3. Kings killed at the End of a Fixed Term
IN THE CASES hitherto described, the divine king or priest is
suffered by his people to retain office until some outward defect,
some visible symptom of failing health or advancing age, warns them
that he is no longer equal to the discharge of his divine duties;
but not until such symptoms have made their appearance is he put to
death. Some peoples, however, appear to have thought it unsafe to
wait for even the slightest symptom of decay and have preferred to
kill the king while he was still in the full vigour of life.
Accordingly, they have fixed a term beyond which he might not reign,
and at the close of which he must die, the term fixed upon being
short enough to exclude the probability of his degenerating
physically in the interval. In some parts of Southern India the
period fixed was twelve years. Thus, according to an old traveller,
in the province of Quilacare, "there is a Gentile house of prayer,
in which there is an idol which they hold in great account, and
every twelve years they celebrate a great feast to it, whither all
the Gentiles go as to a jubilee.
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