ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the significance of pastoralism for the system of social stratification found in the societies. It demonstrates that the social and political relations based on the ownership of cattle can only be understood in terms of the symbolic and ideological representations of sacred kingship. The distinction between the sacred kingship as a system of representations and a concept of political organization, and the forms of the state which have developed within Intralacustrine societies draws attention to the anteriority of a religious and political dimension. The ethnological literature dealing with Intralacustrine societies has identified cattle as the basis for generating relations of subordination and domination and of social stratification conceived in terms of castes, and feudal relations. In circumstances related to the political development of the sacred kingship, ritual specialists take on a similar importance due to their association with royal power.
