DOCSLIB.ORG

The Sacred King As a Waste Heap in Northern Cameroon Emilie Guitard

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Sacred King As a Waste Heap in Northern Cameroon Emilie Guitard The sacred king as a waste heap in northern Cameroon Emilie Guitard To cite this version: Emilie Guitard. The sacred king as a waste heap in northern Cameroon. Journal of Material Culture, SAGE Publications (UK and US), 2017, 10.1177/1359183517725096. halshs-02513320 HAL Id: halshs-02513320 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-02513320 Submitted on 4 Dec 2020 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. MCU0010.1177/1359183517725096Journal of Material CultureGuitard 725096research-article2017 Journal o f MATERIAL Article CULTURE Journal of Material Culture 1 –13 The sacred king as a waste © The Author(s) 2017 Reprints and permissions: heap in northern Cameroon sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav https://doi.org/10.1177/1359183517725096DOI: 10.1177/1359183517725096 journals.sagepub.com/home/mcu Emilie Guitard IFRA Nigeria, CNRS/MAEDI, University of Ibadan, Nigeria Abstract In this article, the author considers waste (bodily excreta, the remains of daily activities, discarded artefacts) as the result of a process whereby material items are disembodied or excorporated. In the ancient kingdom of the Guiziga Bui Marva in northern Cameroon, the waste produced by each subject ended up on a large waste heap accumulated by the king. The bodily conducts of the king and his subjects were such as to identify the monarch with the heap according to the tenets of African sacred kingship. Contemporary ethnographic evidence sheds light on the history of the region and vice versa. It documents enduring bodily practices over the last couple of centuries, and the significant changes that affected them in regard to the production of given religious subjectivities. Keywords body, Cameroon, Islam, material culture, sacred kingship, waste In the vicinity of Maroua, the capital town of the extreme northern region of Cameroon, one may observe large earth mounds scattered around the landscape between the Diamare valley and the Mandara hills (see Figure 1). According to the people who live in this neighbourhood, these mounds are ancient rubbish heaps. This contention is sometimes substantiated by the toponymy of the villages next to which they may be found. For example, Ouro Jiddere means ‘the rubbish heap quarter’ (see Figure 2). It is located at Meskine, west of Maroua. Further to the East, Kongola Jiddeo translates as ‘the small rubbish heap’. Both names are derived from the Fulfulde jiddugo, meaning to pile up, hence jiddere, to designate a large accumulation of domestic and cattle waste. Corresponding author: Emilie Guitard, IFRA Nigeria (USR 3336 MAEDI/CNRS), Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan, Oyo State, Ibadan, 21540, Nigeria. Email: [email protected] 2 Journal of Material Culture 00(0) Figure 1. Distribution of the Diamare’s great waste heaps. © Map: Emilie Guitard. Figure 2. Great waste heap in front of the village chief’s compound, Ouro Jiddere, March 2011. © Photograph: Emilie Guitard. In this article, I will focus on the heaps located in Kaliao which used to be the second capital town of the Guiziga kingdom of the Bui Marva (that is, kings of Marva), after the first one located at Marva (present day Maroua) had been stormed and subjugated at the end of the 18th century by Muslim Fulani raiders from present day Nigeria. Between Guitard 3 2008 and 2011, while doing field research in Kaliao, I had the opportunity to collect oral accounts of the local kuli cult from its priests. This cult was practised, prior to the spread of Islam and Christianity, in connection with the large heaps of rubbish piled up next to the king’s compound at the heart of Kaliao. The descendants of the Guiziga kingdom of the Bui Marva draw the unlikely portrait of a king intent on piling up his waste in front of his abode to which was added the waste of his subjects and a motley collection of pol- luting or powerful objects and substances. Such a practice did not seem incidental to kingship but constituted one of its basic tenets. Could kingship thrive on rubbish, and how? In line with the theme of the present special issue of the Journal of Material Culture, I shall consider waste as the product of the specific material culture pertaining to the bodily conducts of the king and his subjects. Waste as the result of an embodiment/disembodiment process From a praxeological perspective, rubbish can be considered not only in terms of a sym- bolic and spatial order or classification (Douglas, 2001[1966]) or as the final stage in the biography of things (Kopytoff, 1986), but also in relation to the body, as things that