ABSTRACT
The paramount Yaka chief stands at the intersection of vital and hierarchical links connecting each individual to other members of the community, to the founding Ancestor, and to the order of ethical Law. The rite of investing the chief, which is to be analysed, produces a form of resonance or consonance between the body of the chief, the social tissue tying the people together, vital resources and the course of events within the life-context of the community. A chief acquires the keenness of sight, strength and unassailableness characteristic of the eagle, leopard and lightning, and is therefore assumed to be able to penetrate the mysteries of closed universes, diurnal and nocturnal, and the worlds of the living and the dead. Political investiture is only possible when the deceased chief has been disenthroned completely and transformed into an ancestor. The rite of investiture links the ordering power of the chief with his function as mediator of reproductive and alimentary resources.
