THE KILLING OF THE DIVINE KING IN SOUTH 



AFRICA. 



By Rev. Samuel S. Dornan^ M.A., F.G.S., F.R.G.S. 

 {Rcad^ July ii, 1918.) 



Sir J. G. Frazer, in his great work entitled " The Golden 

 Bough," has traced the evolution of the kingly office, and has 

 endeavoured to prove that the idea of the Divine King arose out 

 oif that of the primitive medicine-man, who was believed to 

 control natural phenomena, and hence was thought to be possessed 

 of Divine attributes and properties, or even actually claimed them 

 himself. In Fart III. of that work he further elaborates the theory 

 that kings, being Divine beings, had to be killed when they showed 

 signs of failing physical powers. This was to prevent the spirit 

 of the king from showing a corresponding decay of spiritual 

 energy, to interrupt or suspend the course of nature, and bring 

 disaster upon the people. He fortifies this opinion with a wealth 

 of illustration altogether unexampled. He gives a formidable 

 array of instances from ancient and modern history, and from 

 nearly every corner of the,world. He gives quite a few examples 

 from Africa, mostly from Central and West Africa, but cites 

 only two from South Africa, namely, the practice of the Zulus 

 and the people of Sofala, or the ancient Makaranga of Rhodesia. 

 This he quotes from the seventh volume of Theal's " Records of 

 South-Eastern Africa," the narrative of Dos Santos, to whom wl- 

 are mainly indebted for our knowledge of these regions in the 

 sixteenth century. Having learnt of the custom of king-killing 

 amongst the old Varozwe, who were until comparatively recent 

 times the ruling caste of the Makaranga, I had the curiosity to 

 look up the reference in Theal's volumes, and found that Dos 

 Santos had accurately described a custom which prevailed until 

 quite lately. These Varozwe are few in number now, and have 

 lost their predominance. They have many interesting customs 

 peculiar to themselves, and their language is said to have been 

 quite different to the ordinary Chikaranga, but it may only have 

 been a dialect of it, just as the language of the Incas of Peru 

 is said to have been dift'erent. though only a dialect of the 

 Quichua, the common speech of the people. These Varozwe claim 

 to be the descendants of the people who built Zimbabwe and other 

 ruins of Rhodesia, and have many interesting traditions regarding 

 them, some of which the writer embodied in a paper before this 

 Association a few years ago.* They are somewhat different in 

 type to the ordinary natives, and have sometimes aquiline noses 

 and thin lips, are more refined in appearance and manners, though 

 still negroes. 



*" Rhodesian Ruins and Native Tradition." Refit. S.A. Ass. for Adv. 

 Scieuce (1915), Pretoria. 502-516. 



