13 The Political Situation Decisions on the lecsl level are made by the council of family heads and other males. The council is headed by Magistrate Juda, who is also the senior male of the Bikini group according to the traditional system, the local chiefs (1roij), of Bikini. He is the heir of The Bikini people were also traditionally subjects of a paramount chief (irolj lablab),— whose ancestor had conquered Bikini over a century ago. The paramount chiefs of Bikini had never lived on the atoll but only visited it from time to time to collect tribute from their Subjects. A percentage of the cash proceeds from copra produc- tion was collected during the Japanese period. The Bikini people, in effect, declared their independence from the paramount chief shortly after their move from Bikini. They rejected him completely and declared that the U.83. Government was their paramount chief, and not the absentee title holder, help them, but whom they complained had never done anything to only exploited them, for the past twenty years. This hae been the theme On my last trip to the Marshalls I found tnat this attitude has not changed. They want nothing to do with Iroij Lejol8A Kabua who holds the paramount chief's rights to Bikini according to the traditional Marshallese custom. The attitude of rejection and refusal their leader and spokeaman has herdened, more than twenty years of independence. to accept him as if anything, after As I understand it, Le jol df continues to maintain his claim to his hereditary rights