. It was a

building without doors and windows. The aspirants to heaven were lowered

into it through a hole in the roof, the hatch was battened down on them,

and men armed with clubs patrolled the outer walls to prevent the

prisoners from escaping. Hundreds of persons thus died a lingering death.

At first the sounds of devotion issued from the walls; but as time went on

these were replaced by entreaties for food, prayers for mercy, and finally

imprecations on the miscreant who had lured these misguided beings to

destruction and on the parents who had brought them into the world to

suffer such exquisite torments. Thus death by famine was attended by some

obvious disadvantages. It was slow: it opened the door to repentance: it

occasionally admitted of rescue. Accordingly death by fire was preferred

as surer and more expeditious. Priests, monks, and laymen scoured the

villages and hamlets preaching salvation by the flames, some of them

decked in the spoils of their victims; for the motives of the preachers

were often of the basest sort. They did not spare even the children, but

seduced them by promises of the gay clothes, the apples, the nuts, the

honey they would enjoy in heaven. Sometimes when the people hesitated,

these infamous wretches decided the wavering minds of their dupes by a

false report that the troops were coming to deliver them up to Antichrist,

and so to rob them of a blissful eternity. Then men, women, and children

rushed into the flames. Sometimes hundreds, and even thousands, thus

perished together. An area was enclosed by barricades, fuel was heaped up

in it, the victims huddled together, fire set to the whole, and the

sacrifice consummated. Any who in their agony sought to escape were driven

or thrown back into the flames, sometimes by their own relations. These

sinister fires generally blazed at night, reddening the sky till daybreak.

In the morning nothing remained but charred bodies gnawed by prowling

dogs; but the stench of burnt human flesh poisoned the air for days

afterwards.(92)

(M31) As the Christians expected the arrival of Antichrist in the year

1666, so the Jews cheerfully anticipated the long-delayed advent of their

Messiah in the same fateful year. A Jew of Smyrna, by name Sabatei-Sevi,

availed himself of this general expectation to pose as the Messiah in

person. He was greeted with enthusiasm. Jews from many parts of Europe

hastened to pay their homage and, what was still better, their money to

the future deliverer of his country, who in return parcelled out among

them, with the greatest liberality, estates in the Holy Land which did not

belong to him. But the alternative of death by impalement or conversion to

Mohammedanism, which the Sultan submitted to his consideration, induced

him to revise his theological opinions, and on looking into the matter

more closely he discovered that his true mission in life was to preach the

total abolition of the Jewish religion and the substitution for it of

Islam.(93)

§ 3. Kings killed at the End of a Fixed Term.

(M32) In the cases hitherto described, the divine king or priest is

suffered by his people to retain office until some outward defect, some

visible symptom of failing health or advancing age, warns them that he is

no longer equal to the discharge of his divine duties; but not until such

symptoms have made their appearance is he put to death. Some peoples,

however, appear to have thought it unsafe to wait for even the slightest

symptom of decay and have preferred to kill the king while he was still in

the full vigour of life. Accordingly, they have fixed a term beyond which

he might not reign, and at the close of which he must die, the term fixed

upon being short enough to exclude the probability of his degenerating

physically in the interval. In some parts of southern India the period

fixed was twelve years. Thus, according to an old traveller, in the

province of Quilacare, about twenty leagues to the north-east of Cape

Comorin, “there is a Gentile house of prayer, in which there is an idol

which they hold in great account, and every twelve years they celebrate a

great feast to it, whither all the Gentiles go as to a jubilee. This

temple possesses many lands and much revenue: it is a very great affair.

This province has a king over it, who has not more than twelve years to

reign from jubilee to jubilee. His manner of living is in this wise, that

is to say: when the twelve years are completed, on the day of this feast

there assemble together innumerable people, and much money is spent in

giving food to Bramans. The king has a wooden scaffolding made, spread

over with silken hangings: and on that day he goes to bathe at a tank with

great ceremonies and sound of music, after that he comes to the idol and

prays to it, and mounts on to the scaffolding, and there before all the

people he takes some very sharp knives, and begins to cut off his nose,

and then his ears, and his lips, and all his members, and as much flesh

off himself as he can; and he throws it away very hurriedly until so much

of his blood is spilled that he begins to faint, and then he cuts his

throat himself. And he performs this sacrifice to the idol, and whoever

desires to reign other twelve years and undertake this martyrdom for love

of the idol, has to be present looking on at this: and from that place

they raise him up as king.”(94)

