Cargo cult

This article is about religious movements in Melanesia. For the colloquial expression, see the Wiktionary entry for "cargo cult". For other uses, see Cargo cult (disambiguation).

A ceremonial cross of the John Frum cargo cult, Tanna island, New Hebrides (now Vanuatu), 1967

Cargo cults were various spiritual and political movements that arose among indigenous Melanesians following Western colonisation of the region in the late 19th century. Although the term "cargo cult" is colloquially used to refer to the ritual imitation of the activities of colonial or technological cultures, the term has also been used by anthropologists to "label almost any sort of organised, village-based social movement with religious and political aspirations". Most cargo cults revolved around charismatic prophet figures foretelling an imminent cataclysm and/or a coming utopia for followers—a worldview known as millenarianism. Claims made by these prophets varied greatly from movement to movement, with some predicting the return of the dead or an abundance of food. The movements usually sought to appease "ancestral spirits or other powerful beings" by either reviving ancestral traditions or adopting new rituals, such as ecstatic dancing or imitating the actions of colonists and military personnel. Most groups foretold the coming of a bounty of Western goods or money as part of their prophecy, although this was not a universal feature of such movements, with other prophets telling their followers to abandon Western goods. Anthropologists have described cargo cults as rooted in pre-existing aspects of Melanesian society, as a reaction to colonial oppression and inequality disrupting traditional village life, or both.

Groups labeled as cargo cults were subject to a considerable number of anthropological publications throughout the 1960s. After Melanesian countries gained political independence, few new groups matching the term have emerged since the 1970s, with some surviving "cargo cult" groups transitioning into indigenous churches and political movements. The term has largely fallen out of favour and is now seldom used among anthropologists, though its use as a metaphor (in the sense of engaging in ritual action to obtain material goods) is widespread outside of anthropology in popular commentary and critique, based on stereotypes of cargo cultists as "primitive and confused people who use irrational means to pursue rational ends". Recent scholarship on "cargo cults" has challenged the suitability of the term for the movements associated with it, with recent anthropological sources arguing that the term is born of colonialism and prejudice and does not accurately convey the diversity or nature of the movements within the label, though some anthropologists continue to see the term as having some descriptive value, despite the "heterogeneous, uncertain, and confusing ethnographic reality".

Origin of the term and definitions

The term "cargo cult" first appeared in print in the November 1945 issue of Pacific Islands Monthly, in an entry written by Norris Mervyn Bird, an ‘old Territories resident’, who expressed concern regarding the effects of World War II, the teachings of Christian missionaries and the increasing liberalisation of colonial authorities in Melanesia would have on local islanders.

Stemming directly from religious teaching of equality, and its resulting sense of injustice, is what is generally known as ‘Vailala Madness’, or ‘Cargo Cult’. . . . A native, infected with the disorder, states that a great number of ships loaded with ‘cargo’ had been sent by the ancestor of the native for the benefit of the natives of a particular village or area. But the white man, being very cunning, knows how to intercept these ships and takes the ‘cargo’ for his own use. . . By his very nature the New Guinea native is peculiarly susceptible to these ‘cults’

— Norris Mervyn Bird, Pacific Islands Monthly, 1945

Previous similar phenomena, first documented in the late 19th century, had been labelled with the term "Vailala Madness", to which the term "cargo cult" was then retroactively applied. Bird took the term from derogatory descriptions used by planters and businessmen in the Australian Territory of Papua. From this issue, the term became used in anthropology following the publications of Australian anthropologists Lucy Mair and H. Ian Hogbin in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Peter Worsley defined cargo cults as follows in his 1957 book The Trumpet Shall Sound; this description became the standard definition of the term:

strange religious movements in the South Pacific [that arose] during the last few decades. In these movements, a prophet announces the imminence of the end of the world in a cataclysm which will destroy everything. Then the ancestors will return, or God, or some other liberating power, will appear, bringing all the goods the people desire, and ushering in a reign of eternal bliss. The people therefore prepare themselves for the Day by setting up cult organizations, and by building storehouses, jetties, and so on to receive the goods, known as ‘cargo’ in the local pidgin English. Often, also, they abandon their gardens, kill off their livestock, eat all their food, and throw away their money.

