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Kings of Disaster

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Kings of Disaster

Dualism, Centralism and the Scapegoat King in Southeastern Sudan

by Simon Simonse

Published by: Michigan State University Press

Series: Studies in Violence, Mimesis & Culture

Imprint: Michigan State University Press

Publishing Date: 2018-05-01

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9781609175672
Published: May 2018

$24.95

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9781628953336
Published: May 2018

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Description
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Praise

The long-awaited, revised, and illustrated edition of Simon Simonse’s study of the Rainmakers of the Nilotic Sudan marks a breakthrough in anthropological thinking on African political systems. Taking his inspiration from René Girard’s theory of consensual scapegoating, the author shows that the longstanding distinction of states and stateless societies as two fundamentally different political types does not hold. Centralized and segmentary systems only differ in the relative emphasis put on the victimary role of the king as compared with that of enemy. Kings of Disaster proposes an elegant and powerful solution to the vexed problem of regicide.

Contents

Models, Diagrams and Tables

Narratives from Various Sources Serving as Case Histories

Foreword by Mark Anspach

Acknowledgments to the First Edition

Introduction

Part I: The Problem and the Setting

1. The King: Focus of Suspense, Lever of Consensus and Inventor of the State

2. Ethnological Connections Between the Nile and the Kidepo

3. Modes of Subsistence and Social Organisation

4. The Passing of the Glamour: The Bari

5. The Twin Kingdoms: The Lotuho

6. The Bugbear of the Administration: The Pari, Lokoya, and Lulubo

Part II: Dualism: Generating Consensus from the Suspense of War

7. The Dualist Structure of Territorial Organisation

8. The Dualist Structure of Age‑class Organisation

Part III: Centralism: The King as Aggressor of the People

9. The King as Enemy of his People

10. The King as Unifier of the People

11. Tipping the Balance of Power from the People to the King

12. Boundaries in the Sky: The Territorial Dimension of Kingship

13. The Fingers of God: The Cosmological Dimension of Kingship

14. Rain Queens and Rainstones: Symbols of the Centre

15. The Spear and the Bead: The Fragility of Kingship

Part IV: The Scapegoat King: The People as Aggressor of their King

16. The King as Victim in Suspense

17. The King as Victim

18. “Catching Life in the Spell of Death”: The Ritualisation of the King’s Victimhood

19. The Metabolism of Violence and Order: The King’s Stomach at Work

Conclusion

Appendix I: Chronology of Key Events

Appendix II: Linguistic affinity between the ethnic groups figuring in the text

Archival Sources

Published Titles and Theses

Map of the Peoples of South Sudan

Map of East Bank Equatoria

Name Index of the Kings, Queens, Masters and Other Overlords Figuring in the Dramas of this Study

General Index

Trained as a structural anthropologist in Leiden and Paris, SIMON SIMONSE received a doctorate for his research on early kingship in South Sudan in 1990 from the Free University of Amsterdam. During the 1970s and 1980s he taught anthropology in DR Congo, Uganda, the Netherlands, South Sudan, and Indonesia. Since 1993 he has worked as a conflict transformation expert in the Horn and Great Lakes of Africa.

“Simon Simonse’s book is a monumental achievement. I believe it is the most important

work on the long-mooted topic of divine kingship yet written, a book that brings the questions

debated since the time of Sir James Frazer and E. E. Evans-Pritchard to a final, definitive resolution.

If there is such a thing as progress in anthropology, and not just shifting fashion, then this book must

stand as the starting point for any future discussion on these topics.”

—DAVID GRAEBER, Professor of Anthropology, London School of Economics

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Kings of Disaster

Dualism, Centralism and the Scapegoat King in Southeastern Sudan