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
death is difficult to ascertain; Dr Seligmann, who was Sir
J. G. Frazer's authority, thinks that he is now strangled in a hut,
especially erected for that purpose.
At one time he might be attacked and slain by a rival, either of his
own family, or of that of one of the previous Kings, of whom there are
many, but this has long been superseded by the ceremonial slaying of
the monarch who after his death is revered as Nyakang.[16]
This survival is of extraordinary interest; it presents us with a
curiously close parallel to the situation which, on the evidence of the
texts, we have postulated as forming the basic idea of the Grail
tradition--the position of a people whose prosperity, and the
fertility of their land, are closely bound up with the life and
virility of their King, who is not a mere man, but a Divine
re-incarnation.
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