In 1964, Peter Lawrence described the term as follows: "A cargo belief (myth) described how European goods were invented by a cargo deity and indicated how men could get them from him via their ancestors by following a cargo prophet or leader. Cargo ritual was any religious activity designed to produce goods in this way and assumed to have been taught [to] the leader [of the cargo cult] by the deity. ... A cargo cult [was] a complex of ritual activity associated with a particular cargo myth".

Anthropologist Lamont Lindstrom has written that some anthropologists consider the term to be a "false category" because it "bundles together diverse and particular uprisings, disturbances, and movements that may have little in common". Lindstrom also writes that "anthropologists and journalists borrowed the term to label almost any sort of organised, village-based social movement with religious and political aspirations", and that their usage of the term "could encompass a variety of forms of social unrest that ethnographers elsewhere tagged millenarian, messianic, nativistic, vitalistic, revivalistic, or culture-contact or adjustment movements". Lindstrom writes that while many anthropologists suggest that "cargo" often signified literal material goods, it could also reflect desires for "moral salvation, existential respect, or proto-nationalistic, anti-colonial desire for political autonomy".

Causes, beliefs, and practices

Elements that Ton Otto considered characteristic of most cargo cults include the synthesis of indigenous and foreign elements in the belief system, the expectation of help from ancestors, the presence of charismatic leaders, and strong belief in the appearance of an abundance of goods.

The indigenous societies of Melanesia were typically characterized by a "big man" political system in which individuals gained prestige through gift exchanges. The more wealth a man could distribute, the more people who were in his debt, and the greater his renown. Faced, through colonialism, with foreigners with a seemingly unending supply of goods for exchange, indigenous Melanesians experienced "value dominance". That is, they were dominated by others in terms of their own (not the foreign) value system. Many Melanesians found the concept of money incomprehensible, and many cargo cult movements ordered followers to abandon colonial money by either dumping it into the sea or spending it rapidly, with the prophets promising that it would be replaced by new money and they would be freed from their debts.

Many cargo cults existed in opposition to colonial rule, often linked to burdens placed on villagers by colonial authorities, such as head taxes. Many cargo cult movements sought to revive ancestral traditions (often in the face of their suppression by missionaries or colonial authorities) such as kava drinking, and/or adopt new rituals such as ecstatic dancing or actions imitative of colonial practices, like flag-raising and marching. Cargo cults often served to unite previously opposing groups. In some movements, the leaders engaged in authoritarian behaviour in order to uphold the new social order, with a particular focus on the issues of sorcery and sexual activity. In some movements sexual morality was relaxed, ignoring the pre-existing customs regarding exogamy and incest, while in other movements, strict celibacy policies were implemented.

Since the modern manufacturing process was largely unknown to them, members, leaders, and prophets of the cults often maintained that the manufactured goods of the non-native culture had been created by spiritual means, such as through their deities and ancestors, or that an ancestor had learned how to manufacture the goods. These leaders claimed that the goods were intended for the local indigenous people, but the foreigners had unfairly gained control of these objects through malice or mistake. Thus, a characteristic feature of cargo cults was the belief that spiritual agents would, at some future time, give much valuable cargo and desirable manufactured products to the cult members. The goods promised by prophets and the means by which they would arrive both changed with the times, across eras of Western colonization. The earliest known cults foretold their ancestors with the goods would arrive on a canoe, then by sail, then by steamship, and the goods could be matches, steel, or calico fabric. After World War II, the goods could be shoes, canned meat, knives, rifles, or ammunition, and they would arrive by armored ship or plane.

