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Cargo cults were diverse spiritual and political movements that arose among indigenousMelanesians following Western colonisation of the region in the late 19th century. Typically (but not universally) cargo cults included: charismaticprophet figures foretelling an imminent cataclysm and/or a comingutopia for followers—a worldview known asmillenarianism;[1][2] predictions by these prophets of the return of dead ancestors bringing an abundance of food and goods (the "cargo"),[3]: 11 [2]: 90 typically including a bounty of Western goods or money,[4][1][5][2]: 83, 90 often under the belief that ancestral spirits were responsible for their creation;[1] and the instruction by these prophets to followers to appease "ancestral spirits or other powerful beings" to fulfill the prophecy and receive the cargo by either reviving ancestral traditions or adopting new rituals, such asecstatic dancing or imitating the actions of colonists and military personnel, likeflag-raising,marching and/ordrilling.[1] 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.[2]: 85 [1]
Groups labeled as cargo cults were subject to a considerable number of anthropological publications from the late 1940s to 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.[1] 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,[6] based on stereotypes of cargo cultists as "primitive and confused people who use irrational means to pursue rational ends".[7] 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,[1] though some anthropologists continue to see the term as having some descriptive value,[2]: 88 despite the "heterogeneous, uncertain, and confusing ethnographic reality".[8]
The term "cargo cult" first appeared in print in the November 1945 issue ofPacific 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.[1]
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.[1] Bird took the term from derogatory descriptions used by planters and businessmen in the AustralianTerritory of Papua.[2]: 86 From this issue, the term became used in anthropology following the publications of Australian anthropologistsLucy Mair andH. Ian Hogbin in the late 1940s and early 1950s.[1]
Peter Worsley defined cargo cults as follows in his 1957 bookThe Trumpet Shall Sound;[3]: 11 this description became the standard definition of the term:[1]
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 cargobelief (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. Cargoritual 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 cargocult [was] a complex of ritual activity associated with a particular cargo myth".[9]
In 2010 Australian anthropologistMartha Macintyre gave the following elements as what she considered characteristic of cargo cults:[4]
- They involve ritual activities that in some way imitate or mimic actions associated with whites/Europeans.
- These activities are aimed at effecting transformations and/or reversals in status (often associated with skin colour), wealth and power for adherents.
- They involve stories of the ‘loss’ of skills, goods and knowledge to white people (often those who colonized them) through some moral failure or offence. Some of the rites or practices aim to redeem these failures in order to effect the transformation.
- They have (charismatic) local leaders.
- They have strong nativist elements – that is, they aim at advancing the political interests of local people by appealing to the reinstatement of specific ‘traditional’ practices and they see their movement as one that reclaims self-determination and independence from (white) foreign control.
- They entail beliefs in the return of ancestors bringing wealth in the form of money, European goods etc –‘cargo’.
- They include utopian and/or millenarian ideas of a future in which people will not have to labour.
- They have continued over many decades, changing slightly, but maintaining core beliefs and practices.
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 taggedmillenarian,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".[1]
Characteristic elements 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.[2]: 90
The indigenous societies ofMelanesia 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.[10][11]: 133–8 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.[10] 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.[1]
Many cargo cults existed in opposition to colonial rule, often linked to burdens placed on villagers by colonial authorities, such ashead taxes.[3][page needed] Many cargo cult movements sought to revive ancestral traditions (often in the face of their suppression by missionaries or colonial authorities) such askava drinking, and/or adopt new rituals such asecstatic dancing or actions imitative of colonial practices, like flag-raising and marching.[1] Cargo cults often served to unite previously opposing groups.[1][3]: 228 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 regardingexogamy andincest, while in other movements, strictcelibacy policies were implemented.[1]
Since the modern manufacturing process was largely unknown to them, members, leaders, andprophets 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.[1] 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.[11] 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.[11] 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, orcalico fabric. AfterWorld War II, the goods could be shoes, canned meat, knives, rifles, or ammunition, and they would arrive by armoredship orplane.[11]
Discussions of cargo cults usually begin with a series of movements that occurred in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century.[12] The earliest recorded movement that has been described as a "cargo cult" was the Tuka Movement that began inFiji in 1885 at the height of the colonial era'splantation-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.[3]: 17–31
Cargo cults occurred periodically in many parts of the island of New Guinea, including the Taro Cult in northernPapua New Guinea and theVailala Madness that arose from 1919 to 1922.[12][13]: 114 The last was documented byFrancis Edgar Williams, one of the first anthropologists to conduct fieldwork in Papua New Guinea. Less dramatic cargo cults have appeared inwestern New Guinea as well, including theAsmat andDani areas.
