The Character of Kingship

Despite the contemporary fascination with royalty, anthropologists have sorely neglected the subject in recent decades. This book combines a strong theoretical argument with a wealth of ethnography from kingships in Africa, Asia and the Pacific. Quigley gives a timely and much-needed overview of the anthropology of kingship and a crucial reassessment of the contributions of Frazer and Hocart to debates about the nature and function of royal ritual. From diverse fieldwork sites a number of eminent anthropologists demonstrate how ritual and power intertwine to produce a series of variations around myth, tragedy and historical realities.

Declan Quigley is Honorary Research Associate, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Oxford University.

Introduction: The Character of Kingship--Declan Quigley * Forms of Sacralised Power in Africa--Luc de Heusch * Sacred King, Sacrificial Victim, Surrogate Victim--Lucien Scubla * A Reply to Lucien Scubla--Luc de Heusch * Tragedy, Ritual and Power in Nilotic Regicide: The Regicidal Dramas of the Eastern Nilotes of Sudan in Comparative Perspective--Simone Simonse * The Transgressive Nature of Kingship in Caste Organization: Monstrous Royal Doubles in Nepal--Marie Lecomte-Tilouine * Kingship and Untouchability--Declan Quigley * Kingship and Caste in Africa: History, Diffusion and Evolution--Tal Tamari * King House: The Mobile Polity in Northern Ghana--Susan Drucker-Brown * Kings and Tribes in East India: The Internal Political Dimension--Burkhard Schnepel * Japanese Monarchy in Historical and Comparative Perspective--Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney * Chiefs and Kings in Polynesia--Henri M.J. Claessen