In June 2006, a conflict over the public appearence of the tubuan arose in East New Britain, Papua New Guinea. Two tubuans had travelled to Port Moresby to dance for VIPs attending a conference of the European Union. The tubuan is a masked ritual figure from a secret male society, and along with tabu shell wealth, a prime symbol of the »traditional« culture of the Tolai. Members of the tubuan society threw down the gauntlet and accused high-level Tolai politicians from the Provincial and National Governments of breaching their customs. Negotiations over the dispute at the tubuan sanctuary involved the payment of tabu shell wealth as compensation, as well as the attendance in the sanctuary of the Foreign Affairs Minister, the provincial Governor, and the Governor General as mediator. Then, in November 2008, a prominent Tolai Big Man staged his own »cultural death« while still alive by performing a number of rituals from the mortuary process. Both incidents created considerable controversy among the Tolai themselves. Although they appear to be separate incidents, I argue that they are related. Tubuan and tabu are ongoing focal points of cultural negotiation and reproduction among the Tolai. The first incident, which one Tolai referred to as the »prostitution of the tubuan«, must be understood as a critique of Tolai political leadership. It points to the appropriation and commercialization of custom by political leaders, as contended by »traditional« Tolai Big Man. The second incident, the »cultural death« of a prominent Tolai Big Man, must be viewed as a general critique of this development and of the ongoing internal struggle within Tolai society about the meaning of custom and its future. The contest for the meaning of both episodes, however, cannot be interpreted simply as a conflict between »tradition« and modernity or between local and national/global institutions. Rather, I argue that these events can best be understood as part of a wider struggle to constantly renegotiate and reproduce relations of power within Tolai society itself.