have been detached from it. This perspective offers at least four advantages. First, bodily excreta and discarded artefacts (personal belongings, clothes, tools, furniture, etc.) can be grouped together and addressed within a single framework as materials and substances detached from the body (because of their loss of use and/or value) or fallen from it (such as bodily waste). Second, this process raises the question of the physical separation from discarded things and bodily substances that we can call disembodiment or excorporation, and of the ability for a subject to part from them. Yet, concerning the Guiziga Bui Marva context, the things that used to belong to a given subject and to be in frequent use keep being identified with him or her as Mauss (1968[1902–1903]) underscored when analysing the notion of mana. Third, I will take the process of incorporation/excorporation as a technology of the self, in other words, as a means to govern the self and others, to shape one’s identity, that is, in Foucauldian parlance, as a medium of subjectivation that includes the detachment from waste and the techniques pertaining to its disposal, while abiding by a set of given norms, and the implementation of ritual gestures observed to manipulate such powerful substances, in order to acquire some of its potency or to shield oneself from any harm. Finally, it allows one to take into account the spatial dimensions of this process. When one wants to get rid of one’s trash, the question that must be unavoidably raised is ‘Where may one dispose of it?’ Thus, a cartography or geography of waste disposal (Epelboin, 1998; Jewitt, 2011) enables us to grasp the different scales according to which individual and collective techniques of the subject are put into play: at the level of the habitation, the street, the village or the kingdom as a whole. From the small domestic waste heap to the large royal one In the Guiziga rural context, until today, the most common way to manage the objects expelled from the bodily schema and the remains of daily activities consists of gathering 4 Journal of Material Culture 00(0) them in large heaps. Every morning at dawn, just after the call for the prayer chanted by the imam of the small mosque at the entrance of Kaliao (next to the Fulani chieftaincy established there in the wake of the Islamization of the Guiziga kingdom of Marva at the beginning of the 20th century), a soft scratching noise may be heard from within each compound. Using short brooms made of a bunch of twigs tightly bound together, daugh- ters and wives bend over double to sweep the dirt floor of the yard and of the buildings around it. With brisk and short motions of their wrists, they collect kitchen refuse, rem- nants of food, the excrements of small livestock and poultry, together with leaves and vegetable matter left by daily domestic activities mostly connected to sorghum cultiva- tion and cooking as well as small livestock husbandry. Most of the time, sweeping is performed from within each house towards the court- yard, by putting together small heaps of rubbish and dust, later consolidated with other small heaps, ending up in a larger heap to the side of the courtyard, containing mostly dust and organic matter. The latter will be eventually dumped out of the compound – nowadays on the common rubbish heap of the residential quarter, and, in the past, on a small dump by the gate of each compound. In Guiziga language, those domestic heaps are called kitikil sia meaning ‘simple waste heaps’, or na taran, meaning ‘worthless’ by contrast to the large mound that is always found at the heart of the settlement, close to the old royal compound of the Bui Marva, referred to as kitikil madadang or ‘large waste heap’, or preferably as kitikil a Bui or ‘waste heap of the king’. In the past, one could also see, in front of the compound of each village chief of the kingdom, usually appointed by the king from among his kinsmen (see Seignobos and Iyebi-Mandjek, 2004: 57), a kitikil madadang sia, meaning a ‘large simple waste heap’. It signalled to incoming strangers the compound of the village chief, but also, in the flat plain landscape covered with short and scanty vegetation, it provided an enduring materialization of the expanse of the king- dom. At the time, ordinary subjects were forbidden from accumulating large domestic waste heaps in front of their compound, at the risk of being accused of challenging the leadership of the village chief, or else – a far more serious offence – that of the Bui Marva himself.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Golden Bough (Third Edition, Vol. 3 of 12) by James George Frazer
