Sumba, an island roughly the size of Jamaica in the Indonesian archipelago, has stayed isolated enough that its animist Marapu religion and ritual warfare still function on schedule every February and March. A VICE crew flies to Bali, then takes a propeller plane onward, to film the Pasola in Wanokaka, staying with descendants of the royal Mamodo family of the Praibakul clan. Rival clans on horseback hurl spears at each other, believing spilled human blood fertilizes the soil before harvest, and the film shows why hunger, not ceremony alone, sets the timing. Before they can film, the crew climbs a mountain to meet Ratu Dangu Duka, a Marapu priest known for a mysterious black patch covering half his face, and chews betel nut with him as local etiquette requires. The spears are blunted now, a restriction dating to Dutch colonial rule, but deaths still occur without legal consequence: the Indonesian state defers to Adat, the clan law governing the Pasola. Animal skulls displayed on houses mark which families can afford meat.