Examples

First occurrences

Discussions of cargo cults usually begin with a series of movements that occurred in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. The earliest recorded movement that has been described as a "cargo cult" was the Tuka Movement that began in Fiji in 1885 at the height of the colonial era's plantation-style economy. The movement began with a promised return to a golden age of ancestral potency. Minor alterations to priestly practices were undertaken to update them and attempt to recover some kind of ancestral efficacy. Colonial authorities saw the leader of the movement, Tuka, as a troublemaker, and he was exiled, although their attempts to stop him returning proved fruitless.

Cargo cults occurred periodically in many parts of the island of New Guinea, including the Taro Cult in northern Papua New Guinea and the Vailala Madness that arose from 1919 to 1922. The last was documented by Francis Edgar Williams, one of the first anthropologists to conduct fieldwork in Papua New Guinea. Less dramatic cargo cults have appeared in western New Guinea as well, including the Asmat and Dani areas.

Pacific cults of World War II

Members of the John Frum cult at a ceremonial flag-raising.

The most widely known period of cargo cult activity occurred among the Melanesian islanders in the years during and after World War II. A small population of indigenous peoples observed, often directly in front of their dwellings, the largest war ever fought by technologically advanced nations. Japanese forces used their foreknowledge of local cargo cult beliefs, intentionally misrepresenting themselves as the ancestors of the Melanesians and distributing goods freely in order to acquire compliance and labor. Later the Allied forces arrived in the islands and did this as well.

The vast amounts of military equipment and supplies that both sides airdropped (or airlifted to airstrips) to troops on these islands meant drastic changes to the lifestyle of the islanders, many of whom had never seen outsiders before. Manufactured clothing, medicine, canned food, tents, weapons and other goods arrived in vast quantities for the soldiers, who often shared some of it with the islanders who were their guides and hosts. This was true of the Japanese Army as well, at least initially before relations deteriorated in most regions.

In the late 1930s, the John Frum movement emerged on Tanna in Vanuatu. This tradition urged islanders to resume dancing and kava drinking (which had been suppressed by missionaries) and to maintain historic traditions. The movement predicted American assistance, which as foretold arrived in 1942. The movements rituals were influenced by Christianity, and also included similar elements to other cargo cults like "marching and drilling, flags and poles, and flowers". The John Frum movement has come to be described as the "archetypal" cargo cult.

Postwar developments

With the end of the war, the military abandoned the airbases and stopped dropping cargo. In response, charismatic individuals developed cults among remote Melanesian populations that promised to bestow on their followers deliveries of food, arms, Jeeps, etc. The cult leaders explained that the cargo would be gifts from their own ancestors, or other sources, as had occurred with the outsider armies.

In attempts to get cargo to fall by parachute or land in planes or ships again, islanders imitated the same practices they had seen the military personnel use. Cult behaviors usually involved mimicking the day-to-day activities and dress styles of US soldiers, such as performing parade ground drills with wooden or salvaged rifles. The islanders carved headphones from wood and wore them while sitting in fabricated control towers. They waved the landing signals while standing on the runways. They lit signal fires and torches to light up runways and lighthouses.

In a form of sympathetic magic, many built life-size replicas of airplanes out of straw and cut new military-style landing strips out of the jungle, hoping to attract more airplanes. The cult members thought that the foreigners had some special connection to the deities and ancestors of the natives, who were the only beings powerful enough to produce such riches.

Cargo cults were typically created by individual leaders, or big men in the Melanesian culture. The leaders typically held cult rituals well away from established towns and colonial authorities, thus making reliable information about these practices very difficult to acquire.

Classification of groups as cargo cults was sometimes controversial. For example, the separatist Hahalis Welfare Society on Buka Island was classed by Australian authorities as a cargo cult, but this was denied by its leaders Francis Hagai and John Teosin.

Current status

Some cargo cults are still active. These include:

• The John Frum cult on Tanna Island (Vanuatu)
• The Tom Navy cult on Tanna Island (Vanuatu)
• The Prince Philip Movement on the island of Tanna, which worships Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
• The Turaga movement based on Pentecost island (Vanuatu)
• Yali's cargo cult on Papua New Guinea (Madang region)
• The Paliau movement on Papua New Guinea (Manus Island)
• The Peli association on Papua New Guinea
• The Pomio Kivung on Papua New Guinea

As of 1993, Lamont Lindstrom reports that many Melanesian political movements "must take care to deny explicitly" any connection with cargo cults.