(M33) The king of Calicut, on the Malabar coast, bears the title of

Samorin or Samory, which in the native language is said to mean “God on

earth.”(95) He “pretends to be of a higher rank than the Brahmans, and to

be inferior only to the invisible gods; a pretention that was acknowledged

by his subjects, but which is held as absurd and abominable by the

Brahmans, by whom he is only treated as a Sudra.”(96) Formerly the Samorin

had to cut his throat in public at the end of a twelve years’ reign. But

towards the end of the seventeenth century the rule had been modified as

follows: “Many strange customs were observed in this country in former

times, and some very odd ones are still continued. It was an ancient

custom for the Samorin to reign but twelve years, and no longer. If he

died before his term was expired, it saved him a troublesome ceremony of

cutting his own throat, on a publick scaffold erected for the purpose. He

first made a feast for all his nobility and gentry, who are very numerous.

After the feast he saluted his guests, and went on the scaffold, and very

decently cut his own throat in the view of the assembly, and his body was,

a little while after, burned with great pomp and ceremony, and the

grandees elected a new Samorin. Whether that custom was a religious or a

civil ceremony, I know not, but it is now laid aside. And a new custom is

followed by the modern Samorins, that jubilee is proclaimed throughout his

dominions, at the end of twelve years, and a tent is pitched for him in a

spacious plain, and a great feast is celebrated for ten or twelve days,

with mirth and jollity, guns firing night and day, so at the end of the

feast any four of the guests that have a mind to gain a crown by a

desperate action, in fighting their way through 30 or 40,000 of his

guards, and kill the Samorin in his tent, he that kills him succeeds him

in his empire. In anno 1695, one of those jubilees happened, and the tent

pitched near Pennany, a seaport of his, about fifteen leagues to the

southward of Calicut. There were but three men that would venture on that

desperate action, who fell in, with sword and target, among the guard,

and, after they had killed and wounded many, were themselves killed. One

of the desperados had a nephew of fifteen or sixteen years of age, that

kept close by his uncle in the attack on the guards, and, when he saw him

fall, the youth got through the guards into the tent, and made a stroke at

his Majesty’s head, and had certainly despatched him if a large brass lamp

which was burning over his head had not marred the blow; but, before he

could make another, he was killed by the guards; and, I believe, the same

Samorin reigns yet. I chanced to come that time along the coast and heard

the guns for two or three days and nights successively.”(97)

(M34) The English traveller, whose account I have quoted, did not himself

witness the festival he describes, though he heard the sound of the firing

in the distance. Fortunately, exact records of these festivals and of the

number of men who perished at them have been preserved in the archives of

the royal family at Calicut. In the latter part of the nineteenth century

they were examined by Mr. W. Logan, with the personal assistance of the

reigning king, and from his work it is possible to gain an accurate

conception both of the tragedy and of the scene where it was periodically

enacted down to 1743, when the ceremony took place for the last time.

(M35) The festival at which the king of Calicut staked his crown and his

life on the issue of battle was known as the _Maha Makham_ or Great

Sacrifice. It fell every twelfth year, when the planet Jupiter was in

retrograde motion in the sign of the Crab, and it lasted twenty-eight

days, culminating at the time of the eighth lunar asterism in the month of

Makaram. As the date of the festival was determined by the position of

Jupiter in the sky, and the interval between two festivals was twelve

years, which is roughly Jupiter’s period of revolution round the sun,(98)

we may conjecture that the splendid planet was supposed to be in a special

sense the king’s star and to rule his destiny, the period of its

revolution in heaven corresponding to the period of his reign on earth.

