The Pagu woman raised her voice in the presence of officials from the mining company that had caused her so much grief.

To cement her tribe's territorial claim, she invoked centuries-old place namesand a landmark Constitutional Court ruling from last year.

"This is our land, not the state's land!" Afrida Erna Ngato hollered in the hearing room in Ambon, Maluku. The gallery cheered.

Afrida, the chief of her tribe, had come all the way from remote Halmahe