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  prepare for a ritual battle which is always fought along the banks of a river that

  represents the official border between the two divisions of the country.

  The candidate marches up, surrounded by the Ororo, who are his body-

  guards but at the same time the symbols of his mortality. He proceeds north

  toward Fashoda sitting backward on an ox, which is led by its tail, and alongside

  a heifer, also walking backward. Nyikang dispatches messengers to mock him.

  Before crossing the river, he and the girl step over a sheep, then a black bull,

  before crossing the river, thus consecrating them for sacrifice. It is said in earlier

  days he used to step over an old man who was then trampled by the people after

  him, usually, to death. The two forces proceed to do battle, each side unleash-

  ing a volley of millet stalks in lieu of spears. Nyikang’s followers, however, are

  also armed with whips, reputed to be so powerful that a direct blow could cause

  madness. As a result, the southern forces are put to rout, and at the height of

  the battle, the bearers of Nyikang and Dak sweep forward and surround the

  reth-elect, carrying him off as prisoner to Fashoda, together with the “girl of the

  ceremonies.”

  On their arrival, the heifer is ritually sacrificed.

  Once in the capital, however, the two figures begin to fuse. Nyikang’s sacred

  stool is taken from his shrine; a white canopy is arranged around it, and the ef-

  figies and their captives are brought inside. First, Nyikang is first placed on the

  throne, then removed and replaced with the reth-elect. He begins to tremble,

  and exhibit signs of possession—the soul of Nyikang, it is said, has left the effigy

  and entered the king. He’s doused with cold water. At this point the effigies re-

  treat to their shrine, and the reth is revealed to the assembled people, as his wives

  (newly transferred from the harem of the previous king) warm water for a ritual

  bath while he sits “like a graven image on the chair” (Munro 1918: 546), himself

  now an effigy, and later is led out before the assembled people. In one case, at

  least, observers remarked he seemed visibly in trance. After the sacrifice of an

  ox, he is led to a temporary “camp” just opposite the shrine, where he is bathed

  in great secrecy, with water alternately warm and cool, to express the desire that

  he “rule with an even temper” and avoid extremes (P. P. Howell and Thomson

  1946: 64). This bath is part of a broader process of communion with the spirit of

  Nyikang, which was considered arcane knowledge about which outsiders should

  know little, but according to some, the reth spent many hours of contemplation

  as the soul passed fully into him.

  The transfer of Nyikang’s soul marks the new reth’s last public appearance

  for at least three days. Afterwards, the king remains in seclusion, guarded only

  THE DIVINE KINGSHIP OF THE SHILLUK

  115

  by some Ororo and a few of his own retainers. Once again, he is treated like a

  boy, expected to tend a small herd of cattle, and accompanied only by his be-

  trothed child bride. At some point, though, adult sexuality intervenes. An Ororo

  woman (in some versions, there are three of them) lures the king away to the

  shrines on the mound of Aturwic in Fashoda and seduces him;46 while he is thus

  distracted, Nyikang steals out from another of the shrines and kidnaps the “girl

  of the ceremonies.” On the king’s return, he discovers her gone and, pretending

  outrage, begins searching everywhere. On finally realizing what’s happened, he

  confronts the chief of Kwa Nyikwom (who is acting as Nyikang’s spokesman),

  explaining that the girl had been properly betrothed by a payment in cattle, and

  Nyikang had no right to her. The chief, however, insists that the herds used—

  which are, after all, the old reth’s herds—are really Nyikang’s.

  Finally it comes down to another contest of arms. Both sides marshal their

  forces in Fashoda. This time, Nyikang is accompanied not only by the ferocious

  Dak, but also by his hapless son Cal. A smaller mock battle ensues, but this time

  the northerners’ whips prove ineffective. The reth sweeps in and recaptures the

  girl from Nyikang; finally, the effigies have to fight their way back into their

  own shrines, and negotiate their effective surrender. The girl remains with the

  king, who has, in his victory, demonstrated that he and not the effigy is the true

  embodiment of Nyikang. At this point the effigies disappear, and do not return

  for the remainder of the ceremonies.

  At this point, too, the drama is also effectively over. The new reth spends

  the next day on his throne at Aturwic, holding court amidst an assembly of the

  nation’s chiefs. Each places his spear head down in the ground and delivers a

  speech urging the new ruler to respect elders and tradition, protect the weak,

  preserve the nation, and similar sage advice. Drums salute their words; the king

  is invested in two silver bracelets that serve as marks of office; an ox is speared.

  Finally, the king is given a tour of the capital. Everything is back in place. The

  newly installed reth sends cattle for sacrifice to each of the shrines of Nyikang

  scattered throughout the country. Some weeks later he is ready to preside over

  his first major ritual, a series of sacrifices calling on Nyikang to call on God to

  send the rain. Once the first rains fall, the effigies leave Fashoda and return to

  their shrine in Akurwa, and do not return until the new king dies.

