Cargo cult

The term cargo cult describes any new religious movement that owes its initial impetus to the encounter between a tribal (often hunter-gatherer) society and Western civilization (broadly interpreted), though it is most frequently used in the context of New Guinea and Melanesia. In this context, "cargo" refers to Western manufactured goods, which seem (from the perspective of some hunter-gatherer people) to be constructed, ordered, and delivered via various magical processes. The adherents of cargo cults sometimes maintain that these articles have been created by divine spirits and are intended for the local indigenous people, but that Westerners have unfairly gained control of these objects. In other instances, such as on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu, cult members actively worship the Americans who first brought the cargo. In both cases, many of the beliefs and practices particular to these cults focus on the ritualistic performance of "white behaviors," with the assumption that they will cause the gods or ancestors to at last recognize their own and send them cargo. In this way, a characteristic feature of cargo cults is the belief that spiritual agents will, at some future time, bless the believers with material prosperity (which, in turn, will usher in an era of peace and harmony)—a standpoint that gives them a profoundly millenarian flavor.

Given the symbolic richness of the notion, the term "cargo cult" is also used metaphorically in business and science to describe a particular type of causative fallacy—most often describing a situation where belief or effort are misdirected due to a flawed model of causation. For example, Maoism has been referred to as "cargo cult Leninism" and New Zealand's optimistic adoption of liberal economic policies in the 1980s as "cargo cult capitalism".

History and Characterization

The first recorded instances of cargo cult activity can be traced to a series of movements founded in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The earliest of these was the Tuka Movement, which began in Fiji in 1885 and was characterized by the adoption and reinterpretation of (European) Christian tropes. Over the next fifty years, religious activity characterized as cargoist also arose periodically in many parts of the island of New Guinea, including the Taro Cult and the Vailala Madness that arose in Northern Papua New Guinea. Both of these movements were documented by F.E. Williams, one of the first anthropologists to conduct fieldwork in Papua New Guinea, though it is notable that he did not characterize them as "cargoist" (as the term was not invented until the 1940s). In the same fifty year period, missionaries, anthropologists, and non-specialist foreigners described over forty other Oceanian cults that shared some elements of cargo discourse—whether that element be anti-colonialism, millenarianism, spiritual exaltation of Western material goods, or some combination of the three.

The most prolific period of cargo cult activity occurred during the Second World War (and the years immediately following it). This escalation in cultic practice can be tied to two fundamental causes: first, the Pacific campaign saw vast amounts of war matériel airdropped onto these islands; second, it also led to the deployment of American and Japanese troops into these territories. In both cases, these contact experiences led to drastic changes in the lifestyles of the islanders, many of whom had never seen either foreigners or manufactured goods. Over the course of the war, the islanders often came to rely on mass-produced clothing, medicine, canned food, tents, weapons and other useful goods, which arrived to equip soldiers but was often given to native islanders who acted as their guides and hosts. This newfound source of material prosperity came to an abrupt end in 1945, when the end of the war allowed the soldiers to return home, the airbases to close down, and "cargo" to cease being shipped.

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 soldiers, sailors and airmen use. They 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. The cultists thought that the foreigners had some special connection to their own ancestors, who were the only beings powerful enough to produce such riches. In a form of sympathetic magic, many built life-size mock-ups of airplanes out of straw, and created new "military-style" landing strips, hoping to attract more airplanes. Ultimately, though these practices did not bring about the return of the god-like airplanes that brought such marvelous cargo during the war, they did have the effect of eradicating the religious practices that had existed prior to the war.

Over the last seventy-five years most cargo cults have petered out. Yet, the John Frum cult is still active on the island of Tanna, Vanuatu (as discussed below). And from time to time, the term "cargo cult" is invoked as an English language idiom, to mean any group of people who imitate the superficial exterior of a process or system without having any understanding of the underlying substance.

<millenarian aspects>

For this reason, and possibly many others, the cults have been labeled millenarian, in the sense that they hold that a utopian future is imminent or will come about if they perform certain rituals.

Case Study: The John Frum Movement

John Frum (or Jon Frum; John From) is a figure associated with cargo cults on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu. He is depicted as an American World War II serviceman, who will bring wealth and prosperity to the people if they follow him. He is sometimes portrayed as black, sometimes as white; from David Attenborough's report of an encounter: "'E look like you. 'E got white face. 'E tall man. 'E live 'long South America."

It is not known whether the religion arose spontaneously or was deliberately created; nor is it clear whether an individual named "John Frum" existed in the first place; the name is sometimes considered a corruption of "John from (America)", which the natives heard from US GIs during World War II. Frum is an extremely rare name in the English-speaking world, appearing only four times in USA telephone directories and not at all in either the 1851 or 1901 censuses of the United Kingdom. There are no records of the John Frum religion before 1940.

