with the other African examples before us, that any bodily defect or symptom of old age appearing on the person of the Ethiopian monarch was the signal for his execution. At a later time it is recorded that if the King of Ethiopia became maimed in any part of his body all his courtiers had to suffer the same mutilation.[1] But this rule may perhaps have been instituted at the time when the custom of killing the king for any personal defect was abolished; instead of compelling the king to die because, e.g., he had lost a tooth, all his subjects would be obliged to lose a tooth, and thus the invidious superiority of the subjects over the king would be cancelled. A rule of this sort is still observed in the same region at the court of the Sultans of Darfur. When the Sultan coughs, every one makes the sound ts ts by striking the tongue against the root of the upper teeth; when he sneezes, the whole assembly utters a sound like the cry of the jeko; when he falls off his horse, all his followers must fall off likewise; if any one of them remains in the saddle, no matter how high his rank, he is laid on the ground and beaten.[2] At the court of the King of Uganda in Central Africa, when the king laughs, every one laughs; when he sneezes, every one sneezes; when he has a cold, every one pretends to have a cold; when he has his hair cut, so has every one.[3] At the court of Boni in Celebes it is a rule that whatever the king does all the courtiers must do. If he stands, they stand; if he sits, they sit;
- ↑ Strabo, xvii. 2, 3; Diodorus, iii. 7.
- ↑ Mohammed Ebn- Omar El-Tounsy, Voyage au Darfour (Paris, 1845), p. 162 sq.; Travels of an Arab Merchant in Soudan, abridged from the French by Bayle St. John (London, 1854), p. 78; Bulletin de la Société de Géographic (Paris) IVme Série, iv. (1852) p. 539 sq.
- ↑ R. W. Felkin, “Notes on the Waganda Tribe of Central Africa,” in Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, xiii. (1884-1886) p. 711.
