EXCERPT Captain Peter Vysparov to Dr Echidna Stillwell, 19th March 1949 Dear Dr Stillwell, I have been fortunate enough to encounter your ethnographic work on the Nma, which I have studied with very great interest. May I trouble you with an account of my own, which might be of relevance to your researches. During the recent Pacific conflict (a peculiar oxymoron!) I was deployed covertly into the Dibboma area of Eastern Sumatra. My mission—which was categorized under psychological operations—consisted basically of attempted cultural manipulation, with the aim of triggering a local insurgency against the Japanese occupation. I hope it will not distress you unduly if I confess that your work was a crucial resource in this undertaking, which involved intense—if patently exploitative—communication with Dibboma witchcraft…