Shilluk kingship: power struggles and the question of succession

Schnepel, Burkhard

article

Shilluk kingship: power struggles and the question of succession

Anthropos • 85 • Published In 1990 • Pages: 105-124

By: Schnepel, Burkhard.

Abstract
This article discusses the nature of Shilluk King's authority by reinterpreting available ethnographic information and historical data on succession to kingship. The article argues that the Shilluk kingship represents not a divine kingship as viewed by earlier anthropologists but 'a routinized form of charismatic domination' which has to be occupied not by just any princely candidate but by the right, charismatically qualified one.

Form and rules of government

Chief executive

Status, role, and prestige

Social personality

Inheritance

Territorial hierarchy

Community structure

Localized kin groups

Inter-community relations

External relations

History

Shilluk