Note 1042 — Chapter XVIII · THE SUCCESSION TO THE KINGDOM IN ANCIENT LATIUM (continued 2)

R. E. Dennett, At the Back of the Black Man’s Mind (London, 1906), pp. 11 sq., 111, 131 sq., 135. The word translated “sacred ground” (xibila, plural bibila) means properly “sacred grove.” Such “sacred groves” are common in this part of Africa, but in the “sacred grove” of the king of Loango the tree beside which the monarch takes post to fight for the crown appears to stand solitary in a grassy plain. See R. E. Dennett, op. cit. pp. 11 sq., 25, 96 sqq., 110 sqq. We have seen that the right of succession to the throne of Loango descends in the female line (above, pp. 276 sq.), which furnishes another point of resemblance between Loango and Rome, if my theory of the Roman kingship is correct.