The Cargo Cult
The Cargo Cult Prez
Cargo Cults:
Wikipedia entry
A cargo cult is a type of religious practice that may appear in traditional tribal societies in the wake of interaction with technologically advanced cultures. The cults are focused on obtaining the material wealth (the "cargo") of the advanced culture through magic and religious rituals and practices, believing that the wealth was intended for them by their deities and ancestors. Cargo cults developed primarily in remote parts of New Guinea and other Melanesian and Micronesian societies in the southwest Pacific Ocean, beginning with the first significant arrivals of Westerners in the 19th century. Similar behaviors have, however, also appeared elsewhere in the world.
Cargo cult activity in the Pacific region increased significantly during and immediately after World War II, when large amounts of manpower and materials were brought in by the Japanese and American combatants, and this was observed by the residents of these regions. When the war ended, the military bases were closed and the flow of goods and materials ceased. In an attempt to attract further deliveries of goods, followers of the cults engaged in ritualistic practices such as building crude imitation landing strips, aircraft and radio equipment, and mimicking the behaviour that they had observed of the military personnel operating them.
Over the last sixty-five years, most cargo cults have disappeared. However, the John Frum cult, one of the most widely reported and longest-lived, is still active on the island of Tanna, Vanuatu. This cult started before the war, and only became a cargo cult afterwards. A number of editions of the Papua New Guinea Post-Courier from late 1969 report an apparent latter-day cargo cult, but with more traditional practices involved.
Contents
[hide]
* 1 Causes, beliefs and practices
* 2 Early history
* 3 Pacific cults of World War II
* 4 Other uses of the term
* 5 See also
* 6 References
* 7 Sources and further reading
* 8 External links
[edit] Causes, beliefs and practices
Contacts between members of different cultures can often produce misunderstandings. These misunderstandings are not limited to an isolated society's first contact with the other cultures—a result, for example, of exploration, colonization, missionary efforts or warfare. Often people will have doubts about the fully human nature of those being encountered: outsiders will also have difficulties understanding those from the isolated society. Attempts may be made by both sides to fit the contact into the existing beliefs of the culture, with members of the other culture being assimilated to various non-human roles: spirits, demons, animals.[citation needed] With time, each culture learns that the others are mortal and that their respective material cultures differ in important ways. Disagreements often arise over how parts of this material culture (whether and manufactured goods (the "cargo") or handicrafts) are shared. In cargo cults, natives develop rituals that express their disagreements with outsiders who refuse to share cargo on acceptable terms.
Cargo cults tend to appear among people who covet the foreigners' equipment but are unable to obtain it easily through trade or established traditions. Members, leaders, and prophets of the cults maintain that the manufactured goods of the non-native culture have been created by spiritual means, such as through their deities and ancestors, and are intended for the local indigenous people, but that the foreigners have unfairly gained control of these objects through malice or mistake.[citation needed] Thus, a characteristic feature of cargo cults is the belief that spiritual agents will, at some future time, give much valuable cargo and desirable manufactured products to the cult members.[citation needed]
Given their relative isolation, the cult participants generally have little knowledge of modern manufacturing and are liable to be skeptical about modern explanations. Instead, symbols associated with Christianity and modern Western society tend to be incorporated into their rituals as magical artifacts. Reliance upon cultural traditions may suggest that proper rituals are not being followed, especially in a culture that has been altered by colonists and missionaries, but that devising new rituals may result in the fulfillment of their expectations.
Cargo cults thus focus on efforts to overcome what they perceive as the undue influence of the others attracting the goods, by conducting rituals imitating behavior they have observed among the holders of the desired wealth and presuming that their deities and ancestors will, at last, recognize their own people and send the cargo to them instead. Notable examples of cargo cult activity include the setting up of mock airstrips, airports, offices, and dining rooms, as well as the fetishization and attempted construction of Western goods, such as radios made of coconuts and straw. Believers may stage "drills" and "marches" with sticks for rifles and use military-style insignia and national insignia painted on their bodies to make them look like soldiers, thereby treating the activities of Western military personnel as rituals to be performed for the purpose of attracting the cargo.
In some instances, such as on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu, cult members worship certain Americans, who brought the desired cargo to their island during World War II as part of the supplies used in the war effort, as the spiritual entity who will provide the cargo to them in the future.[1] The Prince Philip Movement, also on the island of Tanna, worships Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, husband of Queen Elizabeth II.
[edit] Early history
The history of cargo cults seems to have begun before historical records in the countries of Melanesia, where an indigenous tradition of exchange of goods and objects of wealth was tied to a belief that the ancestors and deities had an influence over these things and would return at some time laden with these objects for the members of the tribes. The focus of cargo cults advanced from materials that arrived with foreigners by canoe, to sailing vessels, freighters, and airplanes.
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 cargo cult was the Tuka Movement that began in Fiji in 1885. 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 in 1919 and was documented by F. E. 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.
Parkinson (Thirty Years in the South Seas.) notes a number of scams occurring around the Tolai areas of New Britain circa 1880, that were cult-like. Tolais used shell money and it was true currency, not merely decorative. Unscrupulous individuals had been observed to set up get-rich-quick schemes to fleece shell money from the masses. The most notable scheme was the Tabu (money) Tree, exactly like a modern-day casino, but with an entry fee. These types of schemes, no doubt widespread, show that scamming was well developed in Melanesian societies before outside contact. The cargo cults found after World War II could well have been nothing more than such deceptions, practised by a few cunning individuals.
[edit] Pacific cults of World War II
The most widely known period of cargo cult activity occurred amongst Pacific islanders in the years during and after World War II. First, the Japanese arrived with a great deal of unknown equipment, and later, Allied forces also used the islands in the same way. The vast amounts of war materiel that was airdropped (or airlifted to airstrips) onto these islands during the Pacific campaign between the Allies and the Empire of Japan necessarily meant drastic changes to the lifestyle of the islanders, many of whom had never seen Westerners or Easterners before. Manufactured clothing, medicine, canned food, tents, weapons, and other useful goods arrived in vast quantities to equip soldiers. Some of it was shared with the islanders who were their guides and hosts. A small number of primitive peoples were observing, often right in front of their dwellings, the largest war ever fought in history, between the most technologically advanced countries.
Missionaries and colonial authorities normally present before World War II were evacuated from combat areas, and the local villagers were deprived of any knowledgeable explanations of these widespread and large scale war activities. Very little fraternization, or at least exchange of knowledge, occurred between US troops and the remote Melanesians. Initially, relations with the Japanese Army were good, but this soon deteriorated into hostility in most regions.
With the end of the war, the airbases were abandoned, and cargo was no longer dropped. In response, cults developed within remote Melanesian populations that promised to bestow the followers with deliveries of food, arms, jeeps, etc., from their own ancestors, or other sources, as had happened to the outsider armies.
...edited to character limit..see wikipedia for the rest...it's pretty good
but LBJ seemed to me to be like a lot of progressive southern white men of his age trying to do the right thing in spite of everything he had been taught growing up.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram