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It is a fundamental article of the Shilluk creed that the spirit of the divine or semi-divine Nyakang is incarnate in the reigning king, who is accordingly himself invested to some extent with the character of a divinity.
But it is a mistake to imagine that the idea of a republican form of government in place of the centuries-old, autocratic, semi-divine monarchy, was something that had never been mooted before and was entirely unknown to the Chinese. To the great majority, no doubt, it was, if known at all, something strange and hardly intelligible, as it still is.
But the Homeric Greek had long since forgotten that Helena and Paris were anything more than semi-divine mortals, the daughter of Zeus and the son of the Zeus-descended Priam. But the Greek could not know that Zeus was derived from a root div, "to shine," or that Helena belonged to a root sar, "to creep." Phonetic change thus helped him to rise from fetichism to polytheism.
Well nigh every hill or mountain, every lake or river, bears the name today it bore a thousand, two thousand, years ago, and one recording some dramatic human or semi-divine event. The songs of the Munster and Connacht poets of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries gave to every cottage in the land the ownership as well as the tale of an heroic ancestry.
That the restraint was not simply in obedience to a governmental policy seems clear, for Horace, who in his youthful work had shown his distrust of the government, had now learned to make very liberal use of celestial appellatives. Augustus, then, is not in any way identified with the semi-divine Aeneas.
Henry Goldsmith who had just joined the committee, and the semi-divine person herself a surpassingly beautiful radiant being, like a princess in a fairy tale personally congratulated her upon her success. The money was not available for a year, but the neighbors hastened to congratulate the family on its rise to wealth.
Partly on this account, partly from a reputation which with or without his own will he acquired for an almost miraculous skill in healing and necromantic arts, Empedocles attained to a position of singular personal power over his contemporaries, and was indeed regarded as semi-divine. His death was hedged about with mystery.
Some few athletic exercises have survived; and until recently, archery, in which the Tartars have always excelled, was regarded almost as a semi-divine accomplishment. Kite-flying has reached a high level of skill. Clever little "messengers" have been devised, which run up the string, carrying fire-crackers which explode at a great height.
His jurisdiction does not now extend beyond the limits of Kitzuki, and his correct title is no longer Kokuzo, but Guji. Yet to the simple-hearted people of remoter districts he is still a divine or semi-divine being, and is mentioned by his ancient title, the inheritance of his race from the epoch of the gods.
The introduction of writing into Greece is ascribed by the Greeks to the mythical hero or demigod Cadmus. Among various savage tribes there are similar histories of the derivation of the use of fire from superhuman beings. +844+. Early ceremonies, as we have seen, are universally connected with religion, and their origin is ascribed to divine or semi-divine figures of the past.
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