    The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Golden Bough (Third Edition, Vol. 3 of 12) by James George Frazer This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license Title: The Golden Bough (Third Edition, Vol. 3 of 12) Author: James George Frazer Release Date: January 12, 2013 [Ebook 41832] Language: English ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GOLDEN BOUGH (THIRD EDITION, VOL. 3 OF 12)*** The Golden Bough A Study in Magic and Religion By James George Frazer, D.C.L., LL.D., Litt.D. Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge Professor of Social Anthropology in the University of Liverpool Third Edition. Vol. III. Part II Taboo and the Perils of the Soul New York and London MacMillan and Co. 1911 Contents Preface. .2 Chapter I. The Burden Of Royalty. .6 § 1. Royal and Priestly Taboos. .6 § 2. Divorce of the Spiritual from the Temporal Power. 24 Chapter II. The Perils Of The Soul. 35 § 1. The Soul as a Mannikin. 35 § 2. Absence and Recall of the Soul. 39 § 3. The Soul as a Shadow and a Reflection. 93 Chapter III. Tabooed Acts. 122 § 1. Taboos on Intercourse with Strangers. 122 § 2. Taboos on Eating and Drinking. 138 § 3. Taboos on shewing the Face. 143 § 4. Taboos on quitting the House. 146 § 5. Taboos on leaving Food over. 150 Chapter IV.
    [Show full text]
  • Religion in King John: Shakespeare's View
    Connotations Vol. 1.2 (1991) Religion in King John: Shakespeare's View Roy BAITENHOUSE One way of grasping the distinctive quality of Shakespeare's vision is to compare his work with another author's on the same topic. The Troublesome Raigne of King John (1591) is either the immediate source of Shakespeare's play (as most critics think) or else a rival author's response to an early John play by Shakespeare (as supposed by Honigmann and Matchett). In any case the two texts have a similar outline yet are substantially different. Shakespeare, for instance, has no parallel to the Troublesome Raigne's depicting a visit to a monastery where lecherous friars hide nuns in their chests, nor to another scene which devotes a hundred lines to a friar's conspiring with his Abbot to poison King John and being absolved in advance. Shakespeare has avoided anti-monastic propaganda. But does this mean he has no interest in religious issues? On the contrary, the central event in his play (as likewise in the Troublesome Raigne) is a confrontation between John and the papal legate Pandulph, an event which Protestant historians considered to be analogous to Henry VIII's break with the church of Rome. Shakespeare's treatment of the quarrel, however, is evenhanded. Neither John nor Pandulph is depicted as a villain. But each is shown to be a counterfeiter of religious duty. A recent critic has alleged that Shakespeare "minimizes" the religious issue by not adhering to "the Protestant view of things" which unifies the Troublesome Raigne.1 But I would say, rather, that Shakespeare makes the religious issue all important, by showing us how a corrupting by "commodity" underlies the troubles of King John and his times-and by implication those of the 16th century also.
    [Show full text]
  • Sacred Kingship: Cases from Polynesia
    Sacred Kingship: Cases from Polynesia Henri J. M. Claessen Leiden University ABSTRACT This article aims at a description and analysis of sacred kingship in Poly- nesia. To this aim two cases – or rather island cultures – are compared. The first one is the island of Tahiti, where several complex polities were found. The most important of which were Papara, Te Porionuu, and Tautira. Their type of rulership was identical, so they will be discussed as one. In these kingdoms a great role was played by the god Oro, whose image and the belonging feather girdles were competed fiercely. The oth- er case is found on the Tonga Islands, far to the west. Here the sacred Tui Tonga ruled, who was allegedly a son of the god Tangaloa and a woman from Tonga. Because of this descent he was highly sacred. In the course of time a new powerful line, the Tui Haa Takalaua developed, and the Tui Tonga lost his political power. In his turn the Takalaua family was over- ruled by the Tui Kanokupolu. The tensions between the three lines led to a fierce civil war, in which the Kanokupolu line was victorious. The king from this line was, however, not sacred, being a Christian. 1. INTRODUCTION Polynesia comprises the islands situated in the Pacific Ocean within the triangle formed by the Hawaiian Islands, Easter Island and New Zealand. The islanders share a common Polynesian culture. This cultural unity was established already in the eighteenth century, by James Cook, who ob- served during his visit of Easter Island in 1774: In Colour, Features, and Languages they [the Easter Islanders] bear such an affinity to the People of the more Western isles that no one will doubt that they have the same Origin (Cook 1969 [1775]: 279, 354–355).
