160 AFRICAN POLITICAL SYSTEMS
The particular features of the succession rites, like the accession war, elaborate purification, and the^ importance of the king's mother and sister, are understandable only in terms of the particular nature of Bahima political structure and Bahima magic. Once we grasp the importance, to the Bahima, of the king as a military leader, as a symbol of unity and magical power which is amply illustrated by the ritual surrounding his daily life, practised in order to enhance this magical power, and the belief that a physically weak or ailing king makes the people of Ankole weak, we can readily understand the special stress laid upon getting the strongest and ablest scion of the dynasty as king. Elimination through a trial of strength certainly provided a more practical method of choosing the best son than any specific rule of succession could have done. As far as I was able to discover, there is no myth sanctioning the accession war. The Abachwezi did not practise it, nor did Ruhinda, the only survivor of the Abachwezi in Ankole, need to establish a precedent, for he had no brothers and no rivals to the Mugabeship. In this case, we can scarcely say that the accession war, although formally and traditionally sanctioned, was a periodic re-enactment of any myth. But once we recognize the importance of the physical strength and the magical power of the king to the Banyankole, we can comprehend the purpose of the accession war as a means of obtaining the desired end.
As we might suspect, the accession war had far-reaching consequences on the family connexions of the Mugabe. In theory, if not always in practice, the king had no living brothers or father's brothers. The intimate religious, magical, and judicial duties generally performed by the father or the eldest brother in Banyankole society were performed for the king by his mother and sister. The king's mother and sister, in the past, had no special titles, but were called simply nyinya omugabe, king's mother, and omunyana omugabe, king's sister. Their status was practically equal to that of the Mugabe himself. They both had their private kraals with cattle, herdsmen and warriors, and they both had the right of levying ekyitoro on Bahima cattle. They also received a share of all cattle taken in raids. The principal duty of the king's mother was the making of offerings to the king's emandwa spirits and the practising of magic against the ghosts of men whom the king had killed. Although the king himself made offerings to his ancestors, his mother was said to have occasionally sent a white cow to Ishanzi