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"In Upper Egypt, wrote Sir
James G. Frazer in The Golden Bough, citing the
observations of a German nineteenth-century voyager, on
the first day of the solar year by Coptic reckoning,
that is, on the tenth of September, when the Nile has
generally reached its highest point, the regular
government is suspended for three days and every town
chooses its own ruler. This temporary lord wears a sort of tall fool's cap and a long flaxen beard, and is enveloped in a strange mantle. With a wand of office in his hand and attended by men disguised as scribes, executioners, and so forth, he proceeds to the Governor's house. The latter allows himself to be deposed; and the mock king, mounting the throne, holds a tribunal, to the decisions of which even the governor and his officials must bow. After three days the mock king is condemned to death; the envelope or shell in which he was encased is committed to the flames, and from its ashes the Fellah creeps forth. The custom points to an old practice of burning a real king in grim earnest." (Campbell 2) |