2.14 Conclusion
4.2.1.3 The marriage ceremony
The enthronement was followed by the marriage ceremony. The king was married to a girl who would have gone through the efimdula (girls' initiation ceremony). Dressed in rich bridal robes, she was led into the main courtyard. Attendants (usually old men) anointed the bride and the bridegroom with lion fat. They put the crown upon the king's head. It was "a tasseled fez-like crown with a wide leather head-band studded with four whelk-shell buttons to represent the four cardinal directions" (Loeb 1962:55). The royal crown was haundungulungu [made of tripe from the little stomach of an ox or giraffe]. The four whelk-shell buttons, one in each direction,
represented the idea that a king could see in all directions. It symbolised the king's supervision of his country and its people. The tassels omamented with 01lp1l11l [ copper beads] were a traditional symbol of fertility.
The marriage of the king and queen was a special one for the whole country. It was officiated by a medicine man who cut two small wounds in the arm of the bride and of the bridegroom with a special heated knife. The two crossed their bleeding arms to mix their blood. Thereby, it was believed, the two became one in life and in death. Thus when the king died, the queen had to be killed immediately. A similar operation was performed between the young king and the queen by the Mdluli in Swaziland (Kuper 1947:79).
A former senior headman, son of King Uejulu, a correspondent of Loeb, described his father's coronation ceremony as follows:
When U~iulu took the throne, there was a meeting of all the people, both men and women, in the council room (olupale) of the king's laaal, accompanied by the rapid tattoo of small drums. A nobleman stood up and told the people the name of the king and his new orders. At the end of the address he exclaimed: 'He is your king now, He is both your mother's brother and your father!' The old men beat the ground with their kerrie-sticks and clapped their hands, exclaiming, 'Oh Uncle, Oh Uncle' (quoted in Loeb 1962:56).
The enthronement story of King Uejulu lacked the basic information probably due to some modifications took place in the traditions in the region as well as the total dependence on oral tradition.
With the election of a new king in the K wanyama land, positive attempts were made to prevent unnecessary wars between princes who were eligible for election for the throne in the royal clan. The king thus assured the nation of his strength, which meant the safety and security of the nation.
The kingly outfit for the enthronement symbolised the power invested in him. The custom of receiving the throne from the king of Humbe preserved the memory of the origin of the royal institution in the region. The mixing of blood between the bride and the bridegroom made the royal marriage special. The practice is also an indication that Ovawambo marriages were originally
monogamous. Polygamous marriages were a response to the demands of an agricultural labour
The tradition of having informal advisers to the enthroned king was significant because it officially gave the commoners the opportunity of telling the newly ascended king the bad and the good about the kings who had preceded him. Concerning the bad kings, the king was advised that kings also had weaknesses and shortcomings; to tell the new leader that people were unhappy when such bad things happened; the king was warned not to repeat or to do the same things. On the positive side, the king was assured that all the people of his nation fell under his rule. He was therefore encouraged not to fear to tell the people what was right; he was given to the names of good kings and the good things they had done for their people; he was reminded that qualities of good leadership never die with him; he was told that people saw these qualities good leadership and that they were happy; through the adviser, the group of people present encouraged the new king be a good leader.
The wife of the new king's predecessor had to be killed because it was a tradition to do so. By that tradition she was bound to an oath that she would remain his wife in life and death. It was considered a disgrace and shame if she married another man. Being a first wife of the king she knew many of the secrets and of the kingdom. Assassinating her meant preventing her from spreading this valuable information. She could also be politically feared by the new king who was in the process of settling down. Likewise, the killing of the chief adviser of the predecessor was politically motivated. His killing was not a demonstration of culture of cruelty, but a fulfilment of one of the ancient traditions. The theory was that each new king had to choose his chief adviser from among his loyal comrades. It was somehow a pre-planned appointment since each prince had his own shadow government before election. The tradition was that the chief adviser, whether he was good or not, had to be alive during the reign of his king and to die with his king. He had to die because he was politically regarded as a threat to the new king and especially to his new chief adviser. He knew about the activities of the former royal court and of the whole nation. Young inexperienced counsellors saw him to be one of the "fathers" who would prevent them from doing what they wanted. The culture did not tolerate the existence of oppositional political thinking.
