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23 This idea found a reflection in one of the sovereign’s titles – obasogie, meaning, “the
Oba is greater than a chief” (Omoruyi 1981: 14).
24 In fact, this argument has an application, much wider than regional: in particular, in
archaic and traditional supercomplex societies, including early states, the development of personal
ownership of land correlates rather weakly with the political development that might be
accompanied by the strengthening of the communal ownership (Bondarenko and Korotayev 2003:
113–116).
25 On the distinctions between Claessen’s and my determination of the state’s limits (that
give me the right to quote Claessen at this point though the quotation contains the word “state”),
see below, in section 2 of chapter 4.
26 In the cases when a ruler’s (at any level of socio-cultural complexity) profane duties
clearly overweighed the sacral-religious ones, he had a counterpart who “compensated” it by
exercising predominantly sacral power. In Biniland from the mid-1 st millennium AD there were
two leaders in some local communities: the “sacral” odionwere and the “profane”, originally
military, onogie (see Thomas, N. W. 1910a: I, 11–12; Bradbury 1957: 15–17; 1973: 176–179;
Bondarenko and Roese 1998; Bondarenko 2001: 55–65).
27 The author is fully aware of the fact that the Benin power in the time of its territorial
expansion does not correspond to the modern academic definitions of the empire (see, e.g.,
Eisenstadt 1969; Alcock et al. 2001). However, I still imply this word in the present work as a
tribute to the terminological tradition of the Benin studies (e.g., Sidahome 1964; Stride and Ifeka
1971: 305–320; Maliphant et al. 1976; etc.). Actually, the naming of African monarchies
“kingdoms”, generally accepted from the time of the first European visitors’ relations on, is yet not
much more meaningful, the nature and socio-political structure of the African and medieval
Western polities being compared.
28 Sigmund Freud (1923/1911: 63) showed a very keen insight by writing that taboo “not
only distinguishes kings and exalt them over all common mortals but also turns their life into
unbearable torture and burden and inflicts on them chains of slavery much heavier than on their
subjects”.
29 The episode Egharevba relates happened in the 1890s.
30 It must be noted that depersonalization of the sovereign was not a granted act but a
process related directly to changes in the Oba’s role in governing the realm, in the country’s
historical fortunes. In particular, the tendency toward complete disappearance of portrait features
in supreme rulers’ depictions to please their status’ attributes’ stressing became evident in the late
16 th century only, that is in time when the Oba was finally losing profane power and turning into an
all-Benin sacred thing. In full measure this tendency had realized by the mid-18 th century (Fagg
1963; Mirimanov 1982: 65–67; 1985: 190–192), also not occasionally concurring with the start of
Benin’s final sunset. As Barbara Blackmun (1990: 61) testifies, at present the similarity between
Obas and their depictions is still unimportant to the Binis. Remarkably, Obas themselves signed
the letters to Europeans written in their names not by proper coronation names but by the title (see
Salvadorini 1972: 297–300). Depersonalization of titled chiefs was on too but, probably, this
process started later than that of Obas’ depersonalization, in the 17 th or even 18 th century only. It