Anthropos: Anthropos, 79.1984

Anthropos, 79.1984

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Strukturtyp:: Zeitschrift

Werks-URN (URL):: https://digi.evifa.de/viewer/resolver?urn=urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-714820

URN:: urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-714820

Persistenter Identifier:: BV043334262

Titel:: Anthropos

Untertitel:: internationale Zeitschrift für Völker- u. Sprachenkunde

Erscheinungsort:: Fribourg

Verlag:: Ed. St. Paul

Erscheinungsjahr:: 1906

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

Wissensgebiet:: Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie > Allgemeines

Zeitschriftenband

Strukturtyp:: Zeitschriftenband

Werks-URN (URL):: https://digi.evifa.de/viewer/resolver?urn=urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-711819

URN:: urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-711819

Persistenter Identifier:: 1512370864325

Titel:: Anthropos, 79.1984

Erscheinungsjahr:: 1984

Signatur:: LA 1118

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

Zeitschriftenheft

Strukturtyp:: Zeitschriftenheft

Titel:: Bd. 79, 1984, Heft 4-6

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

Anthropos 79.1984: 355-367 The Demise of Kings and the Meaning of Kingship: Royal Funerary Ceremony in the Contemporary Southern Sudan and Renaissance France W. Arens Perhaps there were never any gods without kings, or kings without gods (Hocart 1927:7) The existing commentary on divine kingship ranges extensively through history and social anthropology to poetry and psychoanalysis. 1 However, an appreciation of both the institution and contemporary interpretations still requires a return to the opening passages of Sir James Frazer’s classic The Golden Bough. Fiere the reader encounters “a strange and recurring fanta sy” set in a “sylvan landscape, suffused with a golden glow” and “dappled shade,” which finds c a grim figure ever on the prowl,” for “surely no crowned head can lay uneasier, or was visited by rnore evil dreams, than his.” “The least relaxation °f his vigilance, the smallest abatement of his strength of limb or skill of fence, put him in jeopardy; grey hairs might seal his death warrant” (Frazer 1963: 1). These romantic lines provide a dramatic Ridication of the extent to which social anthropol ogy and writing style have been transformed over the years in the process of academic professiona lization. Neither grand questions nor grandiose e xposition have survived the test of time. Yet Piany of the earlier disturbing uncertainties about W. Arens, Ph. D. (University of Virginia) is presently Associate Professor of Anthropology at the State University of hlew York at Stony Brook. In addition to field experience in Tanzania, he conducted preliminary field and archival re $earch among the Shilluk of the Southern Sudan during 19 78. This is the third of a series of articles based upon these lnv estigations. 1 For such unusual interpretations of this institution, See T. S. Eliot, The Wasteland and Roheim 1972. the nature of the difference between the “savage and the civilized” remain unresolved; but neither have they disappeared, for today these perplexi ties subtly color, rather than explicitly inform, perception of ourselves and other cultures. 1. Divine Kingship This situation is nowhere more apparent than in the study of kingship. Anthropologists in the generation after Frazer and other armchair practi tioners, who were expected to spend an extended period of time among their subjects and thus, in many instances, in the context of viable kingships, most often chose to “study down,” and chronic led the lives of commoners rather than royalty. For some reason, anthropologists assumed that the significant human experience in other cultures was grounded primarily in the everyday affairs of the masses. 2 Thus, except for a historical outline and an ethnographic corpus focusing on the administrative structure, 3 * presently there is a 2 See Mair’s (1965: xiii) and Beattie’s (1965: 10) discussions of their fieldwork concentrations among peasants in the kingdoms Buganda and Bunyoro. This interest in commoners was indicative of a contrast at the time between anthropologists in Africa as compared to the European historians’ concern for royalty. This trend is now being reversed by the former’s interest in kingship and the latter’s quickening curiosity for social arrangements and lately even the more mundane experiences of the general populace, as exemplified by Braudel 1981. - A similar lack of inquisitive ness by social scientists in contemporary European royalty has also been noted by Shils and Young 1953 at the time of the last British coronation. They wrote: “It seems that even the most eminent scholars lose the sureness of touch when they enter the presence of Royalty” (63). 3 For a recent example of this approach, see Mair 1977.

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