However that may be, the ceremony was observed with great pomp at the

Tirunavayi temple, on the north bank of the Ponnani River. The spot is

close to the present railway line. As the train rushes by, you can just

catch a glimpse of the temple, almost hidden behind a clump of trees on

the river bank. From the western gateway of the temple a perfectly

straight road, hardly raised above the level of the surrounding

rice-fields and shaded by a fine avenue, runs for half a mile to a high

ridge with a precipitous bank, on which the outlines of three or four

terraces can still be traced. On the topmost of these terraces the king

took his stand on the eventful day. The view which it commands is a fine

one. Across the flat expanse of the rice-fields, with the broad placid

river winding through them, the eye ranges eastward to high tablelands,

their lower slopes embowered in woods, while afar off looms the great

chain of the western Ghauts, and in the furthest distance the Neilgherries

or Blue Mountains, hardly distinguishable from the azure of the sky above.

(M36) But it was not to the distant prospect that the king’s eyes

naturally turned at this crisis of his fate. His attention was arrested by

a spectacle nearer at hand. For all the plain below was alive with troops,

their banners waving gaily in the sun, the white tents of their many camps

standing sharply out against the green and gold of the rice-fields. Forty

thousand fighting men or more were gathered there to defend the king. But

if the plain swarmed with soldiers, the road that cuts across it from the

temple to the king’s stand was clear of them. Not a soul was stirring on

it. Each side of the way was barred by palisades, and from the palisades

on either hand a long hedge of spears, held by strong arms, projected into

the empty road, their blades meeting in the middle and forming a

glittering arch of steel. All was now ready. The king waved his sword. At

the same moment a great chain of massy gold, enriched with bosses, was

placed on an elephant at his side. That was the signal. On the instant a

stir might be seen half a mile away at the gate of the temple. A group of

swordsmen, decked with flowers and smeared with ashes, has stepped out

from the crowd. They have just partaken of their last meal on earth, and

they now receive the last blessings and farewells of their friends. A

moment more and they are coming down the lane of spears, hewing and

stabbing right and left at the spearmen, winding and turning and writhing

among the blades as if they had no bones in their bodies. It is all in

vain. One after the other they fall, some nearer the king, some further

off, content to die, not for the shadow of a crown, but for the mere sake

of approving their dauntless valour and swordsmanship to the world. On the

last days of the festival the same magnificent display of gallantry, the

same useless sacrifice of life was repeated again and again. Yet perhaps

no sacrifice is wholly useless which proves that there are men who prefer

honour to life.(99)