The state had a political tradition of protecting the lives of its own citizens. Its followers had to
be shown that the state was strong enough to protect them against their enemies. Wearing hides of strong or terrifying animals and being anointed with a mixture of lion fat and human marrow revealed the nature of the leadership of the kings. Also his wearing of the skins of fearsome powerful animals was designed to show the common people his power.
4.2.1.4 Further strengthening of the power of the new king
A male calf and a boy who had not reached adolescence, were slain, skinned and their meat cooked together. The blend meat was poured into a bowl from which the king's advisers and elders of the kingdom shared meat. The two skins were used for oilanda youpu/e oko haku xwekelwa oiketi yomofingo [magic necklaces on which (small) horns are hung around the neck]
(Shituwa quoted in Hiltunen 1993: 135). The rule was that the candidate who was about to receive fortification was not allowed to have sexual union before the rite. The magic necklaces were put around the neck of the king by the diviner pronounced these this words. "Banish all your equals"
(Shituwa quoted in Hiltunen 1993: 135).
A self-confessed medicine man and Lutheran pastor, Noa Shangheta who died in 1947, told his confirmation class how he strengthened kings. On the day before the strengthening of the king, Noa made a hole in a tree cailed omunghete with his axe. He filled the hole with water and covered the entrance carefully with the piece he had chopped out. He ordered the king to wake up early the next morning and to sit in the large reception area of the court at his sitting place.
From there the medicine man instructed the king and his noblemen together with ordinary people to sit closer to the tree he had prepared. The king was told to sit facing away from the place where the hole had been made in the tree. The medicine man chopped out the piece that closed the entrance with a stick and the water poured on the king's body. The women ululated and men shouted saying, Ohambayapameke/wa moshilongo, [the king was strengthened in his country].
After this the king and his subjects went back to the court from which they had come There the medicine man stood behind them. He carried oshikangwa shi noimbodi Ilomeva [an earthenware vessel containing a solution of water and herbs]. The medicine ma? spread the logs of the large reception area of the king and the king's advisers with the solution he took from the earthenware vessel (Nailonga 1999).
Similar rituals were found among the Zulu. The king as a representative of his people had to be strong, physically and magically as well. The belief was that the king as a representative of his tribe had to be fortified against all hann so that dangers would not strike the nation through him.
The fortification was carried out on his accession. To achieve the most powerful strengthening, human parts were believed to be required. For the Zulu, Krige writes:
The human body is the strongest and most powerful of all medicines, and for doctoring a king the most effective parts must be used, including the lips, ears, nose, eyes and the human skull. The head is the strength-giving part of the body just as the sexual organs impart reproductive power and fertility. Men are therefore dispatched to kill any human being and to bring back the necessary parts, very often only the head" (Krige 1950:241-242). "The top part of the skull will be neatly cut and made into a basin for the king. In this basin the king will, every evening before retiring, pour some water, and this he will use next morning to wash his face. The water will have absorbed strength from the skull, and the king is able thus daily to fortify himself This basin is used by him until he dies, and his successor will require a new one (Krige 1950:242).
3.2.2 Evaluation
Kings wished to be and were considered by many to be superhuman beings. To achieve this objective, a human being was killed and eaten at the enthronement and strengthening of a king.
The eating of human flesh fortified the king and made him a special leader. The life and the rule of the king was perpetuated by the human lives offered during his accession and strengthening, so it was believed. The superhuman nature of the king was marked as extra-ordinary: for example, nobody in the country, except the king wore magic necklaces as described above.
4.3 Kings not chiefs
Like other rulers in other kingdoms in Owambo, the K wanyama rulers were kings and not chiefs as foreign authors used to call them. A king was a royal hereditary ruler of oshilongo [a country], while a chief was e/enga [headman] a member of the nobility designated by the ruling king to a position which could be terminated by the same king or lost when the ruling king either died or was dethroned. According to the K wanyama understanding nobody was born a chief, and thus