Thus we
are informed by a native authority on that country that "in some
places all powers both executive and judicial were delegated for a
fixed period to natives by the sovereign. This institution was
styled _Thalavettiparothiam_ or authority obtained by decapitation.
. . . It was an office tenable for five years during which its bearer
was invested with supreme despotic powers within his jurisdiction.
On the expiry of the five years the man's head was cut off and
thrown up in the air amongst a large concourse of villagers, each of
whom vied with the other in trying to catch it in its course down.
He who succeeded was nominated to the post for the next five years."
When once kings, who had hitherto been bound to die a violent death
at the end of a term of years, conceived the happy thought of dying
by deputy in the persons of others, they would very naturally put it
in practice; and accordingly we need not wonder at finding so
popular an expedient, or traces of it, in many lands. Scandinavian
traditions contain some hints that of old the Swedish kings reigned
only for periods of nine years, after which they were put to death
or had to find a substitute to die in their stead.
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