(M37) “It is a singular custom in Bengal,” says an old native historian of

India, “that there is little of hereditary descent in succession to the

sovereignty. There is a throne allotted for the king; there is, in like

manner, a seat or station assigned for each of the _amirs_, _wazirs_, and

_mansabdars_. It is that throne and these stations alone which engage the

reverence of the people of Bengal. A set of dependents, servants, and

attendants are annexed to each of these situations. When the king wishes

to dismiss or appoint any person, whosoever is placed in the seat of the

one dismissed is immediately attended and obeyed by the whole

establishment of dependents, servants, and retainers annexed to the seat

which he occupies. Nay, this rule obtains even as to the royal throne

itself. Whoever kills the king, and succeeds in placing himself on that

throne, is immediately acknowledged as king; all the _amirs_, _wazirs_,

soldiers, and peasants instantly obey and submit to him, and consider him

as being as much their sovereign as they did their former prince, and obey

his orders implicitly. The people of Bengal say, ‘We are faithful to the

throne; whoever fills the throne we are obedient and true to it.’ ”(100) A

custom of the same sort formerly prevailed in the little kingdom of

Passier, on the northern coast of Sumatra. The old Portuguese historian De

Barros, who informs us of it, remarks with surprise that no wise man would

wish to be king of Passier, since the monarch was not allowed by his

subjects to live long. From time to time a sort of fury seized the people,

and they marched through the streets of the city chanting with loud voices

the fatal words, “The king must die!” When the king heard that song of

death he knew that his hour had come. The man who struck the fatal blow

was of the royal lineage, and as soon as he had done the deed of blood and

seated himself on the throne he was regarded as the legitimate king,

provided that he contrived to maintain his seat peaceably for a single

day. This, however, the regicide did not always succeed in doing. When

Fernão Peres d’Andrade, on a voyage to China, put in at Passier for a

cargo of spices, two kings were massacred, and that in the most peaceable

and orderly manner, without the smallest sign of tumult or sedition in the

city, where everything went on in its usual course, as if the murder or

execution of a king were a matter of everyday occurrence. Indeed, on one

occasion three kings were raised to the dangerous elevation and followed

each other on the dusty road of death in a single day. The people defended

the custom, which they esteemed very laudable and even of divine

institution, by saying that God would never allow so high and mighty a

being as a king, who reigned as his vicegerent on earth, to perish by

violence unless for his sins he thoroughly deserved it.(101) Far away from

the tropical island of Sumatra a rule of the same sort appears to have

obtained among the old Slavs. When the captives Gunn and Jarmerik

contrived to slay the king and queen of the Slavs and made their escape,

they were pursued by the barbarians, who shouted after them that if they

would only come back they would reign instead of the murdered monarch,

since by a public statute of the ancients the succession to the throne

fell to the king’s assassin. But the flying regicides turned a deaf ear to

promises which they regarded as mere baits to lure them back to

destruction; they continued their flight, and the shouts and clamour of

the barbarians gradually died away in the distance.(102)

(M38) When kings were bound to suffer death, whether at their own hands or

at the hands of others, on the expiration of a fixed term of years, it was

natural that they should seek to delegate the painful duty, along with

some of the privileges of sovereignty, to a substitute who should suffer

vicariously in their stead. This expedient appears to have been resorted

to by some of the princes of Malabar. Thus we are informed by a native

authority on that country that “in some places all powers both executive

and judicial were delegated for a fixed period to natives by the

sovereign. This institution was styled _Thalavettiparothiam_ or authority

obtained by decapitation. _Parothiam_ is the name of a supreme authority

of those days. The name of the office is still preserved in the Cochin

state, where the village headman is called a _Parathiakaran_. This

_Thalavettiparothiam_ was a terrible but interesting institution. It was

an office tenable for five years during which its bearer was invested with

supreme despotic powers within his jurisdiction. On the expiry of the five

years the man’s head was cut off and thrown up in the air amongst a large

concourse of villagers, each of whom vied with the other in trying to

catch it in its course down. He who succeeded was nominated to the post

for the next five years.”(103) A similar delegation of the duty of dying

for his country was perhaps practised by the Sultans of Java. At least

such a custom would explain a strange scene which was witnessed at the

court of one of these sultans by the famous traveller Ibn Batuta, a native

of Tangier, who visited the East Indies in the first half of the

fourteenth century. He says: “During my audience with the Sultan I saw a

man who held in his hand a knife like that used by a grape-gleaner. He

placed it on his own neck and spoke for a long time in a language which I

did not understand. After that he seized the knife with both hands at once

and cut his throat. His head fell to the ground, so sharp was the blade

and so great the force with which he used it. I remained dumbfoundered at

his behaviour, but the Sultan said to me, ‘Does any one do like that in

your country?’ I answered, ‘Never did I see such a thing.’ He smiled and

replied, ‘These people are our slaves, and they kill themselves for love

of us.’ Then he commanded that they should take away him who had slain

himself and should burn him. The Sultan’s officers, the grandees, the

troops, and the common people attended the cremation. The sovereign

assigned a liberal pension to the children of the deceased, to his wife,

and to his brothers; and they were highly honoured because of his conduct.

A person, who was present at the audience when the event I have described

took place, informed me that the speech made by the man who sacrificed

himself set forth his devotion to the monarch. He said that he wished to

immolate himself out of affection for the sovereign, as his father had

done for love of the prince’s father, and as his grandfather had done out

of regard for the prince’s grandfather.”(104) We may conjecture that

formerly the sultans of Java, like the kings of Quilacare and Calicut,

were bound to cut their own throats at the end of a fixed term of years,

but that at a later time they deputed the painful, though glorious, duty

of dying for their country to the members of a certain family, who

received by way of recompense ample provision during their life and a

handsome funeral at death.

