ABSTRACT
Kingship is a unique principle of political organization in that it straddles societies of every type apart from the very simplest hunter–gatherer communities. Certain contemporary misconceptions impede the understanding of kingship and to get to the heart of the institution we must go beyond these. Royalty and nobility are essentially about separation. While this may convey privilege from one perspective, the comparative ethnographic literature from Africa and elsewhere suggests a rather different picture. Simon Simonse examines the scapegoat theme historically in the eastern Nilotic communities using a fictional account of regicide as a backdrop. Making an interesting parallel with the feuding character of segmentary societies, he argues that actual regicide is a drama connected with rainmaking which its last stages of escalation is a necessity imposed on the community.
