Here, too, they see “play kings,” making an analogy with the precolonial Nuer of South Sudan, who sometimes interpreted people “who in our own society would likely be classified as anything from highly eccentric or defiantly queer to neurodivergent or mentally ill” as “being touched by God.” In moments of crisis, they explain, “a person who might otherwise have spent his life as something analogous to the village idiot would suddenly be found to have remarkable powers of foresight and persuasion.”