  46. According to certain other versions, he now commits incest with a half-sister, a very

  outrageous act. This is incidentally the closest the reth comes to committing one of

  de Heusch’s “exploits,” and most sources do not even mention it.

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  Since the drama began with the people’s representatives announcing, “eu-

  phemistically,” that they wish to kill the candidate-elect, it might be best to

  end it by noting that even here, in the reth’s most benevolent function, there

  were similar, darker possibilities. While one would imagine a newly inaugurated

  reth would have nothing but enthusiasm for his role as rainmaker, this was not

  always assumed to be the case.

  The king is the only authorized person to refuse or permit sacrifices at the impor-

  tant ritual ceremonies. The act of sacrificing animals to appease Juok, the highest

  spirit, and Nyikang, the demi-god, cannot be correctly undertaken without the

  king’s sanction. Without sacrifices the people’s wishes cannot be granted. It fol-

  lows that the king is the real power in religious matters, and sometimes he with-

  holds his beneficial powers if he feels the disloyalty of his subjects or their hatred

  towards him. (Riad 1959: 205, citing Hofmayr 1925: 152 n. 1)

  In other words, while the reth (unlike Simonse’s rainmaking kings) was not

  personally responsible for bringing down rain through magical means, his role

  was, at least potentially, not so very different. A drought might well be blamed

  on royal spite—and, presumably, begin to spur a political crisis, even if it was

  unlikely to end with an actual lynch mob.

  THE INSTALLATION RITUAL: ANALYSIS

  To some degree, the symbolic structure
of the ritual is quite transparent. There is

  a constant juxtaposition of north and south, the former the division of Nyikang,

  the latter, of the king. The north is identified with the eternal, universal “king-

  ship”; the south, with the particular, mortal king. Hence as Evans-Pritchard

  put it, in the ritual, “the kingship captures the king” (1948: 27). Having been

  defeated as a human, the reth-elect becomes Nyikang, and is thus able to defeat

  the effigy and banish it back to its shrine.

  Another explicit element is the opposition of fire and water. At the same

  time as the image of Nyikang emerges from the river far to the north, new

  fires are lit in Debalo, the capital of the south, that will burn for the rest of

  the king’s reign and be put out when he dies. Water here is eternity. It doesn’t

  even “represent” eternity, it is eternity; the Nile will always be there, and always

  the same. With the rains, it is the permanent source of fecundity and life. It is

  THE DIVINE KINGSHIP OF THE SHILLUK

  117

  therefore utterly appropriate that Nyikang, whose mother was a crocodile and

  who is called “child of the river,” should emerge from its waters.47 Fire, on the

  other hand, is, like blood, the stuff of worldly transformation. In this case, the

  fires correspond to the mortal life of the individual king; they will exist exactly

  as long as he lives. It is thus equally appropriate that when the synthesis of

  Nyikang and reth, between the eternal principle and mortal office-holder, oc-

  curs, it should be accompanying by putting a fire to water. The “bath” during

  which the king becomes fully one with the demigod also unites the two elemen-

  tal principles. Fire meets water as mortal man meets god.48

  All these elements are, as I say, relatively straightforward. Other elements

  are less so. The most puzzling is the role of Nyikang’s son Dak. Existing analy-

  ses—even those that have a great deal to say about the effigies (Evans-Pritchard

  1946; Arens 1984; Schnepel 1988)—focus almost exclusively on Nyikang, who

  is always assumed to represent the timeless nature of the royal office. They rarely

  have anything to say about Dak. But in many ways Dak seems even more im-

  portant than Nyikang: if nothing else, because (just as in the legends he is the

  first to transcend death through the means of an effigy) his is the only effigy

  that was genuinely eternal. When the king dies, Nyikang returns to his mother

  in the river. Dak remains. Dak’s effigy then presides over the re-creation of

  Nyikang’s. What is one to make of this?

  It might help here to return to the overall cosmological framework. The

  reader will recall that the Shilluk Creator is rarely invoked directly, but largely

  approached through Nyikang.

  The al -powerful being who exists in the minds of the Shil uk as a remote and

  amoral deity is cal ed Juok. Juok is the Shil uk conception of God and is present

  to a greater and lesser degree in all things. Juok is the explanation of the unknown,

  the reassuring justification of al the supernatural phenomena, good and bad, of

  which life is made up. The principal medium through whom Juok is approached

  is Nyikang. The distinction between them is not clear. Nyikang is Juok, but Juok is

  not Nyikang. . . . Further the soul of Nyikang is reincarnate in every Shilluk reth,

  47. All this is actually quite explicit: “As soon as the king dies, the spirit of Nyikang

  goes to his mother Nyikaya in the river, and the people will have to go to the river

  and bring him, and they will have to beg him to accept” (Singer in Schnepel 1988:

  449).

  48. One might also point out that this appears to be the ritual inversion of Nyikang’s

  mythic battle with the Sun, where the hero used water to “burn” him.

