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In anthropology as much as in popular imagination, kings are figures of
fascination and intrigue, heroes or tyrants in ways presidents and prime
ministers can never be. This collection of essays by two of the world’s
most distinguished anthropologists—David Graeber and Marshall
Sahlins—explores what kingship actually is, historically and anthropo-
logically. As they show, kings are symbols for more than just sovereignty:
indeed, the study of kingship offers a unique window into fundamental
dilemmas concerning the very nature of power, meaning, and the human
condition.
Reflecting on issues such as temporality, alterity, and utopia—not to
mention the divine, the strange, the numinous, and the bestial—Graeber
and Sahlins explore the role of kings as they have existed around the
world, from the BaKongo to the Aztec to the Shilluk and beyond. Richly
delivered with the wit and sharp analysis characteristic of Graeber and
Sahlins, this book opens up new avenues for the anthropological study
of this fascinating and ubiquitous political figure.
* * *
If you deem that anthropology is neither a form of pompous navel-
gazing, nor an exercise in making preposterous generalizations out
of sketchy personal experiences, this book is for you. With impecca-
ble scholarship, conceptual imagination, and wit, David Graeber and
Marshall Sahlins think anew, and within a broad comparative scope, an
ancient and illustrious question: why and how can a single man come to
rule over the many as the embodiment or the delegate of a god? Such a
question, they show, can only be answered by shifting towards an analysis
where human, non-human, and meta-human persons are treated on the
same ontological level as parts of a hierarchical cosmic polity. A golden
spike in the coffin of eurocentrism, sociocentrism and anthropocentrism!
Philippe Descola (Col ège de France), author of Beyond nature and culture
The wealth and volume of the ethnographic data analyzed in this book
is dizzying. The authors allow us to venture along a variety of paths,
ranging from the well-established kingdoms of Africa and Asia to the
apparently egalitarian societies of Papua New Guinea and the Americas,
revealing the astonishing dispersal of the “stranger king” model. The
authors’ decisive step was to reject, on a strictly ethnographic basis, the
commonplace analytic division made between cosmology and politics.
It is in the ritual sphere, where spirits of diverse kinds meet with hu-
mans, that the diverse forms of state originate. A relationship that shows
spiritual life, even in societies marked by egalitarianism, to be a domain
impregnated with the same relations of hierarchy, control and subjection
that characterize the kingdoms of this world. A work that will make
history for sure.
Aparecida Vilaça (Museu Nacional/Universidade Federal do Rio de
Janeiro), author of Praying and preying: Christianity in indigenous Amazonia
Two of the world’s leading anthropologists combine their “complemen-
tary observations” to offer the most productively disruptive work on king-
ship since Hocart. The lost world they exhume is a continual affront to
contemporary theory: a world where superstructure determines base and
sociology recapitulates cosmology (kings are gods imitating men, not the
reverse); where connection, competition, and imitation (of galactic he-
gemons, for example) are the reality and the monadic society a fiction. At
the same time, their paleohistory of sovereignty points the way toward a
deeper understanding of our contemporary moment, where sovereignty
has become “popular” and we are ruled by kleptocrats and buffoon kings.
Sheldon Pollock (Columbia University), author of The language of the
gods in the world of men
Graeber and Sahlins’ On kings—a dialogue, not a union—takes Divine
Kingship from its burial ground in the classics and puts it deep into
enduring concerns about the brutality of political processes over the
long haul of human history, ancient and current in ever new forms. In
case studies of sovereign rulers conceived as gods, demons, nurslings,
ancestral guests, and populist heroes—ultimate strangers—Graeber and
Sahlins invite us to reconsider the nature of tyranny from inside the
tiger’s many mouths and to ask how we might, for once, refuse the king
his long customary seat at the table.
Gillian Feeley-Harnik (University of Michigan), author of The Lord’s
table: The meaning of food in early Judaism and Christianity
ON KINGS
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ON KINGS
David Graeber and Marshall Sahlins
Hau Books
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Open Access Version
© 2017 Hau Books, Marshall Sahlins, and David Graeber
Cover, Frontispiece of Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan, by Abraham Bosse, with
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Table of Contents
Analytical table of contents
ix
Preface
xiii
introduction
1
David Graeber and Marshall Sahlins
chapter 1
The original political society
23
Marshall Sahlins
chapter 2
The divine kingship of the Shilluk: On violence, utopia,
and the human condition
65
David Graeber
chapter 3
The atemporal dimensions of history: In the old Kongo
kingdom, for example
139
Marshall Sahlins
chapter 4
The stranger-kingship of the Mexica
223
Marshall Sahlins
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ON KINGS
chapter 5
The people as nursemaids of the king: Notes on monarchs
as children, wome
n’s uprisings, and the return of the ancestral
dead in central Madagascar
249
David Graeber
chapter 6
The cultural politics of core–periphery relations
345
Marshall Sahlins
chapter 7
Notes on the politics of divine kingship: Or, elements for an
archaeology of sovereignty
377
David Graeber
Bibliography
465
Index
515
Analytical table of contents
INTRODUCTION ( Pp. 1–22). Structures ( Pp. 1–7) – Kingship in general ( Pp.
