For this reason, when the pontiff of Congo grew old, and seemed likely to die, the man who was destined to succeed him in the pontificate entered his house with a rope or club, and strangled or felled him. The Ethiopian kings of Meroe were worshipped as gods; but when the priests thought fit, they sent a messenger to the king, ordering him to die, and alleging an oracle of the gods (or earlier kings) as the reason of their command. This command the kings always obeyed down to the reign of Ergamenes, a contemporary of Ptolemy II. of Egypt. So, when {241}the king of Unyoro in Central Africa falls ill, or begins to show signs of approaching age, one of his own wives is compelled by custom to kill him. The kings of Sofala were regarded by their people as gods who could give rain or sunshine; but the slightest bodily blemish, such as the loss of a tooth, was considered a sufficient reason for putting one of these powerful man-gods to death; he must be whole and sound, lest all nature pay for it. Many kings, human gods, divine priests, or sultans are enumerated by Mr. Frazer, each of whom must be similarly perfect in every limb and member. The same perfect manhood is still exacted of the Christian Pope, who, however, is not put to death in case of extreme age or feebleness. But there is reason to believe that the Grand Lama, the divine Pope of the Tibetan Buddhists, is killed from time to time, so as to keep him “ever fresh and ever young,” and to allow the inherent deity within him to escape full-blooded into another embodiment. In all these cases the divine king or priest is suffered by his people to retain office, or rather to house the godhead, till by some outward defect, or some visible warning of age or illness, he shows them that he is no longer equal to the proper performance of his divine functions. Until such symptoms appear, he is not put to death. Some peoples, however, as Mr. Frazer shows, have not thought it safe to wait for even the slightest symptom of decay before killing the human god or king; they have destroyed him in the plenitude of his life and vigour. In such cases, the people fix a term beyond which the king may not reign, and at the close of which he must die, the term being short enough to prevent the probability of degeneration meanwhile. In some parts of Southern India, for example, the term was fixed at twelve years; at the expiration of that time, the king had to cut himself to pieces visibly, before the great local idol, of which he was in all probability the human equivalent. “Whoever desires to reign other twelve years,” says an early observer, “and to undertake {242}this martyrdom for the sake of the idol, has to be present looking on at this; and from that place they raise him up as king.”