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More likely he was
a king of nature, and of a special side of nature, namely, the woods
from which he took his title. If we could find instances of what we
may call departmental kings of nature, that is of persons supposed
to rule over particular elements or aspects of nature, they would
probably present a closer analogy to the King of the Wood than the
divine kings we have been hitherto considering, whose control of
nature is general rather than special. Instances of such
departmental kings are not wanting.
On a hill at Bomma near the mouth of the Congo dwells Namvulu Vumu,
King of the Rain and Storm. Of some of the tribes on the Upper Nile
we are told that they have no kings in the common sense; the only
persons whom they acknowledge as such are the Kings of the Rain,
_Mata Kodou,_ who are credited with the power of giving rain at the
proper time, that is, the rainy season. Before the rains begin to
fall at the end of March the country is a parched and arid desert;
and the cattle, which form the people's chief wealth, perish for
lack of grass.


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