Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 18.djvu/758

738 to a large extent in practice, he is owner of his subjects and of the territory they occupy.

Where militancy is pronounced and the claims of a conqueror unqualified, it is indeed to a considerable degree thus with those uncivilized peoples who do not ascribe supernatural characters to their rulers. Among the Zooloo Caffres the chief "exercises supreme power over the lives of his people"; "the Bheel chiefs have a power over the lives and property of their own subjects"; and in Feejee the subject is property. But it is still more thus where the ruler is considered more than human. Astley tells us that in Loango the king is "called samba and pongo, that is, god"; and, according to Proyart, the Loango people "say their lives and goods belong to the king," In Wasoro, East Africa, "the king has unlimited power of life and death. . . in some tribes. . . he is almost worshiped." In Msambara the people say, "We are all slaves of the Zumbe (king), who is our Mulungu" (god). "By the state law of Dahomey, as at Benin, all men are slaves to the king, and most women are his wives"; and in Dahomey the king is called "the spirit." The Malagasy speak of the king as "our god"; and he is lord of the soil, owner of all property, and master of his subjects. Their time and services are at his command." In the Sandwich Islands the king, personating the god, utters oracular responses; and his power "extends over the property, liberty, and lives of his people." Various Asiatic rulers, whose titles ascribe to them divine descent and nature, stand in like relations to their peoples. In Siam "the king is master not only of the persons but really of the property of his subjects; he disposes of their labor and directs their movements at will." Of the Burmese we read, "Their goods likewise, and even their persons, are reputed his [the king's] property, and on this ground it is that he selects for his concubine any female that may chance to please his eye." In China "there is only one who possesses authority—the Emperor. . . . A wang, or king, has no hereditary possessions, and lives upon the salary vouchsafed by the Emperor. . . . He is the only possessor of the landed property."

Of course, where unlimited power is possessed by the political head—where, as victorious invader, his subjects lie at his mercy, or where, as divinely descended, his will may not be questioned without impiety, or where he unites the characters of conqueror and god—he naturally absorbs every kind of authority; he is at once military head, legislative head, judicial head, ecclesiastical head. The fully developed king is the supreme center of every social structure and the director of every social function.

In a small tribe it is practicable for the chief personally to discharge all the duties of his office. Besides leading the other warriors in battle, he has time enough to settle disputes, he can sacrifice to the ancestral ghost, he can keep the village in order, he can inflict punishment, he