by Faun Rice
462
ON KINGS
aspects of many early kingdoms, from the frenetic expansiveness of the Inkas, or
monument-building of early Egypt, to systematic massacres of royal courtiers
that followed so many early sovereigns’ deaths.
* * *
What does all this have to say about our situation in the present? As I have said,
the principle of sovereignty is still with us; once it becomes the organizing prin-
ciple of social life, anywhere, it tends to prove extraordinarily difficult to uproot.
Few, at this point, seem to be able to imagine what it would meant to uproot it.
This is partly because some of the elements we are discussing here are el-
ementary structures of human social existence that will always be present in
human life in one form or another. There will always be a tendency for those
who successfully violate norms and conventions, particularly violently, to be
seen either as divine, or as buffoons—and sometimes both at the same time, as
Achille Mbembe (1992) has argued of African kleptocrats, and one might just
as easily say of European heads of state like Silvio Berlusconi or American ones
like Donald Trump. The only way we could really make sure such buffoons never
gain systematic coercive power over their fellows is to get rid of the apparatus of
coercion itself. The logic of sacralization and abstraction, adverse and otherwise,
will probably always be with us as well, though for the moment at least elites
have done rather well at minimizing its adverse aspects.
Still, sovereignty in the form we have it now is a very specific thing with a
very specific history. To take the story down to the present day would, no doubt,
require another book—or at the very least another over-long essay. But it might
be well to end with at least an outline of what it might be like.
This book, focusing as it does on divine kingship, has had relatively little
to say even about Axial Age kingship—that is, the kind that became prevalent
in the core regions of Eurasia after, say, about ad 500. The appearance of the
great world religions, which, as I’ve said, emerged largely as a popular reaction
to the increasingly cynical, materialist basis of early Axial Age kingship, led to
endlessly complicated theological debates about the status of worldly monarchs
in China, India, and the Christian and Muslim worlds. Francis Oakley (2006,
2010) has mapped out some of the complexities of Christian thought on the
subject, much of it focusing on which person of the Trinity the king or emperor
most resembled. These were crucial in negotiating the balance of power between
church and temporal authorities in a time and place where sovereignty was, as
NOTES ON THE POLITICS OF DIVINE KINGSHIP
463
the saying goes, “parcelized” (Wood 2002)—that is, broken up and distributed
in an endless variety of often contradictory and overlapping ways.
Modern nation-states, of course, are based on the principle of “popular sov-
ereignty,” that is, that since the Age of Revolutions at the end of the seventeenth
century and beginning of the eighteenth, the power once held by kings is now
ultimately held by an entity called “the people.” Now, on the face of it, this
makes very little sense, since who else can sovereign power be exercised on but
the people, and what can it possibly mean to exercise a punitive and extralegal
power on oneself? One is almost tempted to conclude that the notion of popu-
lar sovereignty has come to play the same role that Enlightenment critics and
conservative defenders of the church both argued that the Mystery of the Trin-
ity had played in the Middle Ages: the very fact that it made no sense rendered
it the perfect expression of authority, since a profession of faith then necessarily
meant accepting that there was someone else far wiser than you could ever be.
The only difference, in that case, would be that the higher wisdom of archbish-
ops has now been passed to that of constitutional lawyers.78
Still, I think, the reality is a bit more complicated. The “people” being re-
ferred to in the notion of “popular sovereignty” is a rather different creature than
the kind that face off against Shilluk or Malagasy kings. I suspect it is a product
more of empires than of kingdoms. I also suspect that empires—the kind that
gave birth to the modern notion of the nation-state, anyway—are quite different
from the galactic polities described in this book, however much the latter might
often superficially resemble them. What I am speaking of here are empires that
are not, like so many kingdoms, essentially voluntary arrangements dressed up
in antagonistic terms, but arrangements genuinely rooted in military conquest,
or converting voluntary arrangements into those ultimately founded in force.
No ongoing human relation is ever founded exclusively on force, of course; but
still, it was when the Athenian demos declared that its allies were no longer free
to leave the alliance, lest their cities be attacked, that the Delian League became
the Athenian empire.