1–2) – The cosmic polity ( Pp. 2–4) – Stranger-king formations ( Pp. 5–7)
– Kingship politics ( Pp. 7–14) – In general ( Pp. 7–12) – Core–periphery relations (galactic polities) ( Pp. 13–14) – The political economics of
traditional kingship ( Pp. 15–16) – On shopworn concepts that have
outlived their usefulness ( Pp. 16–22) – Shopworn economic concepts
( Pp. 18–19) – Shopworn concepts of sociocultural order ( Pp. 19–22).
CH. 1 THE ORIGINAL POLITICAL SOCIETY ( Pp. 23–64). For example:
Chewong and Inuit ( Pp. 25–35) – Why call them spirits? ( Pp. 35–40)
–Social relations of people and metaperson-others ( Pp. 40–42) –
Metaperson powers-that-be ( Pp. 42–45) – The cosmic polity ( Pp. 46-51)
– Determination by the religious basis ( Pp. 51–57) – To conclude ( Pp. 57–62)
– Coda ( Pp. 62–64).
CH. 2 THE DIVINE KINGSHIP OF THE SHILLUK: ON VIOLENCE, UTOPIA,
AND THE HUMAN CONDITION ( Pp. 65–138). Theories of divine kingship
( Pp. 67–82) – The Shilluk as seen from Equatoria ( Pp. 68–81) – Three
propositions ( Pp. 81–82) – A brief outline of Shilluk history ( Pp. 82–89)
– Mytho-history ( Pp. 89–101) – A word on Nilotic cosmologies ( Pp.
89–92) – The legend of Nyikang ( Pp. 92–100) – Return to Fashoda ( Pp.
102–107) – The installation ritual: Description ( Pp. 107–116) – The
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ON KINGS
installation ritual: Analysis ( Pp. 116–127) – Some words in way of a
conclusion ( Pp. 127–138).
CH. 3 THE ATEMPORAL DIMENSIONS OF HISTORY: IN THE OLD KONGO
KINGDOM, FOR EXAMPLE ( Pp. 139–221). Introduction: Paradigmatic
histories ( Pp. 139–144) – African stranger-kingdoms ( Pp. 144–152) –
On the way to the kingdom ( Pp. 152–160) – Advent of the stranger-
king ( Pp. 160–169) – Naturalizing the stranger-king ( Pp. 169–175) –
On crossing the river and marrying the land ( Pp. 175–187) – The dual
society ( Pp. 187–196) – Serial stranger-kingship ( Pp. 196–200) – Origins
of the Kongo kingdom ( Pp. 20–-210) – Historiography (the end) ( Pp.
210–221).
CH. 4 THE STRANGER-KINGSHIP OF THE MEXICA ( Pp. 223–248). Stranger
kings, galactic polities ( Pp. 227–237) – Chichimeca and Tolteca ( Pp.
238–248).
CH. 5 THE PEOPLE AS NURSEMAIDS OF THE KING: NOTES ON MONARCHS
AS CHILDREN, WOMEN’S UP RISINGS, AND THE RETURN OF THE ANCESTRAL
DEAD IN CENTRAL MADAGASCAR ( Pp. 249–343). Introduction: Leiloza
and the prophet of Valalafotsy ( Pp. 252–265) – Leiloza, the last prince
of Imamo ( Pp. 252–260) – The real Leiloza and the bandit queen ( Pp.
260–265) – Emblematic labor and the king as child ( Pp. 265–298) – On
ritual labor ( Pp. 268–274) – Speaking, carrying, and making ( Pp. 274–
279) Royal service as principle of government ( Pp. 280–285) – Reversals:
The king as child ( Pp. 285–290) – Reflections on the king as toddler ( Pp.
290–294) – The ritual system seen from the perspective of the child-king
( Pp. 294–297) – Popular contestation, women’s rebellions, and the return
of the ancestral dead ( Pp. 298–343) – Case 1: Andrianamboatsimarofy,
an unstable king ( Pp. 301–308) – Case 2: Radama I and the first women’s
uprising ( Pp. 308–315) – Case 3: Ranavalona I, the toddler queen and
the return of the dead ( Pp. 315–325) – Case 4: Radama II and the second
women’s rebellion ( Pp. 325–335) – Conclusions ( Pp. 335–343).
ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS
xi
CH. 6 THE CULTURAL POLITICS OF CORE–PERIPHERY RELATIONS ( Pp. 345–
376). The anthropology of core–periphery relations ( Pp. 350–358) –
Cultural dynamics of galactic polities ( Pp. 358–365) – Galactic mimesis:
Uneven development in core–periphery systems ( Pp. 365–376).
