Resumen: Since Frazer’s time, Shilluk kingship has been a flashpoint of anthropological debatesabout the nature of sovereignty, and while such debates are now considered irrelevant tocurrent debates on the subject, they need not be. This essay presents a detailed analysis ofthe history, myth, and ritual surrounding the Shilluk institution to propose a new set ofdistinctions: between “divine kingship” (by which humans can become god througharbitrary violence, reflexively defining their victims as “the people”) and “sacred kingship”(the popular domestication of such figures through ritual), and argues that kingship alwaysrepresents the image of a temporary, imperfect solution to what is taken to be thefundamental dilemma of the human condition—one that can itself only be maintainedthrough terror. David Graeber, 2011

Para citar: Seligman, Charles Gabriel. 1978. Egypt and Negro Africa: a study in divine kingship. New York: AMS Press.