Twenty-Seven Bones

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In 1985, in the village of Lolowa’asi, on the island of Pulau Nias, seventy-five kilometers off the western coast of Sumatra, a chieftain lies dying.

Or rather, sits dying. It is still the custom on Lolowa’asi for a chief to deliver his obligatory deathbed oration sitting up in his elaborately carved wooden marriage bed, supported from behind, if necessary, by one or more of his wives, with the skull or the right hand of one of his enemies nearby, for him to take with him over the bridge to the next world.

Sometimes a deathbed oration, summing up the great man’s life and reign as well as the history of the village, goes on for days. This one started several hours ago. But although all around the chieftain’s house village life continues as usual-women boil yams or work the fields; men chop wood or feed and groom the pigs, which are the primary source and display of wealth in the island economy-in the Omo Sebua, or Great House, neither of the dying chieftain’s two potential successors has yet stirred from his bedside.

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