There is something interesting about such arrangements. They are rarely, if
ever, simply a matter of a royal dynasty imposing itself on an ever-greater array
78. The notion of popular sovereignty might depart from the logic of transgression so
evidenced in other forms of sovereign power, but in fact it does not: the legitimacy of
systems of constitutional law is derived from “the people,” but the people conveyed
that legitimacy through revolution, American, French, etc.—that is, through acts of
illegal violence.
464
ON KINGS
of conquered peoples. Many in fact do not begin as kingdoms at all, but as re-
publics (like the Athenian, Carthaginian, or Roman empires, or the American
more recently), alliances of nomadic clans (like the Goths, Avars, Arabs, and
Mongols), and so on.79 If they congeal around a single emperor, of necessity
a stranger to most of those he governs, he may well trace his origins to wan-
dering heroes from distant realms, in good stranger-king fashion; but the key
structural feature of any true empire is not the emperor, but the existence of a
core population that provides the heart of its military, whether Akkadians, Han,
Mexica, Romans, Persians, Franks, Tatars, Russians, Athenians, Amhara-Tigre,
or French. As a result—and this is crucial I think—a degree of sovereignty
is, effectively, vested in the imperial nation itself. These are for this reason the
first nations properly so called. This leads to a complex political struggle where
conquered peoples increasingly come to define themselves in national terms
as well. Thus do empires become the nurseries of nations, and ethnolinguistic
groups that see their destiny as bound, in some sense, with a real or imagined
apparatus of rule.
This is not a story we can tell here. But it underlines just how much the ap-
parently exotic tribulations of bygone monarchs still find their echoes in forms
of ultimately arbitrary power that still surround us, like so many bruised and
indignant deities, in national politics to this day.
79. Empires might begin without a king, or with a
relatively weak one, and then congeal
around an imperial line over time; alternately, they might begin as kingdoms, like
the English, French, or Russian, and then develop some variety of republican form.
Bibliography
Abinal, Antoine, and Victorine Malzac. 1899. Dictionnaire malgache–français. Tanana-
rive: Imprimerie de la Mission catholique, Mahamasina
Abler, Thomas S. 2004. “Seneca moieties and hereditary chieftainships: The early-nine-
teenth-century political organization of an Iroquois nation.” Ethnohistory 51 (3):
459–88.
Abraham, Roy Clive. 1933. The Tiv people. Lagos: Government Printer.
Abubakar, Sa’ad. 1986. “Precolonial government and administration among the Jukun.”
Annals of Borno 3: 1–13.
Acciaioli, Greg. 2009. “Distinguishing hierarchy and precedence: Comparing status dis-
tinctions in South Asia and the Austronesian world, with special reference to South
Sulawesi.” In Precedence: Social differentiation in the Austronesian world, edited by Mi-
chael P. Vischer, 51–90. Canberra: ANU Press.
Ackerman, M. 1833. Histoire des révolutions de Madagascar, depuis 1642 jusqu’à nos jours.
Paris: Librairie Gide.
Adelstein, Ludwig. 1967. The idea of progress in classical antiquity. Baltimore: Johns Hop-
kins University Press.
Adler, Alfred. 1977. “Faiseurs de pluie, faiseurs d’ordre.” Libre 2: 45–68.
———. 1982. Le mort est le masque du roi: La royauté sacrée des Moundang du Tchad. Paris:
Payot.
———. 1987. “Royauté et sacrifice chez les Moundang du Tchad.” In Sous le masque de
l’animal: Essais sur le sacrifice en Afrique noire, edited by Michel Cartry, 89–130. Paris:
Presses Universaires de France.
466
ON KINGS
Afigbo, Adiele. 2005. Nigerian history, politics and affairs: The collected essays of Adiele Afig-
bo. Asmara: Africa World Press.
Afolayan, Funso. 2005 “Benue River peoples: Jukun and Kwarafa.” In Encyclopedia of Afri-
can history, Vol. 1, edited by Kevin Shillington, 143–44. New York: Fitzroy-Dearborn.
