Though no contest had been announced, the succession was shaping up into a straight fight between Ama Darius, the deputy chief, and Ama Yosefo, the secretary.

Two other names had briefly been floated. Ama Ezra could be heard telling the elders, or anyone else who cared to listen, how the elders had begged him to return, but that his age and commitments in Lahusa made this impossible. And he himself had ruled out his son, Ama Leo, who was “still young in spirit and a touch too wild”. That left the field clear for the local men, one from each of the two major clans. On paper, the deputy was far ahead. In his favour were experience and intelligence, position in the chiefly line, and an ability to function fluently in the old and new systems. He also possessed the chiefly qualities of ruthlessness and cunning.

The secretary – stiff and pedantic, a poor speaker – had little to offer. Short of land and wife-takers – the renewable fund of a chiefly line – his sole resource was the young pious cohort of Laias and Ndrurus, the hardworking types who lived beyond the upper settlement and who saw in him their champion.

There was a further difference between the two men – a difference of moral rather than practical import. Whereas the deputy despised modern government (“our rulers”, as he called them) even as he coveted the rewards of power, the secretary embraced – indeed wallowed in – the state ideology; and he did so despite his intimate knowledge of what lay underneath. In his eighteen years as village secretary, he had witnessed many deals and stitch-ups. I remember him laughing as he explained how he had punctured scores of voting slips at the last election to ensure the government party's return. It was his positive duty to cheat: had the opposition won, the village would have been punished (the market moved, the “road” suspended). He had supervised a division of spoils at the annual distribution of the village grant.