The sacred sabre is the numinous object around which the whole Jarai institution of sacral kingship turns. Kept wrapped in cloth within a dedicated hut and never fully drawn from its sheath, it is less a weapon than a living, dangerous presence: it must be fed offerings, and it is said to sweat or redden as an omen before war, epidemic, or drought. Tradition holds that to unsheathe it completely would loose fire upon the world, and the Fire King's foremost office is simply to tend and restrain it. The blade is widely thought to be of Cham royal origin, a relic of the lowland kingdoms absorbed into the highland economy of the sacred. Jacques Dournes made this object the pivot of his study, reading in it a theory of power in which sovereignty is vested not in a ruling person but in a charged thing that its guardian may never wield. Sources differ on its precise provenance and on whether a second such blade was once attached to the Water King.