Introduction: chiefs today / Lamont Lindstrom and Geoffrey M. White -- The persistence of chiefly authority in Western Samoa / Cluny Macpherson -- Rank and leadership in Tonga / Kerry James -- The kingly-populist divergence in Tongan and Western Samoan chiefly systems / Robert W. Franco -- The reemergence of Maori chiefs: 'devolution' as a strategy to maintain tribal authority / Toon van Meijl -- Chiefs, politics, and the power of tradition in contemporary Fiji / Stephanie Lawson -- Ritual status and power politics in modern Rotuma / Alan Howard and Jan Rensel -- Traditional leaders today in the Federated States of Micronesia / Eve C. Pinsker -- A Micronesian Chamber of Chiefs? The 1990 Federated States of Micronesia constitutional convention / Glenn Petersen -- Irooj ro ad: measures of chiefly ideology and practice in the Marshall Islands / Laurence M. Carucci -- Chiefs in Vanuatu today / Lamont Lindstrom -- The discourse of chiefs: notes on a Melanesian society / Geoffrey M. White -- Tuesday's chiefs revisited / Roger M. Keesing -- Constructing and contesting chiefly authority in contemporary Tana Toraja, Indonesia / Kathleen M. Adams -- Conclusions: chiefs and states today / Peter Larmour.