of the Shilluk nation and the founder of the Shilluk dynasty. He is worshipped, sacrifices and prayers are offered to him; he may be said to be lifted to the rank of a demi-god, though they never forget that he has been a real man. He is expressly designated as ‘little’ in comparison with God.” Yet “in the political, religious and personal life Nyakang takes a far more important place than Juok. Nyakang is the national hero, of whom each Shilluk feels proud, who is praised in innumerable popular songs and sayings; he is not only a superior being, but also a man. He is the sublime model for every true Shilluk; everything they value most in their national and private life has its origin in him: their kingdom and their fighting as well as cattle-breeding and farming. While Nyakang is their good father, who only does them good, Juok is the great, uncontrollable power, which is to be propitiated, in order to avoid his inflictions of evil.”(435) Indeed “the whole working religion of the Shilluk is a cult of Nyakang, the semi-divine ancestor of their kings, in each of whom his spirit is immanent.”(436) The transmission of the divine or semi-divine spirit of Nyakang to the reigning monarch appears to take place at the king’s installation and to be effected by means of a rude wooden effigy of Nyakang, in which the spirit of that deified man is perhaps supposed to be immanent. But however the spiritual transmission may be carried out, “the fundamental idea of the cult of the Shilluk divine kings is the immanence in each of the spirit of Nyakang.”(437) Thus the Shilluk kings are encircled with a certain halo of divinity because they are thought to be animated by the divine spirit of their ancestor, the founder of the dynasty.