Some people living around Sulphur Bay on Tanna revere a god named Kerapenmun associated with the extinct volcano Mount Tukosmeru; the attributes of this god influenced the development of the John Frum movement. A native named Manehivi, under the alias of Jon Frum, began the cult by appearing among people and making promises of houses, clothes, food, and transport. He promised the dawn of a new age, in which all white people, including missionaries, would leave the New Hebrides (as they were then known), and that the native Melanesians would gain access to the material wealth which white people enjoyed. For this to happen, the people of Tanna should reject all aspects of European society (money, Western education, Christianity, work on copra plantations) and return to traditional kastom (a word for native Tannese customs.)

In 1941, followers of John Frum rid themselves of their money in a frenzy of spending, left the missionary churches, schools, villages and plantations, and moved further inland to celebrate traditional custom through feasts, dances and rituals. The movement gained traction in the 1940s when some 300,000 American troops established themselves in Vanuatu. The islanders were impressed both by the egalitarianism of the Americans and their obvious wealth and power. This led them to conflate perceived benefactors such as Uncle Sam, Santa Claus and John the Baptist into a mythic figure who would empower the island peoples by giving them cargo wealth. Followers of John Frum built symbolic landing strips to encourage American airplanes to land and bring them "cargo". In 1957, a leader of the John Frum movement, Nakomaha, created the "Tanna Army", a non-violent, ritualistic organization which organized military-style parades, their faces painted in ritual colors, and wearing white t-shirts with the letters "T-A USA" (Tanna Army USA). This parade still takes place every year on February 15.

The power of John Frum appeared to be confirmed by the post-war influx of tourists to the region, who brought with them a degree of material prosperity to the islands. The cult is still active today. The followers believe that John Frum will come back on a February 15 (the year of his return is not known), a date which is observed as "John Frum Day" in Vanuatu.

In the late 1970s, John Frum followers opposed the imminent creation of an independent, united nation of Vanuatu. They objected to a centralized government which they feared would favor Western "modernity" and Christianity, felt to be detrimental to local customs.

The John Frum movement has its own political party, led by Song Keaspai. On John Frum Day in February 2007, the John Frum Movement celebrated its 50th anniversary. Chief Isaac Wan, its leader, remains strong in his belief in John Frum. He was quoted by the BBC as saying that John Frum was "our God, our Jesus," and would eventually return.

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, is also worshipped in Vanuatu by cargo cult followers, the Prince Philip Movement, following a royal visit to the area in 1974. He is now regarded as the head of the cargo suppliers. His wife, the Queen, was perhaps not deified because she is female.

Critiquing the Notion of "Cargo Cults"

Today, many historians and anthropologists argue that the term "cargo cult" is a misnomer that describes too wide a variety of phenomena to be of any functional utility. Further, some theorists believe that the very notion of a "cargo cult" implies an explicit projection of Western prejudices upon supposedly "primitive" people:

This is a conspiratorial theory of the cargo cult. European colonialists once upon a time conjured up and talked about cargo cult as a device by which both to excuse and to justify their domination of the colonized. This conspiracy thesis draws upon Edward Said's (1978) notion of "Orientalism." The cargo cult does not exist per se; rather it appears in the dirty mirror of the European self—a cultic other as a reflection of the imperial self. The standard motifs of cargo-cult writing, too, can be read as European bad conscience. Stock reports that cultists cliam that Europeans have hijacked ancestral cargo, for example ..., reflect a repressed guilty European understanding of real colonial economic inequalities.

Intriguingly, many modern anthropologists suggest that this fascination has as much to do with Western predilections as with the actual beliefs of the islanders in question. For instance, Ton Otto argues that "cargo" beliefs provoke us to think about our separation of economy (cargo) and religion (cult) as distinct cultural domains, such that interpreting "cargo cults [concerns] also our image of ourselves." Thus, the two perspectives can be summarized as follows:

On on hand, some authors plead quite convincingly for the abolition of the term itself, not only because of its troublesome implications, but also because, in their view, cargo cults do not even exist as an identifiable object of study. On the other hand, and perhaps no less convincingly, some scholars argue that it is precisely its troublesome nature that makes the term a useful analytical tool and should therefore be welcomed rather than rejected.

Regardless of the perceived cultural interplay between the adherents of these cults and those studying them, it suffices to note that modern studies tend to be more critical, reflexive and culturally-sensitive than those conducted in the past. Further, and in spite of these caveats, it must also be acknowledged that the notion of "cargo cult(s)" remains prevalent in both anthropological and popular discourse, and that, as such, it deserves to be elucidated.