    [Show full text]
  • King John Take Place in the Thirteenth Century, Well Before Shakespeare’S Other English History Plays
    Folger Shakespeare Library https://shakespeare.folger.edu/ Get even more from the Folger You can get your own copy of this text to keep. Purchase a full copy to get the text, plus explanatory notes, illustrations, and more. Buy a copy Contents From the Director of the Folger Shakespeare Library Front Textual Introduction Matter Synopsis Characters in the Play ACT 1 Scene 1 ACT 2 Scene 1 Scene 1 Scene 2 ACT 3 Scene 3 Scene 4 Scene 1 ACT 4 Scene 2 Scene 3 Scene 1 Scene 2 Scene 3 ACT 5 Scene 4 Scene 5 Scene 6 Scene 7 From the Director of the Folger Shakespeare Library It is hard to imagine a world without Shakespeare. Since their composition four hundred years ago, Shakespeare’s plays and poems have traveled the globe, inviting those who see and read his works to make them their own. Readers of the New Folger Editions are part of this ongoing process of “taking up Shakespeare,” finding our own thoughts and feelings in language that strikes us as old or unusual and, for that very reason, new. We still struggle to keep up with a writer who could think a mile a minute, whose words paint pictures that shift like clouds. These expertly edited texts are presented to the public as a resource for study, artistic adaptation, and enjoyment. By making the classic texts of the New Folger Editions available in electronic form as The Folger Shakespeare (formerly Folger Digital Texts), we place a trusted resource in the hands of anyone who wants them.
    [Show full text]
  • Chapter Two From
    Hitchens. Christopher (2007) god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. New York: Hatchet Book Group Chapter 2 Religion Kills His aversion to religion, in the sense usually attached to the term, was of the same kind with that of Lucretius: he regarded it with the feelings due not to a mere mental delusion, but to a great moral evil. He looked upon it as the greatest enemy of morality: first, by setting up factitious excellencies—belief in creeds, devotional feelings, and cer- emonies, not connected with the good of human kind—and causing these to be accepted as substitutes for genuine virtue: but above all, by radically vitiating the standard of morals; making it consist in doing the will of a being, on whom it lavishes indeed all the phrases of adulation, but whom in sober truth it depicts as eminently hateful. —John Stuart Mill About His Father, In The Autobiography Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum. (To such heights of evil are men driven by religion.) —Lucretius, De Rerum Natura Imagine that you can perform a feat of which I am incapable. Imagine, in other words, that you can picture an infinitely benign and all-powerful creator, who conceived of you, then made and shaped you, brought you into the world he had made for you, and now supervises and cares for you even while you sleep. Imagine, further, that if you obey the rules and commandments that he has lovingly prescribed, you will qualify for an eternity of bliss and repose. I do not say that I envy you this belief (because to me it seems like the wish for a horrible form of benevolent and unalterable dictatorship), but I do have a sincere question.
