Section 4. Taboos on Quitting the House.
BY AN EXTENSION of the like precaution kings are sometimes forbidden
ever to leave their palaces; or, if they are allowed to do so, their subjects
are forbidden to see them abroad. The fetish king of Benin, who was
worshipped as a deity by his subjects, might not quit his palace. After his
coronation the king of Loango is confined to his palace, which he may not
leave. The king of Onitsha "does not step out of his house into the town
unless a human sacrifice is made to propitiate the gods: on this account he
never goes out beyond the precincts of his premises." Indeed we are told
that he may not quit his palace under pain of death or of giving up one or
more slaves to be executed in his presence. As the wealth of the country is
measured in slaves, the king takes good care not to infringe the law. Yet
once a year at the Feast of Yams the king is allowed, and even required
by custom, to dance before his people outside the high mud wall of the
palace. In dancing he carries a great weight, generally a sack of earth, on
his back to prove that he is still able to support the burden and cares of
state. Were he unable to discharge this duty, he would be immediately
deposed and perhaps stoned. The kings of Ethiopia were worshipped as
gods, but were mostly kept shut up in their palaces. On the mountainous
coast of Pontus there dwelt in antiquity a rude and warlike people named
the Mosyni or Mosynoeci, through whose rugged country the Ten
Thousand marched on their famous retreat from Asia to Europe. These
barbarians kept their king in close custody at the top of a high tower, from
which after his election he was never more allowed to descend. Here he
dispensed justice to his people; but if he offended them, they punished him
by stopping his rations for a whole day, or even starving him to death. The
kings of Sabaea or Sheba, the spice country of Arabia, were not allowed to
go out of their palaces; if they did so, the mob stoned them to death. But at
the top of the palace there was a window with a chain attached to it. If any
man deemed he had suffered wrong, he pulled the chain, and the king
perceived him and called him in and gave judgment. 1