The most widely known period of cargo cult activity occurred among theMelanesian islanders in the years during and afterWorld 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.[12] Later theAllied forces arrived in the islands and did this as well.[13]: 133
The vast amounts of military equipment and supplies that both sidesairdropped (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.[13]: 134 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, theJohn Frum movement emerged onTanna in Vanuatu. This tradition urged islanders to resume dancing andkava 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".[1] The John Frum movement has come to be described as the "archetypal" cargo cult.[14]
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.[13]
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.[13] The islanders carvedheadphones from wood and wore them while sitting in fabricated control towers. They waved the landing signals while standing on therunways. They lit signal fires and torches to light up runways and lighthouses.[15][better source needed]
In a form ofsympathetic 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.[16] 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, orbig 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.[17]
Some cargo cults are still active. These include:
Classification of groups as cargo cults was sometimes controversial. For example, in 1962 the separatistHahalis Welfare Society onBuka Island was classed by Australian authorities as a cargo cult, but this was denied by its leadersFrancis Hagai and John Teosin.[18] As of 1993, Lamont Lindstrom reports that many Melanesian political movements "must take care to deny explicitly" any connection with cargo cults.[19][improper synthesis?]
AnthropologistAnthony F. C. Wallace conceptualized the "Tuka movement" as arevitalization movement.[full citation needed]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.[3]: 168 He observed a general trend away from millenarianism towards secular political organization through political parties and cooperatives.[3]: 231
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."[10] Melanesians felt "relative deprivation" in their standard of living, and thus came to focus on cargo as an essential expression of their personhood andagency.[10]: 178
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.[2]: 85
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.[20][21] 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.[3]
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 newsocial relationships, with material relations being secondary.[2]: 93–4
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 aboutconsumerism.[22] 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.[2][page needed]
According to Ton Otto, the most forceful criticism of the termcargo 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 ofsocial movements that frequently shared similar characteristics, even if not all features were present in every case.[2]: 86–7
Otto also summarizes Lamont Lindstrom's analysis and examination of "cargoism", the discourse of Western scholarship about cargo cults. Lindstrom's analysis is concerned with Western fascination with the phenomenon in both academic and popular writing. In his opinion, the termcargo 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.[2]: 87–9 The termcargo cult is increasingly avoided in the field ofanthropology for failing to represent the complexity of Melanesian beliefs.[23]
In the late 1990s, religious scholarAndreas Grünschloß applied the term "cargoism" to adherents ofUFO religions regarding theirmillenarian beliefs about the arrival ofintelligent aliens on technologically advancedspacecrafts on planet Earth, in comparison to theMelanesian islanders's faith in the return ofJohn Frum carrying the cargo with him on the islands.[24]
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 relatedlyconsumerism andcapitalism, ritual action and the expectation of rational results from irrational means,[25] though the term has been used as a general pejorative for "almost anything that some critic depreciates".[26]
Cargo cult is one of anthropology's most successful conceptual offspring. Like "culture," "worldview," or "ethnicity," its usage has spread beyond our discipline. Other communities nowadays find the term as alluring as anthropologists used to .....
Nowadays, for example, many Melanesian political movements must take care to deny explicitly that they are any sort of cargo cult. .....
