Continuity despite and through death: regicide and royal shrines among the shilluk of southern Sudan

AbstractThe paper re-analyses the problems raised by the Shilluk practice of regicide and the rituals associated with royal shrines. Using recent field data, older colonial texts and previous anthropological analyses, the author compares Shilluk ideas to the medieval notion of 'the king's two bodies' as described by the historian Kantorowicz and emphasises the crucial differences. Shilluk kingship, it is argued, is open, competitive and charismatic. Furthermore, the interregnum, far from being a threat to law and order, is an excellent opportunity to express, maintain and renew the social order and the fictional continuity of kingship. But it is more than that: rather than just responding to the embarrassment of death, the Shilluk actively bring forth death–they seek life through death, not merely life despite death.