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  and thus exists both in the past and the present. Nyikang is the reth, but the reth

  is not Nyikang. The paradox of the unity yet separation is not easy to define. The

  Shil uk themselves would find it difficult to explain. Juok, Nyikang, and the reth

  represent the line through whom divinity runs . . . . The reth is clearly himself the

  medium through which both Nyikang and, more vaguely, Juok are approached,

  and is the human intercessor with God. (P. P. Howel and Thomson 1946: 8)

  After many years of contemplation and debate, scholars of Nilotic religions have

  learned to read such paradoxical phrases (e.g., “God is the sky, but the sky is not

  God”) as statements about refraction and encompassment: Nyikang is an aspect

  of God, but God is in no way limited to that aspect.49 We are presented, as in a

  rainmaking ceremony, with a very straightforward model of a linear hierarchy:

  God

  Nyikang

  the reth

  the people

  The reth intercedes for the people and asks Nyikang to intercede with God

  to bring the rains. If the rain comes, it temporarily joins everything together.

  However, as we’ve seen, at every point there is potential antagonism. The people

  may hate the reth or wish to kill him; they may curse Nyikang; the reth may

  withhold the rains out of resentment of the people; the king and Nyikang raise

  armies and do battle with each other. Only God seems to stand outside this, but

  only because God is so distant: in Nuer and Dinka cosmologies, where Divinity

  is a more immediate concern, we learn that the human condition was first cre-

  ated because of God’s (apparently unjustified) anger against humans, and there

  are even stories of defiant humans trying to make war on God and on the rain

  49. Though in this case made even more confusing by reversing the order in the second

  example. If this is not simply a mistake on the author’s part, it could be taken as a

  telling sign of the reversibility of some of these hierarchies.

  THE DIVINE KINGSHIP OF THE SHILLUK

  119

  (Lienhardt 1961: 43–4). Antagonism here appears to be the very principle of

  separation. Insofar as the reth is not Nyikang, it is first of all because the two

  sometimes stand in a relation of mutual hostility.

  This, too, is fairly straightforward. Certainly, there are ambiguities—for in-

  stance, about how and whether the people themselves could be said to partake

  of divinity, since divinity is, after all, said to be present in everything—but these

  are the ambiguities typical of any such hierarchical system of encompassment.

  Things get a little more complicated when one examines prayers offered

  directly to God. Here is one in Westermann, pronounced during a sacrifice to

  cure someone who is sick:

  There is no one above thee, thou God. Though becamest the grandfather of

  Nyikango; it is thou (Nyikango) who walkest with God; thou becamest the

  grandfather (of man), and thy son Dak. If famine comes, is it not given by thee?

  So as this cow stands here, is it not thus: if she dies, does her blood not go to

  thee? Thou God, and thou who becamest Nyikango, and thy son Dak! But the

  soul (of man), is it not thine own? (1912: 171; also in Lienhardt 1952: 156)50

  Here we have the same sort of hierarchical participation (God became Nyikang

  . . .) but the king is gone and Dak appears in his place:

  God

  Ny
ikang

  Dak

  human beings

  Dak’s presence might not be entirely surprising here because it is most often

  his attacks that make people to sick to begin with. If so Dak, however much

  50. Actually, Westermann claims this is the only prayer offered directly to God, but

  Hofmayr (1925: 197–201) and Oyler (1918b: 283) both produce other ones

  (namely, C. G. Seligman 1934: 5).

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  ON KINGS

  subordinated, also represents the active principle that sets everything off. This

  often seems to be his function.

  Certainly, Dak is nothing if not active. This is especially obvious when he

  is paired with Nyikang, which he normally is. Nyikang’s effigy is larger and

  heavier; it is clearly meant to embody the gravitas and dignity of authority. His

  image thus tends to stay near the center of things. In ordinary times, the effigy

  remains in the temple at Akurwa even when Dak’s effigy leaves it to tour the

  country; when the two do travel together, it is always Dak who moves about, in-

  teracts, while Nyikang takes on a more “statesmanlike” reserve (Schnepel 1988:

  437). True, one could argue this is simply a consequence of Dak’s subordinate

  status: Nyikang is the authoritative center, Dak his worldly representative, his

  errand-boy. But even here there are ambiguities. Most strikingly, while Dak is

  smaller than Nyikang, he towers above him, always being carried atop an eight-

  foot pole. Nyikang, in contrast, stays close to the ground; in fact his effigy is

  often held parallel to the ground, while Dak’s is ordinarily vertical. Similar am-

  biguities appear in stories about the two heroes’ lives. Sometimes, especially in

  his youth, it is Dak who is always getting himself in trouble and Nyikang with

  his magical power who must step in to save him. But later, during the conquest

  of Shillukland, it is more likely to be the other way around: Nyikang is foiled

  by some problem, and Dak proves more ingenious, or more resourceful with a

  spear, and manages to solve it.

  There is also the peculiar feature of Cal, Nyikang’s feckless older son, who

  never accomplishes anything and whose image appears only when the effigies’

  forces lose. Dak and Cal seem to represent opposites: pure aggression versus

  absolute passivity, with Nyikang again defining the center. Yet in what way is