Yet this was the law a hundred years ago in the kingdom of Quiteve, on the south-eastern coast of Africa. When a king died the queens (that is to say, his legitimate wives) named the person who was to accompany his body to the burial-place, and the person thus named became the successor.[326.1] In an adjoining kingdom a similar law prevailed. It was forbidden to any prince to enter the palace where the women were, or to take possession of the kingdom without their consent, and whoever entered by violence and took possession against their will, lost his right of succession. The Portuguese friar, to whom we are indebted for the information, records a case which happened while he was in Sofala, and in which the claimant would have entered and formally seated himself in the royal hall with the royal widows. They, however, were unwilling to acknowledge him as their king and husband. Accordingly they secretly summoned another member of the royal family, seated him with them in the public {327} place, and sent officers through the town to proclaim the new sovereign and call his subjects to do homage. The pretender fled. This instance is the more remarkable because the unsuccessful claimant had in his favour the nomination of the previous monarch. Though this constituted not an indefeasible title, it afforded at least a strong presumption in his favour. Yet it was defeated, in accordance with established and publicly acknowledged custom, by the choice of the harem. Nor was the rule requiring the choice, or at any rate the recognition, by the harem so redolent of the comic opera as it may seem, since the women all became the wives of the new king.[327.1] This is usual in Africa, and not in Africa only, but in other regions where a similar type of polygamous monarchical society exists. It is most familiar to us among the ancient Hebrews. Absalom, by taking possession of his father’s harem, made a final and unqualified assertion of his succession to the throne. Solomon evidently regarded Adonijah’s request for Abishag the Shunammite as a pretension inconsistent with his own sovereignty; for she had been part of King David’s harem, though in fact no more than his nurse.[327.2] In these cases the women had probably little to say in the matter. But by the customs of the South-Eastern Bantu a man’s widows, though they are bound to the family of the deceased, are allowed some latitude in the choice of the individual man with whom they will mate. Among the Thonga, for example, at the final distribution of the estate, any of the widows who refuses to take the husband {328} to whom she has been provisionally allotted will be permitted to exercise her own preference.[328.1] The power accorded to the widowed queens of Quiteve to choose their new husband was hardly an extension of this liberty. That it drew with it incidentally the right to the kingdom was a consequence which did not affect the principle. [The End] BIBLIOGRAPHICAL LIST {329}