Theoretical explanations

Anthropologist Anthony F. C. Wallace conceptualized the "Tuka movement" as a revitalization movement. Peter Worsley's analysis of cargo cults placed the emphasis on the economic and political causes of these popular movements. He viewed them as "proto-national" movements by indigenous peoples seeking to resist colonial interventions. He observed a general trend away from millenarianism towards secular political organization through political parties and cooperatives.

Theodore Schwartz was the first to emphasize that both Melanesians and Europeans place great value on the demonstration of wealth. "The two cultures, broadly speaking, met on the common ground of materialistic, competitive striving for prestige through entrepreneurial achievement of wealth." Melanesians felt "relative deprivation" in their standard of living, and thus came to focus on cargo as an essential expression of their personhood and agency.

Peter Lawrence was able to add greater historical depth to the study of cargo cults, and observed the striking continuity in the indigenous value systems from pre-cult times to the time of his study. Kenelm Burridge, in contrast, placed more emphasis on cultural change, and on the use of memories of myths to comprehend new realities, including the "secret" of European material possessions. His emphasis on cultural change follows from Worsley's argument on the effects of capitalism; Burridge points out these movements were more common in coastal areas which faced greater intrusions from European colonizers.

Cargo cults often develop during a combination of crises. Under conditions of social stress, such a movement may form under the leadership of a charismatic figure. This leader may have a "vision" (or "myth-dream") of the future, often linked to an ancestral efficacy ("mana") thought to be recoverable by a return to traditional morality. This leader may characterize the present state as a dismantling of the old social order, meaning that social hierarchy and ego boundaries have been broken down.

Contact with colonizing groups brought about a considerable transformation in the way indigenous peoples of Melanesia have thought about other societies. Early theories of cargo cults began from the assumption that practitioners simply failed to understand technology, colonization, or capitalist reform; in this model, cargo cults are a misunderstanding of the systems involved in resource distribution, and an attempt to acquire such goods in the wake of interrupted trade. However, many of these practitioners actually focus on the importance of sustaining and creating new social relationships, with material relations being secondary.

Since the late twentieth century, alternative theories have arisen. For example, some scholars, such as Kaplan and Lindstrom, focus on Europeans' characterization of these movements as a fascination with manufactured goods and what such a focus says about consumerism. Others point to the need to see each movement as reflecting a particularized historical context, even eschewing the term "cargo cult" for them unless there is an attempt to elicit an exchange relationship from Europeans.

Discourse on cargo cults

According to Ton Otto, the most forceful criticism of the term cargo cult comes from Nancy McDowell, who argues that cargo cults don't really exist as a distinct phenomenon, but rather reflect a general bias in some observers to view change as sudden and complete rather than gradual and evolutionary. Otto disagrees, arguing that McDowell overly focused on just one aspect of the term (the perception of change), and that the term remains a valuable analytical and comparative tool because it encapsulates a range of features that, when combined, allow for useful comparisons of movements that frequently shared similar characteristics, even if not all features were present in every case. Otto also summarizes Lamont Lindstrom's analysis and examination of "cargoism", the discourse of the West about cargo cults. Lindstrom's analysis is concerned with Western fascination with the phenomenon in both academic and popular writing. In his opinion, the name "cargo cult" is deeply problematic because of its pejorative connotation of backwardness, since it imputes a goal (cargo) obtained through the wrong means (cult); the actual goal is not so much obtaining material goods as creating and renewing social relationships under threat. Martha Kaplan thus argues in favor of erasing the term altogether, though Otto argues the term remains useful.

The term "cargo cult" in anthropology is increasingly avoided for failing to represent the complexity of Melanesian beliefs.