Analogies in Indigenous cultures

A similar cult, the dance of the spirits, arose from contact between Native Americans and the Anglo-American civilization in late 19th century. The Paiute prophet Wovoka preached that by dancing in a certain fashion, the ancestors would come back on railways and a new earth would cover the white people, allowing them to return to their tradition ways of life.

Analogies in Western culture

The cargo cult has been used as an analogy to describe certain phenomena in the developed world, particularly in the area of business. After any substantial commercial success - whether it is a new model of car, a vacuum cleaner, a toy or a motion picture - there typically arise imitators who produce superficial copies of the original, but with none of the substance of the original.

The term is also used in the world of computer programming as "cargo cult programming", which describes the ritual inclusion of code which may serve no purpose in the program, but is believed to be a workaround for some software bug, or to be otherwise required for reasons unknown to the programmer. Similarly, the term cargo cult software engineering has been coined to describe a characteristic of unsuccessful software development organizations that slavishly imitate the working methods of more successful development organizations [2].

One instance that brought the term into the popular consciousness was in a speech by physicist Richard Feynman at a Caltech commencement, wherein he referred to "cargo cult science", and which became a chapter in the book Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! In the speech, Feynman pointed out that cargo cultists create all the appearance of an airport right down to headsets with bamboo "antennas", yet the airplanes don't come. Feynman argued that some scientists often produce studies with all the trappings of real science, but which are nonetheless pseudoscience and unworthy of either respect or support.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Attenborough, D. Quest in Paradise. Lutterworth Press, 1960.
• Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006. ISBN 0618680004.
• Feynman, Richard P. with Ralph Leighton. "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" : Adventures of a Curious Character. Edited by Edward Hutchings. New York: W.W. Norton, 1985. ISBN 0393019217.
• Harris, Marvin. Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches: The Riddles of Culture. New York: Random House, 1974. ISBN 0679724680.
• Huffer, Elise. Grands Hommes et Petites Îles: La Politique Extérieure de Fidji, de Tonga et du Vanuatu. Paris: Orstom, 1993. ISBN 2-7099-1125-6
• Inglis, Judy. "Cargo Cults: The Problem of Explanation." Oceania Vol. XXVII no. 4, 1957.
• Jarvie, I. C. The Revolution in Anthropology London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1964.
• Jebens, Holger (ed.). Cargo, Cult, and Culture Critique. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2004. ISBN 0824828143.
• Kaplan, Martha. Neither cargo nor cult: ritual politics and the colonial imagination in Fiji. Durham: Duke University Press, 1995. ISBN 0822315939.
• Lawrence, Peter. "Cargo Cults" in Mircea Eliade's Encyclopedia of Religion. New York: MacMillan, 1987. 74-81. ISBN 0029094801.
• Lawrence, Peter. Road belong cargo: a study of the Cargo Movement in the Southern Madang District, New Guinea. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 1989. ISBN 0881334588.
• Lindstrom, Lamont. Cargo cult: strange stories of desire from Melanesia and beyond. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1993. ISBN 0824815637.
• Read, K. E. "A Cargo Situation in the Markham Valley, New Guinea". Southwestern Journal of Anthropology Vol. 14, No. 3, 1958.
• Rice, Edward (1974). John Frum He Come : Cargo Cults & Cargo Messiahs in the South Pacific. Garden City: Dorrance & Co. ISBN 0-385-00523-7. 
• Steinbauer, Friedrich. Melanesian Cargo Cults: New Salvation Movements in the South Pacific. Translated by Max Wohlwill. Queensland: University of Queensland Press, 1979. ISBN 0702210951.
• Wax, Murray L. and Wax, Rosalie H. "Religion among American Indians." Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Vol. 436, (March 1978). 27-39.
• Whitehouse, Harvey. Arguments and Icons: Divergent Modes of Religiosity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. ISBN 0198234147.
• Worsley, Peter. The trumpet shall sound : a study of "cargo" cults in Melanesia. London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1957. ISBN 0805201564.

External links

All links retrieved August 24, 2007

• Vanuatu cargo cult marks 50 years (BBC News)
• Information on the Jon Frum Cargo Cult (still active)
• Contemporary Cargo Cults by John FitzGerald
• Western Oceanian Religions
• Smithsonian Magazine:"In John They Trust" (2006)
• Cargo cults – introductory essay with bibliography
• Account of a Visit to a Jon Frum Village in 2005
• Air Force Magazine, January 1991, Vol. 74, No. 1. A military perspective on the "cargo" phenomenon.
• Purported John From Movement Inc. Home page
• Jon Frum Movement
• The last cargo cult
• The Cargo Cults of Tanna Island
• "John Frum and the Cargo Cults" by Gerry Matlack

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