The legitimacy of rulers is expressed and renewed through rites of popular obeisance…But in some parts of the world alongside such rites are others that, at first sight, are baffling: rituals that are used to revile the leader rather than exalt him. In the classic case, among the Swazi of southern Africa, the people rise up each year on a special day and hurl insults at their king. The king, in turn, divests himself of the symbols of his office and sits naked on the floor, scorned by his subjects.

– Extracted from David I. Kertzer, Ritual, Politics, and Power, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, p. 54.