interesting from our point of view. The honor of being a priest-king ceased to be desirable; the person in line for the succession often used every means to escape it. Thus in Combodscha, where there is a fire and water king, it is often necessary to use force to compel the successor to accept the honor. On Nine or Savage Island, a coral island in the Pacific Ocean, monarchy actually came to an end because nobody was willing to undertake the responsible and dangerous office. In some parts of West Africa a general council is held after the death of the king to determine upon the successor. The man on whom the choice falls is seized, tied and kept in custody in the fetich house until he has declared himself willing to accept the crown. Sometimes the presumptive successor to the throne finds ways and means to avoid the intended honor; thus it is related of a certain chief that he used to go armed day and night and resist by force every attempt to place him on the throne.[1] Among the negroes of Sierra Leone the resistance against accepting the kingly honor was so great that most of the tribes were compelled to make strangers their kings.
Frazer makes these conditions responsible for the fact that in the development of history a separation of the original priest-kingship into a spir-
- ↑ A. Bastian, “The German Expedition on the Coast of Lonago,” cited by Frazer, 1. c., p. 18.