Alpers, Edward, and Christopher Ehret. 1975. “Eastern Africa.” In The Cambridge history
of Africa, Vol. 4: From c.1660 to c.1790, edited by Richard Gray, 469–536. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Andaya, Leonard. 1993. The World of Maluku: Eastern Indonesia in the early modern period.
Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.
———. 2006. “The stranger-king complex in Bugis-Makassar.” Paper presented at the
KITLV Workshop, “Stranger-kings in Southeast Asia and elsewhere.” Jakarta, In-
donesia, 5–7 June.
Anderson, Graham. 2012. “The Alexander Romance and the pattern of hero-legend.” In
The Alexander Romance in Persia and the East, edited by Richard Stoneman, Kyle
Erickson, and Ian Netton, 83–102. Groningen: Bakuis Publishing.
Ando, Clifford. 2013. Imperial ideology and provincial loyalty in the Roman Empire. Berke-
ley: University of California Press.
André, C. 1899. De l’esclavage à Madagascar. Paris: Arthur Rousseau.
Andriamanantsiety, Z. J. 1975. Tantaran’ Andrianamboninolona. Antananarivo: Musée
d’Art et d’Archéologie de l’ Université de Madagascar.
Andriamifidy, Pasteur. 1950. Tantaran’Ambohitrarahaba, Karakain’ny Terak’Andriamanarefo.
Antananarivo: Antsiva Ambandia.
Anon. 1879a. “Ny mampanankarena ny olona: Ny lapitaly.” Mpanolo Tsaina 1 (January):
1–8.
———. 1879b. “Ny mampanankarena ny olona: Ny karama.” Mpanolo Tsaina 2 (April):
114–22.
———. 1900. “A brief native account of Radama II.” Antananarivo Annual and Mada-
gascar Magazine 23: 486–88.
———. 1956. “The installation of a new Shilluk king.” Sudan Notes and Records 37:
99–101.
Apata, Z. O. 1998. “Migrations, changes and conflicts: A study of inter-group relations.”
Journal of the Pakistan Historical Society 2: 79–87.
Arens, William. 1979. “The divine kingship of the Shilluk: A contemporary evaluation.”
Ethnos 44: 167–81.
———. 1983. “A note on Evans-Pritchard and the prophets.” Anthropos 78: 1–16.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
467
———. 1984. “The demise of kings and the meaning of kingship: Royal funerary cer-
emony in the contemporary southern Sudan and Renaissance France.” Anthropos 79:
355–67.
Århem, Kaj. 2016. “Southeast Asian animism in context.” In Animism in Southeast Asia,
edited by Kaj Århem and Guido Sprenger, 3–20. London: Routledge.
Århem, Kaj, and Guido Sprenger, eds. 2016. Animism in Southeast Asia. London:
Routledge.
Asher-Greve, Julia. 2006. “From ‘Semiramis of Babylon’ to ‘Semiramis of Hammer-
smith’?” In Orientalism, Assyriology and the Bible, edited by Steven Holloway, 323–73.
Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press.
Atkinson, Ronald R. 1989. “The evolution of ethnicity among the Acholi of Uganda: The
precolonial phase.” Ethnohistory 36: 19–43.
Augustins, Georges. 1971. “Esquisse d’une histoire de l’Imamo.” Bulletin de Madagascar
301: 547–58.
Backus, Charles. 1981. The Nan-Chao kingdom and T’ang Chinese southwestern frontier.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Baer, Mark David. 2008. Honored by the glory of Islam: Conversion and conquest in Ottoman
Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bakhtin, Mikhail. 1984. Rabelais and his world. Translated by Hélène Iswolsky. Bloom-
ington: Indiana University Press.
Balandier, Georges. 1968. Daily life in the kingdom of Kongo: From the sixteenth to the
eighteenth century. Translated by Helen Weaver. New York: Pantheon Books.
———. 1972. Political anthropology. Translated by A. M. Sheridan Smith. Harmonds-
worth: Penguin.