(M39) A similar mode of religious suicide seems to have been often adopted

in India, especially in Malabar, during the Middle Ages. Thus we are told

by Friar Jordanus that in the Greater India, by which he seems to mean

Malabar and the neighbouring regions, many sacrifice themselves to the

idols. When they are sick or involved in misfortune, they vow themselves

to the idol in case they are delivered. Then, when they have recovered,

they fatten themselves for one or two years; and when another festival

comes round, they cover themselves with flowers, crown themselves with

white garlands, and go singing and playing before the idol, when it is

carried through the land. There, after they have shown off a great deal,

they take a sword with two handles, like those used in currying leather,

put it to the back of their neck, and cutting strongly with both hands

sever their heads from their bodies before the idol.(105) Again, Nicolo

Conti, who travelled in the East in the early part of the fifteenth

century, informs us that in the city of Cambaita “many present themselves

who have determined upon self immolation, having on their neck a broad

circular piece of iron, the fore part of which is round and the hinder

part extremely sharp. A chain attached to the fore part hangs suspended

upon the breast, into which the victims, sitting down with their legs

drawn up and their neck bent, insert their feet. Then, on the speaker

pronouncing certain words, they suddenly stretch out their legs, and at

the same time drawing up their neck, cut off their own head, yielding up

their lives as a sacrifice to their idols. These men are regarded as

saints.”(106) Among the Jaintias or Syntengs, a Khasi tribe of Assam,

human sacrifices used to be annually offered on the _Sandhi_ day in the

month of Ashwin. Persons often came forward voluntarily and presented

themselves as victims. This they generally did by appearing before the

Rajah on the last day of Shravan and declaring that the goddess had called

them to herself. After due enquiry, if the would-be victim were found

suitable, it was customary for the Rajah to present him with a golden

anklet and to give him permission to live as he chose and to do what he

liked, the royal treasury undertaking to pay compensation for any damage

he might do in the exercise of his remarkable privileges. But the

enjoyment of these privileges was very short. On the day appointed the

voluntary victim, after bathing and purifying himself, was dressed in new

attire, daubed with red sandal-wood and vermilion, and bedecked with

garlands. Thus arrayed, he sat for a time in meditation and prayer on a

dais in front of the goddess; then he made a sign with his finger, and the

executioner, after uttering the usual formulas, cut off his head, which

was thereafter laid before the goddess on a golden plate. The lungs were

cooked and eaten by such _Kandra Yogis_ as were present, and it is said

that the royal family partook of a small quantity of rice cooked in the

blood of the victim. The ceremony was usually witnessed by crowds of

spectators who assembled from all parts of the neighbouring hills. When

the supply of voluntary victims fell short, emissaries were sent out to

kidnap strangers from other territories, and it was the practice of such

man-hunts that led to the annexation of the Jaintia country by the

British.(107)

(M40) When once kings, who had hitherto been bound to die a violent death

at the end of a term of years, conceived the happy thought of dying by

deputy in the persons of others, they would very naturally put it in

practice; and accordingly we need not wonder at finding so popular an

expedient, or traces of it, in many lands. Thus, for example, the Bhuiyas

are an aboriginal race of north-eastern India, and one of their chief

seats is Keonjhur. At the installation of a Rajah of Keonjhur a ceremony

is observed which has been described as follows by an English officer who

witnessed it: “Then the sword, a very rusty old weapon, is placed in the

Raja’s hands, and one of the Bhuiyas, named Anand Kopat, comes before him,

and kneeling sideways, the Raja touches him on the neck as if about to

strike off his head, and it is said that in former days there was no

fiction in this part of the ceremony. The family of the Kopat hold their

lands on the condition that the victim when required shall be produced.

Anand, however, hurriedly arose after the accolade and disappeared. He

must not be seen for three days; then he presents himself again to the

Raja as miraculously restored to life.”(108) Here the custom of putting

the king’s proxy to death has dwindled, probably under English influence,

to a mere pretence; but elsewhere it survives, or survived till recent

times, in full force. Cassange, a native state in the interior of Angola,

is ruled by a king, who bears the title of Jaga. When a king is about to

be installed in office, some of the chiefs are despatched to find a human

victim, who may not be related by blood or marriage to the new monarch.