    [Show full text]
  • Robert Graves the White Goddess
    ROBERT GRAVES THE WHITE GODDESS IN DEDICATION All saints revile her, and all sober men Ruled by the God Apollo's golden mean— In scorn of which I sailed to find her In distant regions likeliest to hold her Whom I desired above all things to know, Sister of the mirage and echo. It was a virtue not to stay, To go my headstrong and heroic way Seeking her out at the volcano's head, Among pack ice, or where the track had faded Beyond the cavern of the seven sleepers: Whose broad high brow was white as any leper's, Whose eyes were blue, with rowan-berry lips, With hair curled honey-coloured to white hips. Green sap of Spring in the young wood a-stir Will celebrate the Mountain Mother, And every song-bird shout awhile for her; But I am gifted, even in November Rawest of seasons, with so huge a sense Of her nakedly worn magnificence I forget cruelty and past betrayal, Careless of where the next bright bolt may fall. FOREWORD am grateful to Philip and Sally Graves, Christopher Hawkes, John Knittel, Valentin Iremonger, Max Mallowan, E. M. Parr, Joshua IPodro, Lynette Roberts, Martin Seymour-Smith, John Heath-Stubbs and numerous correspondents, who have supplied me with source- material for this book: and to Kenneth Gay who has helped me to arrange it. Yet since the first edition appeared in 1946, no expert in ancient Irish or Welsh has offered me the least help in refining my argument, or pointed out any of the errors which are bound to have crept into the text, or even acknowledged my letters.
    [Show full text]
  • The Journal of the Walters Art Museum
    THE JOURNAL OF THE WALTERS ART MUSEUM VOL. 73, 2018 THE JOURNAL OF THE WALTERS ART MUSEUM VOL. 73, 2018 EDITORIAL BOARD FORM OF MANUSCRIPT Eleanor Hughes, Executive Editor All manuscripts must be typed and double-spaced (including quotations and Charles Dibble, Associate Editor endnotes). Contributors are encouraged to send manuscripts electronically; Amanda Kodeck please check with the editor/manager of curatorial publications as to compat- Amy Landau ibility of systems and fonts if you are using non-Western characters. Include on Julie Lauffenburger a separate sheet your name, home and business addresses, telephone, and email. All manuscripts should include a brief abstract (not to exceed 100 words). Manuscripts should also include a list of captions for all illustrations and a separate list of photo credits. VOLUME EDITOR Amy Landau FORM OF CITATION Monographs: Initial(s) and last name of author, followed by comma; italicized or DESIGNER underscored title of monograph; title of series (if needed, not italicized); volume Jennifer Corr Paulson numbers in arabic numerals (omitting “vol.”); place and date of publication enclosed in parentheses, followed by comma; page numbers (inclusive, not f. or ff.), without p. or pp. © 2018 Trustees of the Walters Art Gallery, 600 North Charles Street, Baltimore, L. H. Corcoran, Portrait Mummies from Roman Egypt (I–IV Centuries), Maryland 21201 Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 56 (Chicago, 1995), 97–99. Periodicals: Initial(s) and last name of author, followed by comma; title in All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without the written double quotation marks, followed by comma, full title of periodical italicized permission of the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland.
    [Show full text]
  • Divine Right and Popular Sovereignty in the French Revolution
    THE KING AND THE CROWD: DIVINE RIGHT AND POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION Robert G. Hamerton-Kelly Stanford University We French cannot really think about politics or philosophy or literature without remembering that all this— politics, philoso- phy, literature—began, in the modern world, under the sign of a crime. A crime was committed in France in 1793. They killed a good and entirely likable king who was the incarnation of legitimacy. We cannot not remember that this crime was horrible... When we speak about writing, the accent is on what is necessarily criminal in writing. (Jean-François Lyotard, "Discussion Lyotard-Rorty" 583; quoted in Dunn 165) The condemnation of the king is at the crux of our contemporary history. It symbolizes the secularization of our history and the disincarnation of the Christian God. (Albert Camus, The Rebel 120; quoted in Dunn 140) usan Dunn makes a well-documented case that the death of Louis SXVI was unconsciously understood, especially by the Jacobins, as a human sacrifice that was necessary for the founding of the republic. "Louis must die because the patrie must live," said Robespierre at the king's trial, and the representative Carra considered Louis "the source of corruption and servitude . the fatal talisman of all our ills" whose death would cause the people to be "regenerated in morality and virtue" (Dunn 15-37). The king was a monster and the source of all the ills, and his death 68 Robert G. Hamerton-Kelly had the power to alleviate those ills and regenerate the nation. This image of the king as sacrificial victim persisted throughout the first half of the nineteenth century in French literature and politics, sometimes assimilating itself to the image of Jesus Christ who died for the sins of the world.