Balikici, Asen. 1970. The Netsilik Eskimo. Garden City, NY: The Natural History Press.
Balvay, Arnaud. 2008. La Révolte des Natchez. Paris: Éditions du Félin.
Barbosa, Duarte. (1518) 1918. The Book of Duarte Barbosa: An account of the countries
bordering on the Indian Ocean and their inhabitants. Translated by Mansel Longworth
Dames. London: Hakluyt Society.
Barjamovic, Gojko. 2011. “Pride, pomp and circumstance: Palace, court and household in
Assyria 879–612 bce.” In Royal courts in dynastic states and empires: A global perspec-
tive, edited by Jeroen Duindam, Tülay Artan, and Metin Kunt, 27–62. Leiden: Brill.
Barrett, S. A. 1917. “Ceremonies of the Porno Indians.” University of California Publica-
tions in American Archaeology and Ethnology 12: 397–441.
———. 1919. “The Wintun Hesi ceremony.” University of California Publications in
American Archaeology and Ethnology 14: 437–88.
468
ON KINGS
Bárta, Miroslav. 2005. “The location of the Old Kingdom Pyramids in Egypt.” Cam-
bridge Archaeological Journal 15 (2): 177–91.
Barth, Fredrik. 1969. Ethnic groups and boundaries: The social organization of culture differ-
ence. Bergen: Universitetsforlaget.
———. 1975. Ritual and knowledge among the Baktaman of New Guinea. New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press.
———. 1987. Cosmologies in the making: A generative approach
to cultural variation in in-
ner New Guinea. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bascom, William. 1965. “The forms of folklore prose narratives.” The Journal of American
Folklore 78 (307): 3–20.
Bateson, Gregory. 1935. “Cultural contact and schismogenesis.” Man 35: 178–83.
———. 1958. Naven. Second edition. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Bauer, Brian S. 1998. The sacred landscape of the Inca: The Cusco Ceque system. Austin: Uni-
versity of Texas Press.
Beattie, John. 1971. The Nyoro state. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Beidelman, Thomas O. 1966a. “The ox and Nuer sacrifice: Some Freudian hypotheses
about Nuer symbolism.” Man (N.S.) 1: 453–67.
———. 1966b. “Swazi royal ritual.” Africa 36 (4): 373–405.
———. 1981. “The Nuer concept of Thek and the meaning of sin: Explanation, transla-
tion, and social structure.” History of Religions 21 (2): 126–55.
Beltrame, Giovanni. 1881. Il fiume bianco e i Dénka. Verona: Mazziana.
Benjamin, Walter. 1978. “Critique of violence.” In Reflections: Essays, aphorisms, auto-
biographical writings, 277–300. Edited by Peter Demetz. New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich.
Berce, Yves-Marie. 1976. Fête et révolte. Paris: Hachette.
Bere, R. M. 1947. “An outline of Acholi history.” The Uganda Journal 11: 1–8.
Berg, Gerald. 1977. “The myth of racial strife and Merina kinglists: The transformation
of texts.” History in Africa 4: 1–30.
———. 1979. “Royal authority and the protector system in nineteenth-century Ime-
rina.” In Madagascar in history: Essays from the 1970s, edited by Raymond K. Kent,
102–22. Albany: The Foundation for Malagasy Studies.
———. 1980. “Some words about Merina historical texts.” In The African past speaks:
Essays on oral tradition and history, edited by Joseph Calder Miller, 221–39. London:
Dawson.
———. 1988. “Sacred acquisition: Andrianampoinimerina at Ambohimanga, 1777–
1790.” Journal of African History 29 (2): 191–211.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
469
———. 1995. “Writing history: Ranavalona the ancestral bureaucrat.” History in Africa
22: 73–92.
———. 1996. “Virtù, and fortuna in Radama’s nascent bureaucracy, 1816–1828.” History
in Africa 23: 29–73.
———. 1998. “Radama’s smile: Domestic challenges to royal ideology in early nine-