THE CULT OF NYAKANG AND THE DIVINE KINGS OF THE SHILLUK 221 



repair. The roofs of these titkl terminate in an ornament, whicli consists of an ostrich 

 egg from which there projects the blade of a spear, this finish of the roof being shown on a 

 large scale in the accompanying figure (Fig. 52): The most casual enquiry shows that the 

 two huts, with the area surrounding them enclosed by the fence, are sacred, for, with the 

 exception of one or two old people of either sex whose duty it is to keep them clean, 

 no one enters the enclosure, or even approaches it, without due cause. The only exception 

 to this rule is, that children who have not reached puberty may enter the shrine to assist 

 the guardians. I have seen a boy of about ten carrying a gourd of water enter the shrine 

 of Yur Adodit, near Kodok, without the least ceremony. The enclosure, in fact, constitutes 

 a slirine, and essentially similar shrines are found in many Shilluk villages. Sometimes, 

 but this is rare, only a single hut may stand within the enclosure, which may even be 

 separated from a village, as is shown in Fig. 51, but more commonly three or even four 

 huts are fenced off, one of the huts being raised over the grave of a king, while the others 

 are used by those who attend to the upkeep of the shrine. It is not difficult to comjiile 

 a list of the villages which contain the graves of the Shilluk kings, and in doing this it 

 is found that Nyakang and his son Dag, both of whom disappeared but did not die, 

 have many shrines called graves, Nyakang possessing no less than ten, the most celebrated 

 of which are at Akurwa, Fashoda and Fenikang. The shrines of Nyakang do not differ in 

 appearance from the shrines of the later Shilluk kings, and they are all spoken of as 

 kengo Nyakang, "the grave of Nyakang," although it is perfectly well known that no 

 one is buried in them. 



The word kengo is only applied to the graves of kings and their children, the graves of 

 commoners being spoken of as roro ; a similar verbal distinction is made with regard to the 

 death of kings, who are not said to " die" but, like their ancestor Nyakang, to "go away." 



The graves of the kings and the kengo Nyakang are alike the site of the performance of 

 certain ceremonies which show the intimate relation, amounting sometimes to confusion, 

 which exists between Nyakang and subsequent kings. As already stated, Juok is too distant 

 to be approached otherwise than through Nyakang, so that the actual working religion is a 

 cult of Nyakang depending upon an absolute acceptance of the following beliefs : — 



(i) The immanence in each king {ret) of the spirit of Nyakang, simply spoken of 

 as Nyakang. 



(ii) The conviction that the king must not be allowed to become ill or senile, lest with 

 his diminishing vigour the cattle should sicken and fail to bear their increase, the crops 

 should rot in the fields, and man, stricken with disease, should die in ever increasing 

 numbers. 



It follows that the ret of the Shilluk must be numbered among those rulers whom 

 Dr. J. G. Frazer has called "divine kings," and like many of these in other countries, 

 although every precaution is taken against their accidental death, they are (or were) killed 

 in order to avoid those disasters which their senescence was thought to bring upon 

 the State. 



The Killing of the King and the Transmission of the Divine Stikit 



Although there is not the least doubt that the kings of the Shilluk were killed with due The killing 



of the 

 divine king 



ceremony when they began to show signs of old age or ill health, it was extremely difficult ° ' * 



to ascertain exactly what was done on these occasions, and there is no doubt that a good 

 deal of Shilluk folk-lore survives in the accounts commonly given of the killing of the ret. 

 According to these any nidret has the right to attempt to kill tlie king, and, if successful, to 



