§ 9. Diurnal Tenure of the Kingship.
Reading edition
The reign and life of the king limited to a single day in Ngoio, a province of Congo.
That a king should regularly have been put to death at the close of a year's reign will hardly appear improbable when we learn that to this day there is still a kingdom in which the reign and the life of the sovereign are limited to a single day. In Ngoio, a province of the ancient kingdom of Congo in West Africa, the rule obtains that the chief who assumes the cap of sovereignty is always killed on the night [pg 119] after his coronation. The right of succession lies with the chief of the Musurongo; but we need not wonder that he does not exercise it, and that the throne stands vacant. “No one likes to lose his life for a few hours' glory on the Ngoio throne.”360
[pg 120]