    [Show full text]
  • Kings for UCP.Png
    In anthropology as much as in popular imagination, kings are fgures of fascination and intrigue, heroes or tyrants in ways presidents and prime ministers can never be. Tis collection of essays by two of the world’s most distinguished anthropologists—David Graeber and Marshall Sahlins—explores what kingship actually is, historically and anthropo- logically. As they show, kings are symbols for more than just sovereignty: indeed, the study of kingship ofers a unique window into fundamental dilemmas concerning the very nature of power, meaning, and the human condition. Refecting on issues such as temporality, alterity, and utopia—not to mention the divine, the strange, the numinous, and the bestial—Graeber and Sahlins explore the role of kings as they have existed around the world, from the BaKongo to the Aztec to the Shilluk and beyond. Richly delivered with the wit and sharp analysis characteristic of Graeber and Sahlins, this book opens up new avenues for the anthropological study of this fascinating and ubiquitous political fgure. * * * If you deem that anthropology is neither a form of pompous navel- gazing, nor an exercise in making preposterous generalizations out of sketchy personal experiences, this book is for you. With impecca- ble scholarship, conceptual imagination, and wit, David Graeber and Marshall Sahlins think anew, and within a broad comparative scope, an ancient and illustrious question: why and how can a single man come to rule over the many as the embodiment or the delegate of a god? Such a question, they show, can only be answered by shifting towards an analysis where human, non-human, and meta-human persons are treated on the same ontological level as parts of a hierarchical cosmic polity.
    [Show full text]
  • Buddhism in China
    «MW«MMM PRINCETON, N. J. BL 1430 .B42 1884 ^ Heal, Samuel, 1825-1889 Buddhism in China SAelf. BUDDHISM IN CHINA AMAF lo illusuat.- ^....>.^^: BUDDHISM IN CHINA -^'"' _^fii^,Mi^i^^ \\Th^,i„„„- : . Uphi . ^-~-^-=-J.<iQ.,;^gi(-=~^:'-v Londnn PiiUmbi d l.v iliu S.i.i,-fy r..r IVjuiuUn);" Christian Ko..wli..lg<,. Bon--Cf)riEitian Hdi'gi'ousi ^psftemSi BUDDHISM IN CHINA. BY THE REV. S. BEAL, RECTOR OF WARK-ON-TYNR, NORTHUMBERLAND. PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE COMMITTEE OF GENERAL LITERATURE AND EDUCATION APPOINTED BY THE SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. LONDON: SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE, NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, CHARING CROSS, W.C. 43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C. 26, ST. George's place, hyde park corner, s.w. BRIGHTON : 135, north street. New York : E. & J. B. YOUNG & CO. 1884. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Introductory CHAPTER II. Whence our Knowledge of the Northern Books has been derived ... ... ... ... ... ... ... lo CHAPTER III. Agreement between Early Northern and Southern Books... 22 CHAPTER IV. Historical Connexion between India and China ... ... 42 CHAPTER V. The Dream of Ming-ti ... ... ... ... ... 51 VI BUDDHISM IN CHINA. CHAPTER VI. The Origin of the Sakyas ... 54 CHAPTER VH. The Legend of Sakya Buddha 69 CHAPTER VHL The "Lifeof Buddha," by Ajvaghosha ... 72 CHAPTER IX. Subsequent History of Buddhism in China (Historical Connexion) ... ... ... ... 90 CHAPTER X. Buddhism in its Philosophical and Religious Aspects ... 98 CHAPTER XL The Worship of Kwan-yin ... ... ... ... .., 119 CHAPTER XII. The Western Paradise of the Buddhists CONTENTS. Vll CHAPTER Xril. Ritual Services of Kwan-yin ... ... ... ... ... 133 CHAPTER XIV. Amitabha .. ... ... ... ... ... ... 159 CHAPTER XV.