As a metaphor

The term "cargo cult" is widely used negatively as a metaphor outside anthropology. Usage often relates to the ideas of desire (particularly for wealth and material goods) and relatedly consumerism and capitalism, ritual action and the expectation of rational results from irrational means, though the term has been used as a general pejorative for "almost anything that some critic depreciates".

Works

• God Is American – 2007 film by Richard Martin-JordanPages displaying wikidata descriptions as a fallback
• The Gods Must Be Crazy – 1980 film by Jamie Uys
• Island of the Sequined Love Nun – Novel by Christopher Moore
• Meet the Natives: USA – television seriesPages displaying wikidata descriptions as a fallback

See also

• Cargo cult programming – Ritual inclusion of computer code that serves no purpose (cargo cults used as a metaphor)
• Cargo cult science – 1985 autobiographical book by Richard FeynmanPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets (cargo cults used as a metaphor)
• Culture shock – Experience one may have when moving to a cultural environment which is different from one's own
• Ghost Dance – Native American religious movement
• Johnson cult – political theatrePages displaying wikidata descriptions as a fallback
• Magical thinking – Belief in the connection of unrelated events
• Prosperity theology – Material wealth–based Christian belief
• Sociological classifications of religious movements

References

• Butcher, Benjamin T. My Friends, The New Guinea Headhunters. Doubleday & Co., 1964.
• Frerichs, Albert C. Anutu Conquers in New Guinea. Wartburg Press, 1957.
• Harris, Marvin. Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches: The Riddles of Culture. New York: Random House, 1974.
• Inglis, Judy. "Cargo Cults: The Problem of Explanation", Oceania vol. xxvii no. 4, 1957.
• Jebens, Holger (ed.). Cargo, Cult, and Culture Critique. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2004.
• Kaplan, Martha. Neither cargo nor cult: ritual politics and the colonial imagination in Fiji. Durham: Duke University Press, 1995.
• Lawrence, Peter. Road belong cargo: a study of the Cargo Movement in the Southern Madang District, New Guinea. Manchester University Press, 1964.
• Lindstrom, Lamont. Cargo cult: strange stories of desire from Melanesia and beyond. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1993.
• Read, K. E. A Cargo Situation in the Markham Valley, New Guinea. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, vol. 14 no. 3, 1958.
• Schwartz, Theodore & Smith, Michael French. Like Fire - The Paliau Movement and Millenarianism in Melanesia. ANU Press, 2021
• Tabani, Marc. Une pirogue pour le paradis: le culte de John Frum à Tanna. Paris: Editions de la MSH, 2008.
• Tabani, Marc & Abong, Marcelin. Kago, Kastom, Kalja: the study of indigenous movements in Melanesia today. Marseilles: Pacific-Credo Publications, 2013.
• Trenkenschuh, F. Cargo cult in Asmat: Examples and prospects, in: F. Trenkenschuh (ed.), An Asmat Sketchbook, vol. 2, Hastings, NE: Crosier Missions, 1974.
• Wagner, Roy. The invention of culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981.
• Worsley, Peter. The trumpet shall sound: a study of "cargo" cults in Melanesia, London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1957.
• Worsley, Peter. "Cargo Cults", Scientific American, 1 May 1959.

Filmography

• God is American, feature documentary (2007, 52 min), by Richard Martin-Jordan, on John Frum's cult at Tanna.

Further reading

• Several pages are devoted to cargo cults in Richard Dawkins' book The God Delusion.
• A chapter named "Cargo Cult" is in David Attenborough's travel book Journeys to the Past: Travels in New Guinea, Madagascar, and the Northern Territory of Australia, Penguin Books, 1983. ISBN 0-14-00-64133.
• A chapter named "The oddest island in Vanuatu" in Paul Theroux's book The Happy Isles of Oceania pages 267–277 describes Theroux's visit to a John Frum village and provides answers about the faith and its practices. Penguin Books, 1992.

External links

• Vanuatu cargo cult marks 50 years (BBC News)
• 2006 Smithsonian Magazine article entitled: "In John They Trust"