The contest for headman revived. Putting his faith in bureaucracy, Ama Yosefo took a sack of money to the regency offices in Gunung Sitoli, while his rival, better attuned to the realities of power, went to Gomo and paid the district officer Rp 200,000. The district officer, however, made his agreement conditional on the support of Ama Ezra. (Influence never retires.) So once again Ama Darius had to go cap in hand to his cousin. What passed between them in Lahusa, I could not discover (Ama Leo, whose support the secretary had bought, would not say), but Ama Darius obtained the necessary signature. That left only the voting. The appointment would be decided at a meeting in Gomo attended by the village council and chaired by the district officer. Ama Yosefo's supporters had already secured eight of the thirteen votes. “I can't lose!” he boasted. “And Ama Jonah will kill his uncle if he wins. Who needs votes!”

The meeting ended in stalemate. Scenting defeat, Ama Darius had brought fifty men from Orahua and blocked the vote on the grounds that the council was not properly constituted. Ama Yosefo sat dumbfounded while his rival outfaced the district officer. The village election was called off, and the district officer took the rare step of appointing himself nominal headman for the remaining four years of the dead chief's tenure.

A period of chaos seemed certain to follow. But Ama Darius was not disappointed. “Things will settle down, you'll see,” he told me affably on market day. The absence of government meant a return to the informal ways in which he was so expert. Justice would remain in the villagers' hands.

He had been in Gomo on the day of my farewell feast. “I told the district officer about it. He was amused – they know all about you in Gomo.” My old mentor laughed. It was a way of saying, or seeming to say: all that business of your first feast is forgotten; no hard feelings.