    [Show full text]
  • 1595 KING RICHARD the SECOND William Shakespeare
    1595 KING RICHARD THE SECOND William Shakespeare Shakespeare, William (1564-1616) - English dramatist and poet widely regarded as the greatest and most influential writer in all of world literature. The richness of Shakespeare’s genius transcends time; his keen observation and psychological insight are, to this day, without rival. King Richard II (1595) - A historical tragedy in which King Richard II orders Henry Bolingbroke out of England. Henry later invades England, arrests Richard, and becomes King Henry IV. Table Of Contents ACT I. 3 ACT II. 16 ACT III. 29 ACT IV. 40 ACT V. 47 DRAMATIS PERSONAE KING RICHARD THE SECOND JOHN OF GAUNT, Duke of Lancaster - uncle to the King EDMUND LANGLEY, Duke of York - uncle to the King HENRY, surnamed BOLINGBROKE, Duke of Hereford, son of John of Gaunt, afterwards King Henry IV DUKE OF AUMERLE, son of the Duke of York THOMAS MOWBRAY, Duke of Norfolk DUKE OF SURREY EARL OF SALISBURY EARL BERKELEY BUSHY - favourites of King Richard BAGOT - “ ” “ ” GREEN - “ ” “ ” EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND HENRY PERCY, surnamed HOTSPUR, his son LORD Ross LORD WILLOUGHBY LORD FITZWATER BISHOP OF CARLISLE ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER LORD MARSHAL SIR STEPHEN SCROOP SIR PIERCE OF EXTON CAPTAIN of a band of Welshmen TWO GARDENERS QUEEN to King Richard DUCHESS OF YORK DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER, widow of Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester LADY attending on the Queen Lords, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers, Keeper, Messenger, Groom, and other Attendants SCENE: England and Wales ACT I. SCENE I. London. The palace - Enter RICHARD, JOHN OF GAUNT, with other NOBLES and attendants KING RICHARD Old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster, Hast thou, according to thy oath and band, Brought hither Henry Hereford, thy bold son, Here to make good the boist’rous late appeal, Which then our leisure would not let us hear, Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray? GAUNT I have, my liege.
    [Show full text]
  • Sacred Kingship Among the Peoples of the Steppes1 by K
    Sacred Kingship among the Peoples of the Steppes1 by K. Czeglédy2 The study of the institution of sacred kingship was greatly advanced by the Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions (Rome, 1955), which was dedicated to this theme.3 The many contributions enriched our knowledge of sacred kingship in every way, but in my opinion, the most important aspect of these contributions is that they allow us to pursue a new, comparative study of this phenomenon. Several terminological difficulties, however, stand in the way of such a comparative approach. The comprehensive, phenomenological material of the Congress was extremely heterogenous, and it quickly became clear that further progress would first require a clarification of terms. Such a move towards clarity was made by the Dutch scholar Th. P. van Baaren, who argued convincingly that in order to clarify the notion of "sacred kingship" we should return to the original Frazerian terminology.4 This would mean that the only sacred kingships are those in which 1) after his ascension to the throne the king is treated as a divinity on earth; 2) the king rules his people with divine power; 3) the king is accountable for order in the cosmos; and 4) the life and death of the king have cosmic significance. The death of the king has a representative character, and just as in the case of the demi-gods of pre-history, the dying of the king becomes a fountain of life for his entire people. It is obvious that there are only a few cases in which all of these criteria are met.
    [Show full text]