CH. 7 NOTES ON THE POLITICS OF DIVINE KINGSHIP: OR, ELEMENTS FOR AN
ARCHAEOLOGY OF SOVEREIGNTY ( Pp. 377–464). Sovereignty contained
in time and space ( Pp. 380–398) – The divine kingship of the Natchez
( Pp. 390–398) – On the constitutive war between king and people ( Pp.
398–464) – When kings lose: The tyranny of abstraction ( Pp. 403–419)
– When kings win: The war against the dead ( Pp. 420–437) – Killing or
exiling the dead ( Pp. 437–440) – Becoming the dead ( Pp. 440–442) –
Outdoing the dead ( Pp. 442–446) – Reversing the direction of history
( Pp. 446–452) – Conclusions ( Pp. 456–464).
Preface
This book is more of a conjunction than a collaboration of its two authors. The
several studies on kingship and kingly politics assembled here were originally
conceived and written separately by one or the other—for conferences or on
other occasions—and were then elaborated with these common purposes in
mind. Accordingly, the effect is a set of complementary observations on king-
ship rather than a cumulative and sustained argument. The closest thing to the
latter is the Introduction, where we gather the observations on various aspects
of kingship featured in the several individual studies. It almost goes without
saying that the overall result is a work “on kings,” but not all about kings: it does
not pretend to deal with kingship in all its structural dimensions and historical
manifestations. Except where otherwise indicated, our observations on king-
ship concern its so-called “traditional,” premodern, or archaic forms—which
are, however, its most common, indeed archetypal, forms.
Of the seven essays comprising the book, all but two are published here for
the first time. The exceptions are Marshall Sahlins’ “The original political society”
(chapter 1, published simultaneously with this book in HAU: Journal of Ethno-
graphic Theory 7 [2], 2017: 91–128) and David Graeber’s “The divine kingship of
the Shilluk: On violence, utopia, and the human condition” (chapter 2, original:
HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 1 [1], 2011: 1–62). “The original political
society” is based on the Inaugural Arthur M. Hocart Lecture at SOAS, Univer-
sity of London, April 29, 2016). Chapter 3 by Sahlins, “The atemporal dimen-
sions of history: In the old Kongo kingdom, for example,” was developed from
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ON KINGS
a paper in the conference on The varieties of historical experience at the Univer-
sity of Chicago (April 2014); chapter 4 by Sahlins, “The stranger-kingship of
the Mexica,” was a plenary lecture at the Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration of
the Museo Nacional de A
ntropología, Mexico (October 2014); chapter 5 by
Graeber, “People as nursemaids of the king: notes on monarchs as children,
women’s uprisings, and the return of the ancestral dead in central Madagascar,”
was written for this volume but appeared in abbreviated form as “Le peuple,
nurse du roi: notes sur les monarques enfants dans le centre de Madagascar,” in
Madagascar, d’une crise l’autre: ruptures et continuité, edited by Mireille Razafin-
drakoto, François Roubaud, and Jean-Michel Wachsberger (Paris: ORSTOM,
2017, pp. 120–44); chapter 6 by Sahlins, “Cultural politics of core–periphery
relations,” was developed from the keynote lecture of a conference on Cul-
tural imperialism and soft power at the University of Chicago Center, Beijing
(December 2016); and chapter 7 by Graeber, “Notes on the politics of divine
kingship: Or, elements for an archaeology of sovereignty,” was written for this
volume and has not been published elsewhere in any form.
* * *
D. G. : I would like to thank all those who thought with, argued with, helped, or
generally put up with me during the period in question, but since I can’t fit in
all their names, I would like to draw special attention to (in alphabetical order)
Neil Aptaker, the late Roy Bhaskar, Sophie Carapetian, Rebecca Coles, Boris T.
Corovic, Ayca Cubukcu, Giovanni da Col, Ewa Domaradzka, Magdalen Drum-
mond, Gillian Feeley-Harnik, Stephan Feuchtwang, Livia Filotico, Charlie
Gilmore, Stephanie Grohmann, Andrej Grubacic, Havin Guneser, Keith Hart,
Rebecca Hudson, Insa Koch, Zeynep Kurban, Erica Lagalisse, Mark Lamont,
Nhu Le, Lauren Leve, Rona Lorimer, Sharifa Syed Ahmad Mayang, Christina
Moon, Dyan Neary, Yancey Orr, Mathijs Pelkman, Elif Sarican, Alpa Shah,
John Summers, Marine Temersohn, Terence Turner, David Wengrow, Hylton
White, and Heather Williams. Finally, of course, to my teacher and mentor,
Marshall Sahlins. There was a widespread rumor in Chicago that I was “un-
teachable.” I like to think this volume demonstrates that this was not the case.
M. S. : For intellectual aid and comfort in relation to the composition of one
or more of my essays, I would like to thank (in alphabetical order) Mauro