As the whole dog-and-pony show of the presidential (s)election season heats up, I’m re-reading the abridged version of Frazier’s Golden Bough. Specifically, I’ve been going over the section entitled “MAGICIANS AS KINGS.” As always, reading Frazier is illuminating for the unspoken connections it demonstrates for me between the magical and so-called primitive past and our present time and place.
Frazier discusses the position of the king in distant ages and indigenous cultures (though, being an arrogant Brit writing in the early part of the last century, he calls them “primitives” and “savages”). Frazier tells us how the king was assumed to have supernatural powers and, most likely, emerged out of the elevation and veneration of sorcerers, magicians, and shamans to positions of supremacy in their cultures. This belief in the magical king, whether justified or not, does not leave the king immune from vulnerability. The same belief that makes him a figure of awe, likewise makes him a scapegoat should the fortunes of his tribe, nation or land take a sharp turn for the worse:
In many other parts of the world kings have been expected to regulate the course of nature for the good of their people and have been punished if they failed to do so. It appears that the Scythians, when food was scarce, used to put their king in bonds. In ancient Egypt the sacred kings were blamed for the failure of the crops…
…On the coral island of Niue or Savage Island, in the south Pacific, there formerly reigned a line of kings. But as the kings were also high priests, and were supposed to make the food grow, the poeple became angry with them in tiems of scarcity and killed them; till at last, as one after another was killed, no one would be king, and the monarchy came to an end. (104-105)
We do not believe that our magician-kings (presidents) necessarily control the crops and the rain (though some apparatus of the state and the corporate sector seem not to be too far of from performing that feat through technologies such as HAARP). However, we certainly hold similar faith in our figure head presidents to control the rise and fall of the stock market, the ability of the people to find work, to win wars “for” us and the like. Not saying this belief isn’t true. If enough people are (en)trained to believe it…
But perhaps in this apparent impotence in the face of decline, we may find a fate for the presidency similar to that met by the royal line of the Niue. Whoever gets (s)elected to play the role of symbolic leader of our nation-cult, if s/he fails to render miracles or at least the appearance thereof, I can see the role being abandoned; not on account of assassinations or anything of that sort, but on account of a majority of individuals permanently turning their backs on the symbolic throne and its future occupants. Not that that, in itself, would change the lot of most individuals and it seems foolish to me if any of them are placing their future hopes on it doing so.
Here’s another little bit of Frazier. This time he’s speaking about the oaths Mexican kings made upon assuming the royal seat:
…[W]hen they mounted the throne, [they] swore that they would make the sun to shine, the clouds to give rain, the rivers to flow, and the earth to bring forth fruits in abundance. (105)
Sounds like an inagural address or a campaign stump speech to me. But, perhaps, contrary to Frazier’s assumptions, in those times these magician-kings could sometimes do what they said. Maybe they still can, only now they don’t run in primaries, go to conventions or run for president…
However, the apparent magician-king, the president, the prime minister and the like, while no longer having any real power, still fits the role of scapegoat quite well. So, when I hear a lady at work say that “Once we get rid of this Bush everything will get better. He’s why everything’s so f***ed up,” I just gotta shake my head.
