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object:1.27 - Succession to the Soul
book class:The Golden Bough
author class:James George Frazer
subject class:Occultism
class:chapter


XXVII. Succession to the Soul

TO THE VIEW that in early times, and among barbarous races, kings
have frequently been put to death at the end of a short reign, it
may be objected that such a custom would tend to the extinction of
the royal family. The objection may be met by observing, first, that
the kingship is often not confined to one family, but may be shared
in turn by several; second, that the office is frequently not
hereditary, but is open to men of any family, even to foreigners,
who may fulfil the requisite conditions, such as marrying a princess
or vanquishing the king in battle; and, third, that even if the
custom did tend to the extinction of a dynasty, that is not a
consideration which would prevent its observance among people less
provident of the future and less heedful of human life than
ourselves. Many races, like many individuals, have indulged in
practices which must in the end destroy them. The Polynesians seem
regularly to have killed two-thirds of their children. In some parts
of East Africa the proportion of infants massacred at birth is said
to be the same. Only children born in certain presentations are
allowed to live. The Jagas, a conquering tribe in Angola, are
reported to have put to death all their children, without exception,
in order that the women might not be cumbered with babies on the
march. They recruited their numbers by adopting boys and girls of
thirteen or fourteen years of age, whose parents they had killed and
eaten. Among the Mbaya Indians of South America the women used to
murder all their children except the last, or the one they believed
to be the last. If one of them had another child afterwards, she
killed it. We need not wonder that this practice entirely destroyed
a branch of the Mbaya nation, who had been for many years the most
formidable enemies of the Spaniards. Among the Lengua Indians of the
Gran Chaco, the missionaries discovered what they describe as "a
carefully planned system of racial suicide, by the practice of
infanticide by abortion, and other methods." Nor is infanticide the
only mode in which a savage tribe commits suicide. A lavish use of
the poison ordeal may be equally effective. Some time ago a small
tribe named Uwet came down from the hill country, and settled on the
left branch of the Calabar River in West Africa. When the
missionaries first visited the place, they found the population
considerable, distributed into three villages. Since then the
constant use of the poison ordeal has almost extinguished the tribe.
On one occasion the whole population took poison to prove their
innocence. About half perished on the spot, and the remnant, we are
told, still continuing their superstitious practice, must soon
become extinct. With such examples before us we need not hesitate to
believe that many tribes have felt no scruple or delicacy in
observing a custom which tends to wipe out a single family. To
attribute such scruples to them is to commit the common, the
perpetually repeated mistake of judging the savage by the standard
of European civilisation. If any of my readers set out with the
notion that all races of men think and act much in the same way as
educated Englishmen, the evidence of superstitious belief and custom
collected in this work should suffice to disabuse him of so
erroneous a prepossession.

The explanation here given of the custom of killing divine persons
assumes, or at least is readily combined with, the idea that the
soul of the slain divinity is transmitted to his successor. Of this
transmission I have no direct proof except in the case of the
Shilluk, among whom the practice of killing the divine king prevails
in a typical form, and with whom it is a fundamental article of
faith that the soul of the divine founder of the dynasty is immanent
in every one of his slain successors. But if this is the only actual
example of such a belief which I can adduce, analogy seems to render
it probable that a similar succession to the soul of the slain god
has been supposed to take place in other instances, though direct
evidence of it is wanting. For it has been already shown that the
soul of the incarnate deity is often supposed to transmigrate at
death into another incarnation; and if this takes place when the
death is a natural one, there seems no reason why it should not take
place when the death has been brought about by violence. Certainly
the idea that the soul of a dying person may be transmitted to his
successor is perfectly familiar to primitive peoples. In Nias the
eldest son usually succeeds his father in the chieftainship. But if
from any bodily or mental defect the eldest son is disqualified for
ruling, the father determines in his lifetime which of his sons
shall succeed him. In order, however, to establish his right of
succession, it is necessary that the son upon whom his father's
choice falls shall catch in his mouth or in a bag the last breath,
and with it the soul, of the dying chief. For whoever catches his
last breath is chief equally with the appointed successor. Hence the
other brothers, and sometimes also strangers, crowd round the dying
man to catch his soul as it passes. The houses in Nias are raised
above the ground on posts, and it has happened that when the dying
man lay with his face on the floor, one of the candidates has bored
a hole in the floor and sucked in the chief's last breath through a
bamboo tube. When the chief has no son, his soul is caught in a bag,
which is fastened to an image made to represent the deceased; the
soul is then believed to pass into the image.

Sometimes it would appear that the spiritual link between a king and
the souls of his predecessors is formed by the possession of some
part of their persons. In southern Celebes the regalia often consist
of corporeal portions of deceased rajahs, which are treasured as
sacred relics and confer the right to the throne. Similarly among
the Sakalavas of southern Madagascar a vertebra of the neck, a nail,
and a lock of hair of a deceased king are placed in a crocodile's
tooth and carefully kept along with the similar relics of his
predecessors in a house set apart for the purpose. The possession of
these relics constitutes the right to the throne. A legitimate heir
who should be deprived of them would lose all his authority over the
people, and on the contrary a usurper who should make himself master
of the relics would be acknowledged king without dispute. When the
Alake or king of Abeokuta in West Africa dies, the principal men
decapitate his body, and placing the head in a large earthen vessel
deliver it to the new sovereign; it becomes his fetish and he is
bound to pay it honours. Sometimes, in order apparently that the new
sovereign may inherit more surely the magical and other virtues of
the royal line, he is required to eat a piece of his dead
predecessor. Thus at Abeokuta not only was the head of the late king
presented to his successor, but the tongue was cut out and given him
to eat. Hence, when the natives wish to signify that the sovereign
reigns, they say, "He has eaten the king." A custom of the same sort
is still practised at Ibadan, a large town in the interior of Lagos,
West Africa. When the king dies his head is cut off and sent to his
nominal suzerain, the Alafin of Oyo, the paramount king of Yoruba
land; but his heart is eaten by his successor. This ceremony was
performed not very many years ago at the accession of a new king of
Ibadan.

Taking the whole of the preceding evidence into account, we may
fairly suppose that when the divine king or priest is put to death
his spirit is believed to pass into his successor. In point of fact,
among the Shilluk of the White Nile, who regularly kill their divine
kings, every king on his accession has to perform a ceremony which
appears designed to convey to him the same sacred and worshipful
spirit which animated all his predecessors, one after the other, on
the throne.





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