were warned by an oracle to beware of a 'lame reign.'"[14]

A most remarkable modern survival of this idea is recorded by Dr
Frazer in the latest edition of The Golden Bough,[15] and is so
complete and suggestive that I make no apology for transcribing it at
some length. The Shilluk, an African tribe, inhabit the banks of the
White Nile, their territory extending on the west bank from Kaka in
the north, to Lake No in the south, on the east bank from Fashoda to
Taufikia, and some 35 miles up the Sohat river. Numbering some 40,000
in all, they are a pastoral people, their wealth consisting in
flocks and herds, grain and millet. The King resides at Fashoda, and
is regarded with extreme reverence, as being a re-incarnation of
Nyakang, the semi-divine hero who settled the tribe in their present
territory. Nyakang is the rain-giver, on whom their life
and prosperity depend; there are several shrines in which sacred
Spears, now kept for sacrificial purposes, are preserved, the
originals, which were the property of Nyakang, having disappeared.

The King, though regarded with reverence, must not be allowed to
become old or feeble, lest, with the diminishing vigour of the ruler,
the cattle should sicken, and fail to bear increase, the crops should
rot in the field and men die in ever growing numbers. One of the
signs of failing energy is the King's inability to fulfil the desires
of his wives, of whom he has a large number. When this occurs the
wives report the fact to the chiefs, who condemn the King to death
forthwith, communicating the sentence to him by spreading a white
cloth over his face and knees during his mid-day slumber. Formerly
the King was starved to death in a hut, in company with a young maiden
but (in consequence, it is said, of the great vitality and protracted
suffering of one King) this is no longer done; the precise manner of