Kingship is always ritualized to some extent. Since the beginning of the twentieth century scholars have sought unsuccessfully to define a particular type of cultic complex in Africa as "divine kingship." Many now prefer the looser term "sacred kingship." Two opposed arguments dominate this and other anthropological discussions of ritual. One, derived from the work of the English anthropologist James G. Frazer (1854–1941), dwells on a purportedly distinct set of ideas in which the personal, physical health of the king is responsible for the generosity of nature and the well-being of his people. The other, derived from the great French sociologist Émile Durkheim (1858–1917), treats such ideas as expressions of sociopolitical realities rather than as primary factors. The sociological view predominated in the 1940s, but in the 1960s anthropologists renewed their interest in Frazer's thesis.

Although many of Frazer's data were drawn from Africa...