In the Tooro Kingdom of western Uganda, the death of King Oyo Nyimba Kabamba Iguru Rukidi IV at thirty-four has opened a contest not merely over a throne, but over the very nature of royal legitimacy — whether it flows from the written word of a dying king or from the living authority of ancestral custom. The world's youngest reigning monarch, who came to power as a child and never knew a reign without its peculiarity, has left behind a kingdom uncertain of who speaks for tradition and who tradition speaks for. As his body returns home for burial, the question of succession has become insepara