When he comes to the king’s camp, the victim is provided with everything

he requires, and all his orders are obeyed as promptly as those of the

sovereign. On the day of the ceremony the king takes his seat on a

perforated iron stool, his chiefs, councillors, and the rest of the people

forming a great circle round about him. Behind the king sits his principal

wife, together with all his concubines. An iron gong, with two small bells

attached to it, is then struck by an official, who continues to ring the

bells during the ceremony. The victim is then introduced and placed in

front of the king, but with his back towards him. Armed with a scimitar

the king then cuts open the man’s back, extracts his heart, and having

taken a bite out of it, spits it out and gives it to be burned. The

councillors meantime hold the victim’s body so that the blood from the

wound spouts against the king’s breast and belly, and, pouring through the

hole in the iron stool, is collected by the chiefs in their hands, who rub

their breasts and beards with it, while they shout, “Great is the king and

the rites of the state!” After that the corpse is skinned, cut up, and

cooked with the flesh of an ox, a dog, a hen, and some other animals. The

meal thus prepared is served first to the king, then to the chiefs and

councillors, and lastly to all the people assembled. Any man who refused

to partake of it would be sold into slavery together with his family.(109)

The distinction with which the human victim is here treated before his

execution suggests that he is a substitute for the king.

(M41) Scandinavian traditions contain some hints that of old the Swedish

kings reigned only for periods of nine years, after which they were put to

death or had to find a substitute to die in their stead. Thus Aun or On,

king of Sweden, is said to have sacrificed to Odin for length of days and

to have been answered by the god that he should live so long as he

sacrificed one of his sons every ninth year. He sacrificed nine of them in

this manner, and would have sacrificed the tenth and last, but the Swedes

would not allow him. So he died and was buried in a mound at Upsala.(110)

Another indication of a similar tenure of the crown occurs in a curious

legend of the disposition and banishment of Odin. Offended at his

misdeeds, the other gods outlawed and exiled him, but set up in his place

a substitute, Oller by name, a cunning wizard, to whom they accorded the

symbols both of royalty and of godhead. The deputy bore the name of Odin,

and reigned for nearly ten years, when he was driven from the throne,

while the real Odin came to his own again. His discomfited rival retired

to Sweden and was afterwards slain in an attempt to repair his shattered

fortunes.(111) As gods are often merely men who loom large through the

mists of tradition, we may conjecture that this Norse legend preserves a

confused reminiscence of ancient Swedish kings who reigned for nine or ten

years together, then abdicated, delegating to others the privilege of

dying for their country. The great festival which was held at Upsala every

nine years may have been the occasion on which the king or his deputy was

put to death. We know that human sacrifices formed part of the rites.(112)

§ 4. Octennial Tenure of the Kingship.

(M42) There are some grounds for believing that the reign of many ancient

Greek kings was limited to eight years, or at least that at the end of

every period of eight years a new consecration, a fresh outpouring of the

divine grace, was regarded as necessary in order to enable them to

discharge their civil and religious duties. Thus it was a rule of the

Spartan constitution that every eighth year the ephors should choose a

clear and moonless night and sitting down observe the sky in silence. If

during their vigil they saw a meteor or shooting star, they inferred that

the king had sinned against the deity, and they suspended him from his

functions until the Delphic or Olympic oracle should reinstate him in

them. This custom, which has all the air of great antiquity, was not

suffered to remain a dead letter even in the last period of the Spartan

monarchy; for in the third century before our era a king, who had rendered

himself obnoxious to the reforming party, was actually deposed on various

trumped-up charges, among which the allegation that the ominous sign had

been seen in the sky took a prominent place.(113) When we compare this

custom with the evidence to be presently adduced of an eight years’ tenure

of the kingship in Greece, we shall probably agree with K. O. Müller(114)

that the quaint Spartan practice was much more than a mere antiquarian

curiosity; it was the attenuated survival of an institution which may once

have had great significance, and it throws an important light on the

restrictions and limitations anciently imposed by religion on the Dorian

kingship. What exactly was the import of a meteor in the opinion of the

old Dorians we can hardly hope to determine; one thing only is clear, they

regarded it as a portent of so ominous and threatening a kind that its

appearance under certain circumstances justified and even required the

deposition of their king. This exaggerated dread of so simple a natural

phenomenon is shared by many savages at the present day; and we shall

hardly err in supposing that the Spartans inherited it from their

barbarous ancestors, who may have watched with consternation, on many a

starry night among the woods of Germany, the flashing of a meteor through

the sky. It may be well, even at the cost of a digression, to illustrate

this primitive superstition by examples.