(M22) In the Central African kingdom of Unyoro down to recent years custom required that as soon as the king fell seriously ill or began to break up from age, he should die by his own hand; for, according to an old prophecy, the throne would pass away from the dynasty if ever the king were to die a natural death. He killed himself by draining a poisoned cup. If he faltered or were too ill to ask for the cup, it was his wife’s duty to administer the poison.(64) When the king of Kibanga, on the Upper Congo, seems near his end, the sorcerers put a rope round his neck, which they draw gradually tighter till he dies.(65) If the king of Gingero happens to be wounded in war, he is put to death by his comrades, or, if they fail to kill him, by his kinsfolk, however hard he may beg for mercy. They say they do it that he may not die by the hands of his enemies.(66) The Jukos are a heathen tribe of the Benue river, a great tributary of the Niger. In their country “the town of Gatri is ruled by a king who is elected by the big men of the town as follows. When in the opinion of the big men the king has reigned long enough, they give out that ‘the king is sick’—a formula understood by all to mean that they are going to kill him, though the intention is never put more plainly. They then decide who is to be the next king. How long he is to reign is settled by the influential men at a meeting; the question is put and answered by each man throwing on the ground a little piece of stick for each year he thinks the new king should rule. The king is then told, and a great feast prepared, at which the king gets drunk on guinea-corn beer. After that he is speared, and the man who was chosen becomes king. Thus each Juko king knows that he cannot have very many more years to live, and that he is certain of his predecessor’s fate. This, however, does not seem to frighten candidates. The same custom of king-killing is said to prevail at Quonde and Wukari as well as at Gatri.”(67) In the three Hausa kingdoms of Gobir, Katsina, and Daura, in Northern Nigeria, as soon as a king shewed signs of failing health or growing infirmity, an official who bore the title of Killer of the Elephant (_kariagiwa_) appeared and throttled him by holding his windpipe. The king elect was afterwards conducted to the centre of the town, called Head of the Elephant (_kan giwa_), where he was made to lie down on a bed. Then a black ox was slaughtered and its blood allowed to pour all over his body. Next the ox was flayed, and the remains of the dead king, which had been disembowelled and smoked for seven days over a slow fire, were wrapt up in the hide and dragged along the ground to the place of burial, where they were interred in a circular pit. After his bath of ox blood the new king had to remain for seven days in his mother’s house, undergoing ablutions daily. On the eighth day he was conducted in state to his palace. In the kingdom of Daura the new monarch had moreover