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Book Book Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Kings of disaster: dualism, centralism and the scapegoat king in Southeastern Sudan
Author:Simonse, SimonISNI
Year:1992
Volume:5
Pages:477
Language:English
Series:Studies in human society (ISSN 0920-6221)
City of publisher:Leiden
Publisher:Brill
ISBN:9004095608
Geographic term:Sudan
Subjects:pastoralists
monarchy
Abstract:The nature of the polities in the Nilotic Sudan which the author investigated in the field between 1981 and 1986 compelled him to depart from the methodological a prioris which have for the last 50 years characterized the study of African political systems: viz. the dichotomy between the sacred and the political dimension of power, and the dichotomy between systems with centralized authority or 'States' and acephalous, segmentary political systems. Although central power in these societies was defined as 'rain', namely in a symbolic way, it was the object of intense political rivalry. On the basis of the theory of the French literary critic René Girard, who argues that the power of the king derives from his identification as a public scapegoat, this book studies kingship as an ongoing drama in which the king, the different sections of the society, enemies and rivals are the main protagonists. It shows that fixed patterns emerge that correspond to the scapegoat mechanism postulated by Girard. Part 1 of the study provides a more precise formulation of the theoretical problem posed and of the social setting addressed. Part 2 describes and analyses the political organization of the peoples of the Equatorian east bank of the Nile in terms of the enemy scenario. Part 3 focuses on the king as aggressor against the people, while part 4 deals with the scapegoat king, or the people as aggressor against the king. The peoples examined in the study are the Bari, the Lotuho, the Pari, the Lulubo and the Lokoya.
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